Attakapas Chapel (Chapelle des Attakapas)

The chapel borrows the name of a people who called themselves Ishak, meaning the people. The Atakapa-Ishak lived in six river basins, from the San Jacinto and Trinity in Texas to the Calcasieu, Mermentau and Vermilion in Louisiana, and the Eastern Atakapa lived in today's Acadiana parishes. In 1760 the Eastern Atakapa chief Kinemo sold land between the Vermilion River and Bayou Teche to Gabriel Fuselier de la Claire. Disease and the settlers who followed brought severe losses, and around 1850 Chief Ló died with no successor named.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — steps away
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 5.7 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 12 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• Trappers Cabin & Boat Shed — steps away
• Mouton Kitchen (La Cuisine de Maison Mouton) — steps away
• Acadian House (Maison Acadienne) — steps away
• Broussard House (Maison Broussard) — steps away