Bulbancha / New Orleans

This project is called “Water Map New Orleans” and also “Water Map Bulbancha,” which we believe reflects the overlapping and conflicting identities of this region. The name “Bulbancha” speaks to the thousands of years of Native American inhabitation of this “land of many tongues,” while “New Orleans” speaks to the European colonization of this part of southeast Louisiana and the dispossession, oppression, and forced labor of Native Americans and African-descended people that made possible the colonial city and our present day. Bulbancha is still a place, and as Shana M. griffin says, replacing “New Orleans” with “Bulbancha” would invisibilize this region's African American history.             

To learn more about Bulbancha, we recommend viewing “ Building a Home in the Delta,” a video featuring interdisciplinary storyteller Monique Verdin. In the video description, you’ll find more resources, including links to Bvlbancha Public Acess, WWNO’s New Orleans: 300 // Bulbancha: 3000, or Jule’s Bentley’s “Reviving Indigenous Histories with Bulbancha is Still a Place.”

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