The sounds of “hallelujah” could be heard outside the LSU Reilly Theater Saturday, but inside was no religious service.
The Folk and Heritage Festival culminated the “Louisiana Purchase: Faces and Cultures of Yesterday and Today” festivities Saturday.
The events began last Wednesday with a symposium of panels, film screenings and lectures, celebrated the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States from France in 1803.
Early-comers were treated to a performance by both the Southern University and LSU Gospel Choirs.
“Louisiana has a great history, and music is a part of that great history,” Everrett Parker, the director of LSU gospel choirs, said to the crowd.
With the aroma of homemade shrimp etouffee, red beans and rice and jambalaya in the air, the festival featured music from around the state.
While attendees enjoyed musical showcases from the combined gospel choirs to performances by the New Pine Grove Boys, a Cajun band, the festival also displayed exhibits showing Louisiana’s rich cultural heritage.
Outside the main chamber was Elaine Bourque, a volunteer from Lafayette, who demonstrated the time-consuming process of making string with a spinning wheel.
Bourque pumped her foot to keep the spinning wheel rolling as she manipulated the cat-tail-like tube of cotton, called a rolag, to create thicker or thinner string.
“It becomes an art,” Bourque said. “It takes so long, it’s hard to put a time on how much it would even take to make a shirt’s worth.”
Larry Bannock, a Mardi Gras Indian from New Orleans, demonstrated the tedious work of creating an elaborate suit, a Mardi Gras day custom.
Bannock said the tradition originally was kept secret to the black neighborhoods of New Orleans before Jazz Fest, which began in the 1970s, brought the art form into mainstream New Orleans.
“No black person can tell you where they are from in Africa,” Bannock said. “When we ran away from the plantations, the Native Americans were the first to accept us as men.”
Bannock said some of his headpieces and suits can cost more than $12,000.
“Mardi Gras is about money,” Bannock said. “The people who participate and those who contribute – the purpose is to show off what you’ve got.”
Other exhibits featured wildlife and shrimp boat carving, basket weaving from Palmetto by descendants of the Houma Indians and authentic Mardi Gras masks.
Brittney Belvin, a mass communication sophomore, said the festival sparked her interest because Louisiana history is one of her favorite subjects.
“I chose to come because of the rich culture in Louisiana,” Belvin said. “I liked the choir and the Mardi Gras masks, it was really interesting.”
Visitors also were treated to Irvan Perez and his Canary Islands Descendants Association.
Many of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands, which are located at the tip of Louisiana, came from Spain in the 1700s, Perez said.
Perez has been featured at Carnegie Hall and the 1984 World’s Fair. He sang songs he learned from his father, old time songs about life in the Canary Islands, all in Spanish.
Perez explained the importance of a person’s name on the Canary Islands with his song, “The Father’s Prayer.”
“If you lose the watch he gave you, it may be replaced,” Perez sang. “But a black spot on your name, son, may never be erased.”
The festival continued Sunday with similar demonstrations and performances by the Red Stick Ramblers and Les Voix Cadiennes, a Cajun vocal group.
Yvonne Fuentes, one of the co-directors of the celebration, said 13 months of hard work were rewarded by the good turnout.
“We wanted to include diversity,” Fuentes said. “In the symposium, we talked about diversity and now in the festival people are showing us their diversity and heritage.”
Although the Southern University Gospel Choir was late to the event, their songs promised many more years of strong cultural heritage.
“The best is yet to come….” they sang. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”