King of the Bayou

For months grim-faced Cajun shrimpers practiced on the bayous, in their tricky, pencil-shaped boats. The Cajuns of Louisiana's lower marshlands take their yearly pirogue race as seriously as Kentucky takes its Derby. This week on sultry Bayou Barataria, the 29 strongest paddlers lined up for the start.

The swamp people had picked a favorite: muscular, moon-faced Herb Creppel, 24, who won the last big race just before he went off to be a paratrooper, three years ago. Now he was defending his championship with a shrapnel wound in his right leg. It didn't seem to hamper his long, powerful stroke. Uncle Emile was in the race, too, more for family support than anything else. They had to beat their traditional rivals, the Billiot family --and there were three Billiots in the race, headed by grim, 65-year-old Grandpa Etienne and Son Adam, a five-time champion. Along the soggy bayou shores, excited Cajuns cheered the Creppels or the Billiots, depending on whose kin they were.

Herb's pirogue, built with patient skill by Uncle Emile, was made of heart cypress, and practically walked the water. Cajuns say that a pirogue is so delicately balanced that shifting a cud of tobacco from one cheek to another is enough to upset it. But skilled Cajuns cast heavy shrimp nets, go hunting, catch alligators and attend funerals in them without ever getting their feet wet. And they make them go much faster than canoes.

Long before the end of the 4.2 mile race, Uncle Emile had dropped back out of hollering distance. But the family honor was safe: Herb Creppel slithered across the finish line a good 25 yards ahead of the nearest Billiot. Beating the Billiots meant more to him than pocketing the $200 prize.

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