
Ernest "Chuck" Downs. Image courtesy of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe.
Rose Jackson Pierite
Rose Jackson Pierite, a Tunica-Biloxi Elder, as documented in the 2017 book, "The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe: Its Culture and People."
John Barbry has found, in his decade at the helm of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana’s Language and Culture Revitalization Program, that there is an art to the interview—a finesse required when coaxing oral histories from community members.
People are at their most verbose when they’re relaxed—for instance, when a sit-down invitation to chitchat on the record is an agreeable afterthought following a social function or family day. The information offered does not have to be sweeping or insightful; according to Barbry, there is also deep value in the quiet mundanity of everyday life.
“The details—that’s the nuance, that’s the flavor that you just don’t get sometimes on a flat page,” Barbry said. “It’s putting it in context.”
Examples of questions he might ask members of the tribe include: What did your parents do for a living? Where did y'all live? How did you get certain things done? How did you make money? What kind of things did your mom cook?
The process brings Barbry, now sixty-two, to return again and again to his own family and the hazy, almost incidental moments of his past—the ones that retrospectively were sculpting part of his own tribal identity.
“I remember my grandmother doing some traditional Tunica basketry. I remember her singing Tunica songs,” he said. “I was very young. I didn't really realize at the time how important that was, but as I got older, I realized these were parts of our traditional culture that were still there, still evident, just not as on the front line, as far as the public was concerned.”
Barbry and his small team of three have spent several years collecting oral histories from members of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, which today includes 1,500 members spread across the United States, primarily in Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois. It’s a big job, and the Language & Cultural Revitalization Program has numerous other responsibilities and projects on deck. However, a recent grant award of $75,000 promises to ramp up these ongoing oral history efforts to create an accessible, searchable archive to preserve the tribe’s cultural identity.
“Through our everyday work, we try to reinforce the fact that the only way we’re going to be able to preserve our history is to talk about it,” Barbry said. “We want to remember the small things about our community and where we came from.”
Funded in part by the Tribal Heritage Grant Program through the Historic Preservation Fund (administered by the National Park Service, Department of Interior), the grant will allow Barbry’s program to not only collect and catalogue oral histories and traditional songs, but also to facilitate cultural workshops that will be captured on video, audio, and in photographs. With the funding, they hope to expand their current vault of around forty oral histories to upwards of seventy.
“It ties back to our cultural language, our life ways, and that is extremely important in the Tunica-Biloxi nation,” said Marshall Pierite, Chairman and CEO of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana. “Knowing about your history points you in the right direction.”

Photo by David Richmond. Image courtesy of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe.
Herman Pierite Sr.
Herman Pierite Sr., a Tunica-Biloxi Elder, as documented in the 2017 book, "The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe: Its Culture and People."
The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, one of four federally recognized American Indian tribes in the state, traces its origins to the historic Tunica, Biloxi, Ofo, and Avoyel Tribes, which unified in the early twentieth century. Just south of Marksville, the Tunica-Biloxi reservation comprises approximately 1,717 acres of Trust and Fee property in Avoyelles and Rapides Parishes—and is where the tribe has resided for more than two centuries.
Before merging with other tribes, the Tunica held sway over a broad swath of land, including present-day Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama. Entrepreneurs and traders, foremost in the manufacturing and distribution of salt, the Tunica likely first encountered a group of Spanish explorers led by Hernando de Soto in 1541, in the northwestern Mississippi town of Quizquiz, according to some historians and archaeologists. But the Tunica Tribe’s first documented contact with Europeans was near the mouth of the Yazoo River in the late 1600s, when French Jesuits established a mission.
Pushed out by the Europeans—who brought disease, warfare, and famine—the tribe eventually followed the Mississippi River south.
On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, meanwhile, the Biloxi first encountered French colonizers Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville and Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville in 1699. The Biloxi allied themselves with the French, which facilitated economic and political benefits. And after the French were expelled from the region, they formed an alliance with the Spanish when they took over.
In the late 1700s, both the Tunica and Biloxi moved to present-day Avoyelles Parish, and have remained there ever since. Following the Louisiana Purchase, the natives who lived in Marksville were spared the horrors of the Indian Removal Act of the 1830s that relocated native peoples from their homelands, as they were deemed insignificant “remnants” of the tribes by US officials. After the Civil War, following rejection from both the state and federal government for official recognition, the Tunica merged with the Biloxi, Avoyel, Ofo, and Choctaw Tribes in the hopes of combining their resources to one day achieve an officially recognized status.
The Tunica and Biloxi tribes formally joined in 1924, and the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana received federal recognition in 1981.

Photos by David Richmond.. Image courtesy of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe.
Clementine Pierite Broussard
Clementine Pierite Broussard, a Tunica-Biloxi Elder, as documented in the 2017 book, "The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe: Its Culture and People."
By now, in 2025, there is so much intermarrying between Tunica and Biloxi (and other tribes besides) that the lines blur together, Barbry pointed out. His grandfather was more Biloxi, his grandmother more Tunica. There are also plenty of community members who marry beyond the tribe, bringing in apparent outsiders with different perspectives and customs to add to the mix.
All of these vantage points are important for a thorough, nuanced oral history project—though Barbry’s team does have a target demographic.
His ideal interview candidates, he explained, are community members who are around seventy years of age or older. They are the ones who might remember snippets of the Tunica or Biloxi languages, certain traditions and stories, and—in a more emotional vein—experiences of bigotry or racism. They may recall how People of Color were treated while attending school in decades past, the barriers they faced, or the migrations they endured to find more opportunities elsewhere.
“Nobody knows Mother Earth like we do. Mother Earth is the same Mother Earth that sustained our people for centuries. So that is where our identity comes from. [Our young people] recognize that the soil—a handful of soil to one might mean a handful of dirt—to them, that's what sustained us for centuries. And the water that we see, the clean water should [be] a reflection of our Creator that is within us.”
—Marshall Pierite, Chairman and CEO of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana
“They have so much life experience and know so many people who maybe are not with us anymore,” Barbry said.
Pierite describes this process as allowing “those that walk before us, our ancestors” to pass on the narratives of their pain, capturing the journey of survival and struggle inherent in their tribal identity. “That sacrifice that they have done through blood, sweat, and tears actually paved the way for us to live our lives more abundantly and with purpose,” he said.
Today, around 160 community members have some experience speaking the Tunica language, according to the chairman. After tribal leader Sesostrie Youchigant died in 1948, the Tunica language and
cultural traditions experienced a marked decline. Despite the language’s limited usage today, Pierite sees it and culture as intertwined. Together, the two threads create a rich tapestry of identity—one the tribe must prevent from fraying. “They very much rely on each other,” he said.
Although the Tribal Elders are the ones telling their stories, the effort is ultimately to benefit the community’s youth. To keep the tribe’s cultural memory alive, it must be passed down to those who will one day become the community’s leaders.
“The young people have no clue. They've seen the current society and how things are done,” Barbry said. “It's like, you know, like kids who don't even know how to use one of those old phones where you have to turn the dial? It's something that’s just gone out of use, and so it gets forgotten. So we can't let that happen.”
And the longer they wait to record those fragments of memory from the Elders, Barby added, the harder the task. There is a danger in waiting too long, a fear that tribal knowledge will be lost each time an elder passes.

Photo by David Richmond. Image courtesy of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe.
Nathan "Loke" Barbry
Nathan "Loke" Barbry, a Tunica-Biloxi Elder, as documented in the 2017 book, "The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe: Its Culture and People."
Hand-in-hand with capturing the experiences and wisdom of the tribe’s Elders is the multifaceted effort to include and inspire young people in the cultural revitalization of their tribe. Barbry explained that the Language & Cultural Revitalization Program facilitates language lessons, cultural craft workshops, stick ball games, and traditional storytelling—all activities and events designed to bring children into the fold.
“I used to have this ongoing joke with one of our Elders that, you know, we have to be evangelists about this. We know you just can't take a stab at it and then expect it to be an ongoing concern,” Barbry said. “You build on that curiosity, and then hopefully they want to know more. They want to know how they can be part of that preservation work, and how we can keep our community thriving.”
When recently dwelling on the importance of revitalizing the Tunica-Biloxi cultural identity, Pierite shared an anecdote he had in conversation with Kylie Malveaux, the 19-year-old vice-chairwoman of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana’s Seventh Generation Youth Council.
She reminded him to “be more concerned with being significant than successful, because when you're successful, you only bring value to yourself; when you're significant, you bring value to others.” He found the truism inspiring, a gentle reminder that the youth of the community have their own wisdom to share.
Malveaux is now a sophomore at Louisiana State University, but continues to be a leader to her tribe in Marksville—understanding intimately the importance of telling her Elders’ stories, which she said is critical to “keep[ing] our traditions and culture alive and well, and to be[ing] able to teach it and pass it along to our peers, siblings, our children, and future generations to come,” she said.
Today, Pierite sees promise in the tribe’s youth, which, just a decade ago, he described as disconnected and facing a crisis of identity. Since then, there has been an explicit push to heal in mind, body, and spirit—particularly in the native relationship to the land in the wake of climate change.
“Nobody knows Mother Earth like we do. Mother Earth is the same Mother Earth that sustained our people for centuries. So that is where our identity comes from,” he said. “[Our young people] recognize that the soil—a handful of soil to one might mean a handful of dirt—to them, that's what sustained us for centuries. And the water that we see, the clean water should [be] a reflection of our Creator that is within us.”
All of it is connected—the language, the culture, the land—and all of it must be lovingly and deliberately safeguarded for the tribe to flourish in the future. If the tribal community is a tree, Pierite said, the branches are the different paths people take on their own journeys, the leaves reflecting the changing seasons of life. But it’s the roots that keep the members of the tribe bonded to each other, even as they grow in their own unique directions.

Photo courtesy of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe.
Tunica-Biloxi youth
Today, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana’s Language and Culture Revitalization Program works to preserve the stories and traditions of its elders, while also engaging its youth through cultural programming.
Now that the federal funding for the oral history project has kicked in, Barbry and his team will be working in the new year to bring awareness to the project, to get people involved and interested—continuing that evangelist mission with renewed energy. He is seeking professional assistance with the archival work and planning how to best steer people into interviews where they feel comfortable enough to share the experiences that will preserve the tribe’s cultural memory.
“This is our way to tell our story,” he said. “Knowing where we came from and why—that's what keeps me going every day.”