The day after Halloween, All Saints Day (La Toussaint), is more important in south Louisiana than in any other area of the country both as a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation and as a day of family unity. "According to the custom of the people, all crops had to be in, hogs were turned out to glean the cornfields and potato patches (Post 1974:18).
The day is one of elaborate ceremony closely aligned with Latin American celebrations on the "Day of the Dead." Many people recount that "families would gather all day to whitewash the graves and decorate them for All Saints." They would bring a picnic lunch and eat at the cemetery. Every tomb was adorned with a coronne de toussaints, a wreath of artificial or fresh flowers. Since the flowers of All Saints Day were to be everlasting through the year, the use of the waxed paper flower wreaths was popular. At one time, many women made the wreaths. One source said Black women would sell their wreaths on the steps of St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in St. Martinville. Today, the use of crepe paper wreaths has been largely replaced by plastic flowers. In some French Catholic cemeteries in southeast Louisiana parishes, a late evening mass is followed by a candlelight ceremony in the graveyard and a blessing of the tombs. One gentleman remembers, "They would parade and parade . . . . Each one would put the candle on his [family's] tomb and kneel down and the priest would bless the dead." Most of the people interviewed have no recollection of this practice in Lafayette, St. Martin, St. Landry or Evangeline parishes, but many churches do conduct daytime mass followed by a blessing of the cemetery.
From Louisiana Folk Life
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