Faith Healing and Traiteurs

“Faith healing” as a stock phrase has an oily, Swaggart-esque reputation. This is, in some ways, a shame. Though the “send in your money and lay your hands on the radio” hucksters deserve our scorn, their antics should be separated from the literal meaning of the phrase: healing that incorporates a patient’s faith or beliefs. Increasingly, medical practitioners are embracing the idea that the whole person needs care and that practices encompassed under the broad heading of “alternative medicine” can be part of a comprehensive care plan that takes body and soul into account. And South Louisiana, as with so many other things, has its own homegrown form of alternative medicine provided by professionals called traiteurs, who practice a form of healing arts known as “treating,” a prayer-based method for combatting illness or injury.

“You can put anything I say in the article except if I swear,” said Becca Begnaud, a traiteur from Scott, Louisiana, during one of our phone conversations. As far as interviews go, Begnaud stood out as a hall of famer—and not just because she returned my call quickly. I had considered, in imagining this piece, asking to be treated but decided not to for two reasons: I feel great and I didn’t want to seem to approach this tradition as a novelty. I tend to believe in science and Western medicine—I want a pill or a procedure—but in talking to Begnaud, I saw another path to healing. The honesty and assurance with which she spoke about treating, about care, and about faith forced my mind open a little wider. 

Treating reflects the area’s ethnic and cultural makeup. According to Begnaud, Native Americans, Cajuns, Creoles, and African Americans all practiced the craft, and treating took place across racial and color lines as did transmission of the tradition. The special, usually secret, and always unwritten prayers that make up the traiteur’s toolbox are mostly in French, but sometimes contain words from lost or nearly forgotten native languages. They are Christian, specifically Catholic, in form, and are often accompanied by familiar Catholic prayers like the Hail Mary and Our Father. And while the population of traiteurs often overlaps with the population of people who use traditional knowledge of medicinal plants to treat disease, a traiteur seems distinguishable as someone who specifically works with these special prayers, with or without plants or additional ritual. 

Begnaud is quick to point out that though there are rules for treating, none of them are iron clad. Traditionally, a traiteur learns the prayers from a practitioner of the opposite sex, who stops treating once the knowledge has been transmitted to the next generation. Though her grandfather was a traiteur, Begnaud learned from another woman; one traiteur she knows is teaching as many people as are interested. “At first it’s like, you’re not supposed to do that,” said Begnaud, “but what harm can that possibly do? To have more prayer and healing in the world?” 

Begnaud came to treating in the wake of her own struggle with cancer. As she was recovering from her treatments, she spoke with nurses who had adopted non-traditional medicine as a supplement to their work. Begnaud went on to research healing methods like reiki and healing touch, eventually adding the traiteur craft. She hasn’t abandoned Western medicine, but sees her treating and other approaches to care as a valuable addition: “I still go to my oncologist. I’ve also treated my oncologist.”

[You may also like "It Takes Two to Two-Step: Partner Danging in Acadiana."]

The modern world being what it is, she has a website; but in Scott, people sometimes just come by the house, just as they might have decades or centuries ago. According to both Begnaud and Vermilionville Director of Communications Erin Segura, there are traiteurs who are willing to work over the phone, and Segura described once being treated via text message (though tradition dictates that treating doesn’t work across bodies of water, so best to make it a local call). Typically, though, the traiteur prays over the patient in person. The treating gift was historically spread throughout a community. One person might treat sunstroke, another fever, a third sprains, and so on; some people would know prayers for multiple conditions. 

Begnaud emphasized that treating cannot be “ordered” to work: “They tell me why they’re there, but I don’t know what they need. They may not know what they need. God knows. He may give them what they think they need or He may not, but something happens.” Begnaud is a conduit, in other words, for the healing influence of a higher power—in her case God, to whom she repeatedly made reference. God does the work. God knows what people need. God lets you know what to do, or doesn’t, and works in characteristically mysterious ways. Faith is not necessarily required on the part of the treated, since some traiteurs will treat animals. (Though who really knows what goes on in an animal’s soul?)

Traiteurs’ patients traditionally don’t thank them since God is doing the real work; according to some, thanking a traiteur will make the prayers ineffective. Traiteurs are also customarily not paid, although grateful patients who pass over a handkerchief of coins or swing by later with a “coincidental” gift of home-cooked food are certainly not unheard of. Begnaud’s research has led her to believe that every traiteur breaks some rule or another; as with any tradition, there are customs and mores but also as many variations as there are practitioners.

[You may also like "Cane & Dust: The tradition of horse-riding clubs within le monde creole."]

Begnaud seems to be the exceptional traiteur who discusses her craft. Many are hesitant to speak freely; this may be a relic of state Catholicism under French and Spanish rule, which frowned (or worse) on unofficial spiritual traditions. But a call for experiences via Vermilionville’s Facebook page unearthed a well of memories that point to the fact that treating is still very much a part of people’s frames of reference. Patients recalled being treated for sunstroke, bleeding, cancer, boils, and congenitally blocked tear ducts by traiteurs. Some people remembered poultices, having boils rubbed with a halved potato thrown over the traiteur’s shoulder, and a ritual involving knotted string. Treating took place backstage at a concert, right before a wedding, and on a sports field. There is even one office administrator who treats at work, occasionally interrupting her duties to perform her art. Prayer was a constant through all these stories. 

What wasn’t a subject for collective rumination was whether or how treating works. “Maybe a physicist could [tell you how it works], but probably not,” Begnaud said. “All I can tell you is that it does. It’s not going to get rid of your cancer. But maybe it makes you sleep better. Maybe it takes your pain away, or your fear. Maybe it helps you talk to your family. And isn’t that worth it? Isn’t that valuable?” 

Begnaud’s dedicated herself, above all, to care, a vocation worthy of enormous respect, regardless of form. “We don’t live how we used to—I used to know who’d be in church every Sunday and who they’d sit with, and I don’t now,” said Begnaud, “but people still need that community. People are looking for ways to rebuild it.” 

Vermilionville hosts a quarterly lecture series called “Healing Traditions in Acadiana,” when different presenters discuss some aspect of healing traditions. Visit vermilionville.org for details.