NATCHITOCHES – Mestiza cultural authority Rhonda Gauthier was named a Louisiana Tradition Bearer by the Louisiana Folklife Commission and honored at a ceremony at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum. Serving as a Folklife Ambassador for the Louisiana Folklife Commission, Dr. Shane Rasmussen, professor of English and director of the Louisiana Folklife Center at Northwestern State University, spoke with Gauthier about her lifetime of experience studying and preserving Louisiana’s traditional folklife.
It was announced at the event that Gauthier will be inducted into the Louisiana Folklife Center’s Hall of Master Folk Artists at the next Natchitoches-NSU Folk Festival on July 22, 2023.
An Adeasonos and member of the Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb and president of the Ho Minti Society, Inc., Gauthier grew up outside of Zwolle. As a young girl she began learning from the women in her immediate and extended families’ traditional arts such as crochet, embroidery, hand sewing, quilting, cooking, baking and animal tending. Her grandmother taught her midwifery, the use of natural herbs to treat common ailments, and herb gardening.
Everything she learned as a young girl followed her through to adulthood. After earning a BA in Anthropology and History from Northwestern State, she worked in the fields of research, genealogy, and history, first part-time as a cultural interpreter at Fort St. Jean Baptiste, and later as a full-time interpretive ranger at Nuestra Senora de Pilar de Los Adaes and Fort Jesup State Historic Site. She has worked in the Louisiana Regional Folklife program as an assistant to Dr. Dayna Lee, as an assistant to historical archaeologist Dr. George Avery in the Los Adaes Program, and as community coordinator for the Creole Heritage Center. She served as the liaison for the Creole Center to the St. Augustine Historical Society, the Cane River Creole community and Creole communities across Louisiana. Her work during these years included grant writing, research, Creole genealogy, coordinating conferences and maintaining the Badin-Roque Historic structure on Cane River Lake. Since 1994, she has worked closely with the Choctaw-Apache Tribe of Ebarb, consulting, researching genealogy, grant writing, working with the Rising Sun Youth and serving on powwow and tribal recognition committees.
The ceremony and discussion was part of a series of events throughout the state for Folklife Month in Louisiana. Gauthier was honored with a certificate from Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, officially recognizing her as a Louisiana tradition bearer. The event was sponsored by the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum, the Louisiana Folklife Center, the Louisiana Folklore Society, the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. Funding was also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in collaboration with the Louisiana Folklife Commission.
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Rhonda Gauthier, left, speaks with Dr. Shane Rasmussen, professor of English and director of the Louisiana Folklife Center at Northwestern State University, about her lifetime of experience studying and preserving Louisiana’s traditional folklife as part of a ceremony naming Gauthier as a Louisiana Tradition Bearer. Photo by Scott Williams.
