The old saying goes,  "history is told by the victor".   The truth is history, as we know it, is a series of accounts told by those possessing the power to control the narrative and the pen (media) by hoarding the evidence (primary sources and archeological/anthropological artifacts).  Napoleon Bonaparte was quoted as saying, "history is a series of lies agreed upon."  Single narratives are skewed to honor the writer (hunter), eliminating the opportunity for the opposing side (lion) to tell their story.  A living example of how uncontested lies or half-truths become facts (history).  Most southerners are not aware that the history books studied in schools were not written by historians, but rather groups possessing the power to control the curriculum.  "For much of the 20th century, southern classrooms treated Black history — when they touched the subject at all — as a sideshow to a white-dominated narrative.  Teachers taught students to sing Dixie and memorize long lists of forgettable governors. Civil War battles got described in detail. Textbooks celebrated the violent overthrow of democratically-elected, multiracial governments. Lynching went unmentioned. The evils of slavery got cursory acknowledgments — and quick dismissals.  The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) spent decades shaping and reshaping textbooks to put a strong emphasis on Lost Cause views of the Civil War and Reconstruction, which glorified the white supremacist foundations of the Confederacy and was used to justify segregation and authoritarian Jim Crow governance". Full Article

Single narratives are dangerous exclude and erase the contributions of everyone except the storyteller.  As years pass it becomes more difficult to "correct" the narrative to include others.  Exposing the masses to alternative narratives, decolonize narratives, is an attempt to "right" history by recovering and recounting unheard and forgotten stories because half the story has never been told.
 
Lions' Historian is a space for history to be told from the perspective of the lion. It is a hub for course curriculum, guided tours, articles, videos, book lists, and podcasts to explore alternative narratives.   The tours will allow you to experience Louisiana from a native perspective.  Weekly podcasts will host guests with their own stories to tell.  The Lion's Lair will provide you with articles, videos, and book lists to expose you to alternative perspectives of long-accepted historical points of view, and hopefully pique your interest to investigate further.
 

The Lion's Historian is a native New Orleanian who always believed there was more to history than we were taught.  Her questions turned into a quest for alternative narratives of history and cultures.  As she met with elders to document and record their stories, her assumptions were validated.  History was not told by the victors, but by those with the power of the pen and access to the media to promote their perspectives. 

 

History books, television, radio, newspapers, magazines were all tools to promote the single narrative and further the initiatives of a few.  Aboriginal peoples were the original builders and creators of culture in their native environments. However, foreign colonizers, writing themselves into the antiquity of those spaces, completely erased the indigenous out of their own stories.  The Doctrine of Discovery is unfortunately still in play.

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Where else, other than colonized territories, did natives rely on foreigners for survival in their native lands?  History tells the stories of natives being wild and ignorant of their resources and surroundings until they were enlightened by outsiders.   The trope of the stupid indigenous requiring the knowledge of a foreigner to teach them how to survive in their native environments.  The perpetuation of single narratives is how the culture of Louisiana has been misappropriated as Cajun, though indigenous Attakapa, Opelousas, Choctaw,  Chickasaw, Tunica, etc., existed hundreds of thousands of years before the group we know as Acadians were expelled out of Nova Scotia.  When the Cajuns arrived most of the culture that has been attributed to them already existed  through the creolization of the Indigenous, African, French and Spanish.  Historically, foreigners have overlaid their names and languages over existing indigenous infrastructures. Though they may have added to the fabric of the culture, the single narrative of being the creators is false.  

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If we are to be honest we need to acknowledge that the most creolized group of people are those who traversed other lands and were exposed to other cultures, taking what they wanted and claiming as their own.  It is no surprise that a foreigner's stroke of genius is stoked after encountering new cultures and spaces.  If one group is the creator of all things, why were those cultural assets not created where they originated?  Why isn't one landmass the hub of  all creations? Why aren't those cultural assets present in their place of origin? 

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The Lion's Historian seek to not rewrite history but "right" (correct)  history by sharing and preserving native narratives,  specifically the contributions of excluded originators.  It is a space for preserving narratives told from the perspective of the lion. 

 

We invite you to experience and explore alternative perspectives of Louisiana history and culture.