The Lemon Tree Mound is a sacred place for the Atakapa/Ishak-Chawasha tribe. And it's disappearing under the rising waters of the Gulf of Mexico. In this episode, we travel out into the bayous of South Louisiana to understand what this one small sacred place means for the Land Back Movement and climate justice, and why efforts to save our coast matter, even if they really mean only buying time.
Click here to read more about the return of the sacred land to the tribe, and here to learn more about the efforts to save it.
This episode was hosted and reported by Eva Tesfaye, Drew Hawkins, and Danny McArthur. Carlyle Calhoun is the managing producer. Our sound designer is Emily Jankowski and our theme music is by Jon Batiste.
Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We're a part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX. Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. WWNO's Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux Foundation and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
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TRANSCRIPT
EVA: You’re listening to Sea Change. I’m Eva Tesfaye.
In southeast Louisiana, way down the Mississippi River, There’s a tiny town where everyone lives on the water. It’s called Grand Bayou Indian Village.
PHILIPPE: This is our home. We are the first people of this land ever since the river created the land when it was switches, lobes and whatever. The river was our friend
EVA: It’s home to the Atakapa/Ishak-Chawasha tribe. I drove down there a couple months ago and was joined by two other reporters. They work for the Gulf States Newsroom. Danny McArthur is an environmental justice reporter…
DANNY: Hey Eva!
EVA: And Drew Hawkins is a healthy equity reporter…
DREW: Hi Eva! (something a little different from Danny’s greeting
EVA: So let’s go back to that very hot day…
DANNY: It was very hot!
DREW: Luckily, we were mostly on the water, riding around on a boat. And just to set the scene: There’s only about a dozen homes. They’re raised on stilts. And it’s all bayou.
DANNY: Right. There are no roads. For the people who live here, the only way to get around is by boat.
EVA: A lot was happening while we were out there.
DREW: I swear to god I saw a dolphin!
EVA: I believe you and I’m so jealous.
DANNY: Yeah, there were dozens of volunteers also driving around on boats, building an oyster reef to protect the tribe’s homes from sea level rise.
DREW: And we also got to witness a land rematriation ceremony. It’s believed to be one of the first ever in the Gulf region. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. We’re going to get into it.
EVA: Today on Sea Change. You’re going to hear three stories about the Atakapa/Ishak-Chawasha. First, Drew takes us to a ceremony where sacred land is returned to the tribe. Then I dive into an oyster reef project built to protect that land. And finally, Danny shows us how it all connects to climate justice.
That’s coming up.
SEGMENT 1
EVA: So Drew, before you take us to the ceremony, I think we should talk about the Land Back movement.
HAWKINS: Yeah definitely. So, this a huge and nuanced conversation that’s happening all over the world, but at its core, the Land Back movement is all about returning land to Native tribes and communities that was taken from them over centuries of colonization and broken treaties.
To learn more about this, Danny and I talked to Dr. Kyle Hill, a professor at the University of Minnesota and also a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe tribe. He said this loss goes much deeper than just land.
HILL: So when you look back at it, they prohibited us from speaking our languages. They took our children, you know, they removed us from our traditional homelands and forbade us from hunting and gathering.
HAWKINS: And for Indigenous people, the Land Back movement isn’t just about ownership—it’s also about giving tribes the ability to care for their land and preserve their culture.
DANNY: And there have been some instances of this happening, like in the Black Hills in South Dakota and along the Big Sur Coastline in California. These are conversations that are happening all over the world.
HAWKINS: Yeah exactly, this is all part of a bigger push for justice and Indigenous sovereignty. And part of that includes this idea of “rematriation.”
EVA: Mm “rematriation” I’m assuming that comes from the word “repatriation”.
HAWKINS: Sure thing. So in this context it’s basically the returning of land to Indigenous people. The reason we’re using “rematration” instead of the “repatriation” is that: Indigenous people, like every other community, are not a monolith, right. They all have different beliefs and traditions. But talking to Hill, one of the threads that sort of binds them together is this idea of matriarchal leadership in many tribes – as well as the idea of the Earth as a mother. Here’s Hill again:
HILL: They bring life into this world, you know, So there's very it's such a powerful, powerful, just recognition and testimony to. Our matriarchs and their leadership.
DANNY: There’s also the drive to sort of push back against the European/western idea of patriarchal land ownership. This idea that you possess the land and can do whatever you want with it.
HAWKINS: Exactly. And this is a contrast many Indigenous people are trying to draw with things like a “rematriation ceremony” when tribal land is returned. And as you’ll hear, that’s what we get to witness in this first story – when a sacred mound is returned.
DANNY: Lemon Tree Mound.
EVA: Can you explain what a mound is real quick? Because they can be different from tribe to tribe.
HAWKINS: So these are earthen structures built by native people. A lot of them can be burial mounds. In some places you can think of them almost like pyramids, with villages on top of them. But here in this case, the Lemon Tree mound is essentially a large hill built out of shells and shards of pottery and it was a place of refuge for the tribe when the river would flood.
DANNY: It’s also a sacred place, where they would bring offerings to their ancestors.
EVA: Ok, I think we’re ready to go to the ceremony.
<<crowd sounds — duck under>>
A table is set up in the center of Grand Bayou Indian Village in Port Sulphur, Louisiana. We’re about an hour outside of New Orleans — at the tip of the toe of Louisiana’s boot.
<<crowd sound rises>>
SPEAKER: If everybody could just keep it quiet for a few minutes, thank you.
Standing next to the table in the black vestments of the clergy is Mother Marian Fortner from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans.
She introduces herself to Rosina Philippe, an elder of the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe — one of the small Native American communities that still live out in the bayous and marshes of southern Louisiana.
FORTNER: Rosina? Hi I’m Marian.
Philippe is in white rubber boots, her hair in a dark braid beneath her sunhat. They take a seat at the table with lawyers and get ready to sign some documents. The church is about to give some of her tribe’s land back.
Philippe never thought she’d see this day in her lifetime.
Philippe: It's unprecedented that we see someone willingly giving land back.
Philippe has lived in Grand Bayou Indian Village her entire life. For her people, water is everything.
PHILIPPE: It’s part of life. It's life giving. And if you don't respect it and if you don't pay attention to it, it can also take your life.
She says one of the ways her people survived on the water was by building mounds — ancient earthworks made up of shells and shards of pottery piled up into large hills.
PHILIPPE: So when the river would flood, we would seek refuge on to the mounds and when they would recede. Then we're left, you know, with whatever the river left for us.
One of those mounds is known as the Lemon Tree mound. It’s a sacred place, where the tribe would bring offerings to their ancestors.
And at some point — maybe from an offering, but no one knows exactly how or when — lemon trees sprouted there.
PHILIPPE: And so to the people, that's a gift from the creator.
Today, the mound is just a tuft of grass in the water. Weathered away by coastal land loss — caused by manipulation of the Mississippi River.
But the memory for Phillippe is strong. She holds out her hands and tells stories her father told her when she was a little girl.
PHILIPPE: He would always tell us that the lemons were this big. . . and they were so sour, one lemon could make a whole pitcher of lemonade.
Even though her people built the Lemon Tree mound, they didn’t own the land. It was taken from them. Like it was for so many other tribes.
Over hundreds of years, the land has changed hands. But in the 90s, the last owner bequeathed the land to the church.
Mother Marian Fortner says the title was put in storage and essentially forgotten about. Moved around after storms like Hurricane Katrina. But when it was discovered earlier this year, she says the decision to give it back to the tribe was an easy one.
FORTNER: I think giving back a piece of their heritage, their land for their tradition, their sacred space would be equivalent to someone returning our church to us
But this is more than just a simple legal procedure. This is a rematriation ceremony. - For many Indigenous people across the country, that term is really important.
HILL: Whereas the repatriation really recognizes, I think, that patriarchal quality of ownership and possession.
That’s Dr. Kyle Hill, he’s a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe tribe and professor at the University of Minnesota. He studies rematriation and climate justice efforts in the US.
HILL: Recognizing that leadership of the matriarchs in our communities, the mothers, the grandmothers, the daughters.
Hill says this is the first step in healing the land.
HILL: It’s returning to the original stewards, the original matriarchs, the original, you know, just beings of this land, you know, the caretakers of our lands.
Giving the tribe and elders like Rosina Phillipe a chance to care for their land again.
<<tape>> You’re accepting the lemon tree site from St. Paul.
Philippe: Right.
Back at the village the ceremony is short.
A few strokes of the pen
<<signing, stamping>>
And it’s done.
FORTNER: And that makes it official. Yes it does
<<applause>>
After hundreds of years, in just a five minute ceremony, the sacred mound officially returns to the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe.
Rosina Philippe is emotional as she talks about what this means for her people.
Philippe: I think the ancestors are dancing. I know that I'm dancing in my heart.
Philippe says this is the first time stolen land has been returned to Indigenous people in Louisiana. But she hopes it can serve as a “domino effect.” for rematriation in the Gulf South.
With the ceremony finished, Philippe prepares to take a boat out to the Lemon Tree mound — this time, not as a visitor, but as one if it’s rightful owners.
SEGMENT 2
EVA: I love that story, Drew. It’s so ironic that they’re getting this land back right as it’s disappearing.
DREW: Yeah for sure, and one of the things they’re doing to help slow that land loss is build things like oyster reefs around the mound. And that’s what your story is about.
EVA: Right, like you said they chose to build a reef to protect the Lemon Tree Mound first. They built that reef two years ago. This second one — which is what I was there to report on — was to protect their homes.
DREW: The volunteers were actually getting in the water and stacking these bags of recycled oyster shells along the shoreline. And those bags looked heavy, but it seemed like they were having a good time.
DANNY: Like they say, many hands make light work.
EVA: The volunteers were from the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. It was about 900 feet of oyster shells up and down the shore. The idea is slow down the waves so that there’s less erosion.
DANNY: I could see that at the Lemon Tree Mound. How the water would lap against the reef and then in between the reef and the land, the water was almost completely still.
EVA: It’s such a cool natural solution. But you know, it’s really to slow down the rate of land loss but it’s not going to stop it completely. But James Karst from the Coalition to Restore fCoastal Louisiana says there’s reasons to do it anyway.
KARST: I feel like the the fight of trying to save it or trying to save it as long as we can. Is a really important thing, you know, psychologically for the people who live down here in Louisiana. If we were to just say there's nothing we can do, we give up. You know, I don't think that's a good option. I don't think that's a good way to approach to approach our existence on Earth.
EVA: You’ll hear more about why they decided to build the reef anyway in my story.
DANNY: Let’s hear it!
The sun beats down on volunteers gathered at the edge of the water in southern Plaquemines Parish. The volunteers pass heavy sacks of oyster shells to each other down a line. Hilary Nguyen is one of the volunteers.
NGUYEN: I feel like I’m gonna have massive biceps after this. Like it’s definitely an amazing work out. Everyone’s been super super nice. :07
They load the shells onto boats. They’re going to use them to create an oyster reef to help slow land loss in Grand Bayou Indian Village. James Karst is with the Coalition for Coastal Louisiana. It’s the group building the reef.
KARST: The oyster reef is a living thing, baby oysters are going to attach to it, it's going to grow, it's going to become bigger. But when the sea level rises because oysters are growing on it, it will grow vertically as well..
Grand Bayou is a small community of the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe. There’s only about a dozen homes raised on stilts right along the edge of the bayou. Boats are the only way to get around. But maps of the area haven’t caught up with the reality of land loss.
KARST: you can look at the GPS and it will indicate, you know, a different color for where land is. You'll be looking at this on the screen. Then you'll look up and there is no land there. It's just open water. :08
The volunteers climb out of the boats to place the bags of recycled oyster shells in the water up and down the shoreline.
The shells come from restaurants.
This is the second reef the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana built in partnership with the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha. They built the first to protect Lemon Tree Mound, a piece of sacred land that was once elevated.
PHILLIPPE: That's a remnant mound. It's out in Bay Adams. It's surrounded by water because the land has changed so dramatically over a period of time.
That’s Rosina Philippe. She’s a tribal council member and the tribe’s knowledge holder.
Philippe and Karst took a few journalists on a boat ride to check on the reef protecting Lemon Tree Mound.
The reef was built about 2 years ago. And now, the oyster shells are covered with baby oysters and mussels. There’s even snails and crabs.
PHILIPPE: There’s a hermit crab on this one.
KARST: Oh I see em.
PHILLIPPE: Hermit crabs all over this thing.
The water in front of the reef is moving, but behind it, closer to the land, it’s almost completely still. meaning: there will be less erosion.
BUT: the tribe knows these reefs won’t be enough to stop the land from disappearing.
Philippe says it’s worth it anyway to buy time
PHILIPPE: it will eventually, you know, succumb to the waters in the waves, which is okay. But the reef that was created there will serve as not only a marker of where that site was, but it it actually encourages marine life to congregate there and to repopulate the area.
That could be the fate of the land their houses are built on too, so they’re looking into more solutions such as floating houses and gardens.
Philippe says they were always a water people. So they’re relearning how to live with less land and more water.
SEGMENT 3
DREW: That was really great, Eva. I think it’s really nice that the tribe is not only thinking about what this oyster reef does for them, but also what it does for the marine life and the ecosystem.
EVA: Yeah, and speaking of protecting both ourselves and the earth. The whole project fits into this larger discussion around climate justice. Danny can you talk a little bit about this concept?
DANNY: Yeah. Climate justice is the idea that climate change doesn’t impact everyone equally. Certain groups face disproportionate consequences. In my story, we talk about what that looks like for a specific group of indigenous people.
DREW: And amazingly, we found this paper talking about land rematriation – which we just heard about, right? – and climate justice - which ties together both of our stories.
DANNY: Yeah. One of the authors was Misty Blue. She’s of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota. We both talked to her about the paper, and during that, she mentioned this idea that indigenous people are really connected to the land and try to live in sync with it.
BLUE:And so when we cannot count on these cycles and patterns that we've, you know, had since time immemorial, then we're going to have to be grappling with different ways of being and ways of, of surviving.
DANNY: Blue has a background in public health, so she really thinks about the way that intergenerational trauma can follow indigenous people and impact their health even today.
EVA: And you also talked to Dr. Kyle Hill who was in Drew’s story right?
DANNY: Yeah. So we talk about how the Atakapa/Ishak-Chawasha tribe’s mound is going to one day be gone - and Hill drives home why getting the land back is still important to the tribe, anyway.
HILL: What we're taught is the only constant is change, you know? And so I think ancestrally, like our ancestors, were all very intelligent. You know, they probably knew that some things weren't going to last forever. But that place is significant because, you know, they prayed there, their ancestors prayed there, they had ceremonies there, all that. And so even though it's buried and under water like that is significant. You know, it's significant.
DREW: “The only constant is change” that’s a somewhat reassuring thing to remember as we live through the climate crisis.
EVA: Agreed. Danny, let’s listen to your story that puts what this tribe is going through in the context of climate change.
boat sounds
In her white rubber boots, Rosina Philippe steps into a flat-bottomed metal boat.
Karst: maybe hold here, step on that step
We’re traveling down the river to the Lemon Tree Mound, an ancient earthwork built by the Atapaka-Ishak/Chawasha centuries ago. It’s sacred for Philippe’s tribe and located in Adams Bay.
Philippe: And over the years, the bay has gotten larger and the mound has gotten smaller as it's been, you know, taken over by the waters.
This is a special trip for Philippe. Just hours ago, the land was transferred back to the tribe from an episcopal church in New Orleans.
Philippe: we're rejoicing that this is happening.
Houses on stilts sit right on the water’s edge. As you travel down the river, you see nothing but water where land used to be.
Philippe: No more trees. Majority of them are gone.
You can see petrochemical plants in the distance and signs warning about gas pipelines. After a lengthy boat ride, we finally pull up to the mound’s shore.
Arrival sounds
It’s windy. We get out of the boat to explore the Lemon Tree Mound. It’s muddy and covered in grass.
Sound of water sound transitioning to grass sound
The mound barely peeks out above the water. A dead tree that once bore lemons sticks out of the ground. It becomes apparent - the tribe is getting this land back right as it's disappearing.
But Philippe says she is still grateful to have one of their sacred sites returned. And coming to the mound after the land transfer: feels different.
Philippe: It feels different in my spirit.
Despite these environmental changes, tribal connections to their land can’t be so easily severed.
Kyle Hill studies the intersection of climate justice and land-based healing within Indigenous communities at the University of Minnesota. He says they are especially impacted by climate change because their livelihoods are dependent on their relationship to their traditional territories and homelands.
Hill: That is partially a cause for our traditions, our cultures and our belief systems also eroding as well.
Even if the land is underwater, it’s *still sacred - and the tribe would *want to take it back.
Hill: and that's only because we have the tools to be able to breathe life back into our lands.
That’s a sentiment the Atapaka-Ishak/Chawasha tribe echoes in their work to protect the Lemon Tree Mound. Ringing the mound are grey oyster shells, flecked with blue - put there by the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, a state agency, in partnership with the tribe. You can see signs of life.
Blink: Look, There's a stone crab here.
Karst: Yeah. Let him out.
The oyster reef was built to protect the mound against erosion, storm surges, and the other dangers that come with being surrounded by water where the Mississippi and Gulf meet.
Philippe: in the shadow of industrialization, we're promoting these renewable, doable, you know, natural projects.
The goal is to slow the rate of loss - but it can’t stop it.
Back at Grand Bayou Indian Village, Philippe sits on a bench on the dock. She contemplates what the land transfer will mean - not only for their present tribe, but their future people, as well. She says she hopes this is just the beginning of native groups having sacred sites returned to them.
Philippe: There are so many tribes up along the coast, you know, that would love to lay claim to some of their sacred places.
For now, they’re focusing on more projects to help slow erosion for the Lemon Tree Mound. The goal is to allow the earth to heal its wounds - and see beneficial returns.
OUTRO
EVA: That was really beautiful, Danny.
DREW: I think it’s cool that we all went to the same event, talked to this one small tribe, but got three different stories about how the coast is changing.
EVA:Yeah, and I’m glad we put out so many because these small coastal communities, especially Indigenous ones, aren’t always given a lot of attention in the news.
DANNY: And we need to keep talking about this because Indigenous people around the world are on the frontlines of climate change.
EVA: Exactly, well thank you both for being on the show and sharing your thoughtful reporting.
DREW: Thank you!
DANNY: Thank you!