Native Waters: An Indigenous Fly Fisher's Journey Across Time and Water

by Roger Emile Stouff

Here is a world created by Crawfish at the command of the Creator. Here is that sweet country of the People of the Many Waters, the Chitimacha, in southern Louisiana. Between the gunwales of a small wooden boat a boy learns the things that define a life, but sets out on a voyage of discovery in disdain for that watery world.
It is a story of ghosts and fly fishing; Native American beliefs and monsters, and learning that life and time truly are circles, and all things come back to where they were before.
The Louisiana Public Broadcasting documentary "Native Waters: A Chitimacha Recollection" was based on this book and its sequel, "The Great Sadness: Indigenous Angling and the Loss of Home." The show is now playing nationwide on public television stations everywhere, was nominated for an Emmy Award and honored with a Bronze Telly Award.

322 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 2005

About the author

Roger Emile Stouff is the son of Nicholas Leonard Stouff Jr., last chief of the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, and Lydia Marie Gaudet Stouff, daughter of a Cajun farmer. He has been a journalist for more than thirty years and writer of the award-winning column "From the Other Side" in the St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune. He was featured on the television show "Fly Fishing America" in 2006, and was writer and narrator of the documentary "Native Waters: A Chitimacha Recollection" on Louisiana Public Broadcasting in 2010. Based on his two memoirs, "Native Waters" and "The Great Sadness," the show is now showing on public broadcasting stations nationwide, was nominated for an Emmy and was recipient of a Bronze Telly Award.

He writes extensively about his Native American ancestry in autobiography, fiction and short stories, including the connection the Chitimacha, "people of the many waters" hold to the ancestral waters of the Atchafalaya Basin.

With co-author Kenneth Brown he has also authored science-fiction and epic fantasy novels, including the first two books of the series "The Allidian Saga."

Reviews

[Loretta Swafford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book.Made me see how our local area is a treasure .Sometime we need to see it threw other eyes,we tend to forget what is in our back yard.Thanks Roger for giving us this gift.