Artwork by Burton Durand
"Pachafa"
From the culturally intricate worlds of Avoyelles Parish’s Tunica-Biloxi and French Creole families continues an oral tradition whose roots undoubtedly go back to so many beginnings—a legend that carries with it the idiosyncrasies and contradictions of melding cultures, migration after migration, and Americanization’s creep, but survives all the same: Pachafa.
Avoyelles children grow up with Pachafa as their very own version of the better-known Rougarou. Presenting as half alligator, half horse, or half spirit, he is always half man (occasionally only half of a man).
Haunting the Spring Bayou forests, Pachafa seeks out small children—either to grant them their fate (will they be a warrior, or a healer?), to wrestle with them, or to steal them away. As Dustin Fuqua, an Avoyelles native, Tunica-Biloxi tribal member, and anthropologist, tells the story:
“When you were a little boy, there you were alone in the woods, in the cypress swamp. It’s very quiet. You hear a whistle,”—he emits a high-pitch whistle through his teeth—”and you look up high, high in the tree. Behold! Pachafa!”
Read more about this fascinating oral history in Natalie Roblin’s story here.
