New Orleans Lost and Found

Many of the quaint cottages of the largely black 'back of town' neighborhoods may be wiped out, either because they were heavily damaged if next to the levee breaks, or because even with minor damage they will be last on the list of priorities for repair or preservation. But will anyone care? These are not neighborhoods where tourists are funneled. National opinion seems to value these houses as little as the federal government valued their residents. And the human loss there may make it difficult to focus on preserving a now painful past.

Although I am an archaeologist who deals in artifacts, old buildings, and musty documents, in recent days I have realized more than ever that what I love about New Orleans is intangible and immaterial. It has always been the people. That cultural heritage is hard to describe. People in New Orleans are wonderfully expressive, improvisational, irreverent, impetuous, and eccentric. They live their lives with all five senses. And they often eschew the commercial and the crass for community and tradition.

Certainly, there are vast inequities and public failings that this disaster has exposed to view, but rich and poor, black and white, all natives and devoted adoptees understand Louis Armstrong when he asks, "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?" Long before this tragedy, whenever I traveled and met other people with roots in New Orleans, a sense of kinship sprouted almost immediately – a sense that doesn't come when I mention the other places I've lived, or my native California. This kinship will be the basis for a New Orleans renewed once again.

For most residents, it has never been easy to live in the Big Easy. Their creativity in survival, as well as their joie de vivre, is the city's real 'cultural heritage.' The tourists (or pundits) who never got beyond Bourbon Street can't appreciate the historic value of the neighborhoods swallowed by floodwaters. Nor have they yet met the soul of the city that will survive. Perhaps next time they should visit the real New Orleans. And bring a hammer.

*****

^{The photograph for this column is of long-time archaeology volunteers Joan Bruder and Bettie Pendley working at Dawdy's Hotel Rising Sun site in New Orleans' French Quarter, February 2005. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Joan or Bettie, please contact Shannon Dawdy at: sdawdy@uchicago.edu.}

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