“Je jongle au bon Dieu quand je traite”: Traiteurs in Francophone Louisiana

“Je jongle au bon Dieu quand je traite”: Traiteurs in Francophone Louisiana / Les guérisseurs en Louisiane francophone by Dana David Gravot   About the Book “Je jongle au bon Dieu quand je traite” highlights a local understanding of traitement, or treatment as it is called in English, a healing tradition specific to Francophone Louisiana. After the Acadian resettlement in Louisiana—a Spanish colony at the time—the Cajuns developed a unique, blended culture in response to both a physical environment (which included swamps, bayous, marshes, and prairies) and a social environment that mixed continental and Caribbean French peoples, Germans, Spaniards, Indigenous peoples, and African and Anglo-Americans. Sharing the need for medical attention, the practice of traitement—and the importance of traiteurs—was born. In this work, presented in English on one side and French on the other, Dana David Gravot explores the practice of traitement through her decades-long experience interviewing the