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Residents like to talk about and, family and spicy history
DITOR?S NOTE: This is the st of an occasional series on e places and people of the Gulf iast.
EDITH BIERHORST BACK
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* PATTON EHRBRIGHT
4 HEP" 0 WRITERS
AT A. jULA ? The Choctaw Catahoula Indians are long gone n this rural Hancock County com-lity. In their place are proud de-ldents of black and white settlers cherish the land they held onto ig their darkest days, n Sunday afternoons, three or generations gather under the to swap tales of Catahoula?s ishine heyday and dream of big is at Louisiana race tracks, ibody is sure how many families n Catahoula or where the north al Hancock County community?s laries begin and end. starts at Orphan Creek, ? named e many lost baby animals found ir ^arlier days, says Roger
starts at Firetower Road, ? says 'ow Ladner.
ulation estimates range from ) 1,000, with the white-black anging from 3-1 to 10-1, de-g on who?s guessing and what
	
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boundary lines he?s using.
What's not debated is the inhabitants? love of the land and their feelings about the place that many pronounce ?Cattyhoula.?
Catahoulans like to talk about the past ? hard times, from their accounts, but ?good ol? days? nonetheless. They talk about their relatives, whose photographs cover the living room walls. Family ranks higher than chic, and decorators be damned.
They?ll take you for a ride to point out a ramshackle, weather-worn shack and announce with quiet pride that great-grandma spent most of her life there. And they?ll poke their heads in the car window as you start to drive away, urging you to come back on Sunday for a picnic when ?all the kids" are home.
They all talk about bootlegging. A major industry during the Depression, moonshining kept their families
Please see PLACES, B-4
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EDITH
Angela Ladner holds her daughter Mindy, 1, on the | Angela and her husband, who works for Borg-Warner