Acadian Weaving's rich Cajun history

"Laissez le bon temps roulez!" [Let the good times roll] topped off the introduction of Debbie Todhunter's presentation on Acadian Weaving at the April meeting of the Riverbend Fiber Arts Guild.

Brown cotton rolags (left), Acadian woven hand towels,
and uncarded bolls of brown cotton.

The Acadians, original French colonists of the eastern Canadian maritime provinces and a portion of modern-day Maine, were inhabitants of New France's unspoiled wilderness colony since the early 1600s. In the early decades of the 1700s, "the turmoil of six colonial wars," Ms. Todhunter said, "finally resulted in the Great Expulsion (1755-1763) of the Acadian people [by the British]."

Debbie Todhunter

After being ousted from their homes with not much more than the clothes on their backs, some Acadians migrated down North America's Atlantic coast and eventually found refuge in southern Louisiana. Here, they blended their French Canadian culture, language and domestic skills—including spinning and weaving—with what they found in their new Louisiana home. These French Canadian immigrants became known as Cajuns.

For weaving and spinning, the Acadians that settled in Louisiana had forgone wool fiber and mostly used the readily available short-staple brown cotton and some white cotton. Ms. Todhunter distributed packets of brown cotton to the meeting attendees and demonstrated the process of hand ginning (removing the seeds).

Ginning the cotton by hand.

 Guild members had an opportunity to card the cotton fibers into rolags. 

Carding the cotton fibers into rolags in preparation for spinning.

Limited dye resources yielded a small color palette in Acadian woven textiles. The colors were white, cinnamon, brown, indigo and a unique green tone achieved from overdying the brown cotton with indigo. "Plain weave" was used to weave utilitarian items; many having patterns comprised of stripes of varying widths and colors.

The Acadian style of weaving, the focus of an extensive study of 150 samples by the Complex Weavers Study Group, illustrates both diversity and simplicity of what is achieved with two harness looms. Ms. Todhunter's presentation included weaving samples from the study, and her collection of newspaper clippings, books and other articles on Acadian weaving and its weavers.

Newspapers and other articles on Arcadian weavers, textiles,
and Acadian lifestyles.

What started as a desperate situation in the history of the Acadian people has given rise to a treasured and unique form of weaving that is regarded by today's weaving aficionados and textile historians. "They had to introduce patterns with color..." stated Mrs. Elaine Bourque, who studied with master Acadian weaver, Gladys LeBlanc Clark, "... and I thought, my goodness, these people were artists... they just didn't know it."

For more information and a video of Gladys LeBlanc Clark, go here. "To hear [Mrs. Clark] speak is to really get a sense of how she lived her life, sharing her heritage," adds Debbie Todhunter.

Brown cotton, carders and a reference book on textiles of northeastern Canada.