03/19/2026
Jody Billiot is not your average student. A U.S. Army veteran, he is also a member of the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe Council who is collaborating with fellow Pointe-Au-Chien members in updating the tribe’s oral history. As an Anthropology student, Jody has applied his growing knowledge of experimental archaeology to recreate technologies, housing, and material culture used by his ancestors and has engaged the tribe’s youth in experiential learning activities like the construction of a palmetto house, the Tribe’s historic housing style that relied on local materials and communal labor to build thatched roof and lime plastered mud walled residences for members. On Saturday, March 14, UNO faculty from the Division of Social Inquiry, Max Krochmal (History) and Roberto E. Barrios (Anthropology), drove to Terrebonne Parish to share their knowledge of oral history and ethnographic interviews in support of the Tribe’s efforts to document its history and represent itself to Federal and State Governments and the world at large. The workshop featured a lively conversation and exchange of ideas and experiences between UNO Facuilty and Tribal members Tribal Chairman Charles Verdin, Second Chairman Donald Dardar, Tribal Treasurer Angele Black, Tribal Attorney Dr. Patty Ferguson, Tribal Public Affairs and Communications Specialist Dr. Georgie Ferguson, Mrs. Theresa Dardar, Ms. Esther Verdin, Councilwoman Christine Verdin, Ms. Morgan Conner, and Councilman Jesse Billiot. At the workshop’s conclusion, Professors Krochmal and Barrios were gifted another product of Jody Billiot’s experimental archaeology: Ceramic bowls fashioned with the traditional Pointe-Au-Chein techniques and crafted with local clay: The first to be produced in more than a century.
