• Family affair: Acadians begin their celebration 
• Friendly people make heat more bearable
• Canadians make trek to Louisiana
• Oh, Canada! 
• Acadians rediscover 'cousins' at Mass 
• Acadians honor Native Americans who helped them 
• Congrès spirit not dampened
• Congrès Mondial Acadien - Day 2
• Acadian fest ties threads of history

Members of the ''Kajun Mardi Gras Walking Club" who claim to be the world's ''only ladies' walking group," prepare to help kick off the Congres Mondial Acadien Louisiane -- 1999 with a tiny float pulled by a riding lawnmower Sunday in Houma. 

HOUMA -- Mi'kmaq Indians of New Brunswick, Canada, burned ''sweet grass" Sunday in a ceremony joining their tribe to that of Louisiana's United Houma (Indian) Nation. 

It was a grand, symbolic moment probably lost on most of the members of the throng of revelers on hand for a free outdoor concert celebrating the official opening of the Congres Mondial Acadien Louisiane -- 1999. 

The Mi'kmaqs consider sweet grass to be ''the hair of Mother Earth" and believe it to be sacred. 

In New Brunswick it is abundant, aromatic, and they braid it like true human hair and hang it in their homes, treating it with reverence. In their Catholic church at the Big Pine reservation in central New Brunswick they burn it instead of incense. 

The significance as far as the celebrants of the CMA are concerned is that without the aid and comfort of the Mi'kmaqs there would probably never have been an Acadian society. 

Some say the very word Acadia comes from the Mi'kmaq expression ''cadique," meaning a good place to camp or settle. 

It is almost certain that many of those pioneers from France spent their first night in the North American
continental wilderness in Mi'kmaq lodges. 

From the beginning of the Acadian experience in 1604, French settlers intermarried with members of the
Mi'kmaq tribe. Many Cajuns have genealogies listing Mi'kmaqs as their ancestors. The Houma Indians of
southern Louisiana, principally of Terrebonne Parish, were favorites of the explorer and founder of New
Orleans, called le Sieur de Bienville. 

Bienville waged a war of attrition against the Chitimachas now of casino fame and wealth in Charenton but seemed enamored of the Houmas, his favorite native peoples. 

Consequently, the Houmas adapted most readily to the French culture. 

Later, like the Mi'kmaqs, they suffered from that francophone closeness. 

The Mi'kmaqs fought with the Acadians against the British and were persecuted for it. 

The Houmas suffered persecution at the hands of the Americans along with the Acadians and other French citizens after the Louisiana purchase in 1803. Perhaps happily, all of this was lost Sunday evening on the throng which gathered just to party in celebration of 245 years of Acadian (Cajun) culture. 

The performers they came to hear were Jo-El Sonnier, born of French Acadian parents in Rayne, Bois Joli of New-Brunswick, Canada; Vin Bruce, born in Southeast Louisiana during the 1930s; MŽchants Maquereaux of New-Brunswick, Canada, including Roland Gauvin, originally with the group ''1755" and also co-writer of the official CMA theme with Thibodeaux: ''Si longtemps sŽparŽ,'' (Such a Long Time Apart). 

So the evening was like the poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, not the famous ''Evangeline" but the lesser-known ''Day is Done" in which the poet wrote: ''And the night shall be filled with music, and the cares that infest the day shall fold their tents like the Arabs and silently steal away."