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A EULOGY FOR THE GHOST OF EVANGELINE
REVISION
Because they refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown, up to 7,000 were herded onto overcrowded British war ships, but not until they were divided into groups based upon age and gender, and separated accordingly. Half died from cholera and starvation, while the remnants were scattered across the Caribbean in a well planned and deliberate attempt to obtain ethnic cleansing, genocide or whatever term fits the destruction of a people and a national identity. Another 6,000 to 7,000 exiles ended up in New England, and some as far away as the Falkland Islands. Approximately 2,600 to 3,000 Acadians eventually made their way to Louisiana.
My recent stint in southern Louisiana brought me very close to this story in profound ways.
The poem’s heroine, Evangeline, joined her fellow exiles who “were scattered like dust and leaves,” but her journey was one of searching for love and forgiveness over a lifetime of anguish, grief, and longing.
The town of St. Martinsville in South Louisiana has a memorial to the fictional Evangeline, although there are many of Acadian heritage who cling to Evangeline as a real historical figure. It is referred to as “the controversy.”
Something happened to this writer in the few days before Christmas 2007, when I was drawn back to the little town of St. Martinsville and the Acadian cemetery in the middle of a “dark and stormy” day.
I am convinced that Evangeline drew me back to St. Martinsville. My friends in Algiers believe this happened. We were having a pre-Christmas breakfast, when I announced that I felt a pull to the Acadian cemetery---three hours away. An hour later I announced the same feeling and my good friend looked me straight in the eye and said, "Go--I knew you would be compelled. Go."
I ordinarily feel pretty spooked in cemeteries, but have the opposite reaction--one of peace and contentment--in the Acadian graveyards. I hear the whispers, I feel the spirits, and I know instinctively where the good and where the troubled dwell. For there are no "bad" spirits. Only the loveless are troubled.
I remembered this experience when our safe pages here took on the moral questions of the Mid-East. The recent turmoil on our own OpEd News pages drove me to take “The Evangeline Project” one step further, and I brought Evangeline "to life."
The lack of thoughtful response to the concept of Diaspora has prompted me to return Evangeline to her grave. Like, Diogenes, she would be forced to wander the earth forever looking for an answer to the questions her existence poses. I believe in ghosts. I am certain I encountered Evangeline in St. Martinsville, but her message is too gentle and healing for the sorry world we live in.
I know that there are stories out there that need to be told, and like the writer says in his comments below, you can "taste" the stories on the breezes and music that float over the bayous.
I still firmly believe that it is lack of love, which creates suffering. That is not simplistic or naïve, believe me—or don’t believe me—it really does not matter.
A dialogue with the real Evangeline would not have been be a simplistic singing of Kum by Ya by the campfire—it had the potential to be an honest examination of how each of us can make the world a better place by practicing compassion. If Evangeline had not been practicing true compassion, she would have never been reunited with her dying Gabriel.
Rest in peace, Evangeline. I will see you in March when the warm breezes return to the Atchafalaya.
