DOCSLIB.ORG

Download Download

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Download European Folktales in Betsiamites Innu LYNN DRAPEAU AND MAGALI LACHAPELLE Université du Québec à Montréal INTRODUCTION1 This paper reports and analyzes tales of French origin gathered among the Innus (a.k.a. Montagnais) of Betsiamites in Quebec. Since anthropologists have mainly focused on Native tales told by the Innus, the widespread exis- tence of European tales in their repertoire was never fully acknowledged. As this paper will show, in Betsiamites at least, tales of European origin were widespread and fully integrated into the Native inventory. Nine different tales recorded in this community are analyzed for the purpose of this study and compared to their corresponding types in the latest index of world folk- lore (Uther 2004). The most striking feature is their adaptation to the Native cultural context. A detailed analysis of their sequences of events reveals how the tales were repackaged and reinterpreted with Indigenous heroes living alongside protagonists of European origin. We show how a subgroup of Innus settled along the St. Lawrence coast in the eighteenth century, called the Innus of the sea, are most probably responsible for the adoption and dissemination of those tales into the Betsiamites Innus’ repertoire. FRENCH TALES IN NORTH AMERICAN INDIGENOUS GROUPS This brief section cannot do justice to the wealth of data on European tales in North American Indigenous groups. For the purpose of the present study, we will restrict our overview to those which are most relevant to our study, namely tales of French origin with a focus on Algonquian groups. 1. Many thanks to José Mailhot as well as to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Amy Dahlstrom, Philip LeSourd, Richard Preston, Richard Rhodes, Randolph Valentine, and H. C. Wolfart for their help in the initial stage of this research. All shortcomings remain our sole responsibility. 102 EUROPEAN FOLKTALES IN BETSIAMITES INNU 103 In the early twentieth century, linguists and anthropologists regularly stumbled on tales of obvious European origin in the oral repertoire of the Indigenous groups they were investigating. Such tales were found among the Hurons (Barbeau 1916), the Menominee and the Plains Ojibwa (Skin- ner 1913, 1916), the Penobscot (Speck 1913), the Upper Thompson River Salish (Teit 1916), the Kickapoo (Jones 1915), and the Malecite (Mechling 1913). Boas (1925) then endeavored to investigate the origin of those tales, and the inquiry culminated in Stith Thompson’s (1919) catalog, which lists the tales of European origin that had been found among North American Indians at the time. The task was pursued by Hallowell (1939), who reports tales among the Berens River Saulteaux (Manitoba), and Honigmann (1953) with two Woods Cree informants. After the mid-century, reports on the topic became more sporadic. A notable exception is Wolfart’s (1990) account of the existence of a Thousand and One Nights tale that had turned up unexpectedly in Bloom¿eld’s (1930) Tales of the Sweet Grass Cree. A few European folk- tales were also found in LeSourd’s (2007) compilation of Teeter’s Maliseet texts. Barnouw (1977) reports a Ti-Jean tale among the Wisconsin Chip- pewa. Among the Innus, Savard (1977) recounts and analyzes a lengthy tale (Kamikwakushit) that he had recorded in 1970 in the remotest of Innu com- munities, Pakua Shipi, located on the Lower North Shore, near St. Augustin. After further investigation, the tale turned out to be a mixed bag of episodes taken from a variety of European tales (Savard 1992). Savard’s account of this unique tale collected among the Innus of Pakua Shipi was moot on the issue of the dissemination of similar tales among other Innu bands. Until the present, Savard’s report of the tale of Kamikwakushit remained the only schol- arly evidence of the presence of tales of European origin among the Innus. Before describing our Betsiamites corpus of tales of French origin, let us brieÀy survey the issues that arise in the investigation of this type of tale among Indigenous groups. We group them under ¿ve different labels: the “origin,” “path,” “genre,” “¿delity” and “mediator” issues. The “Origin” Issue The “origin” issue addresses the problem of assigning a correct origin to the tales. Tracking the origin of tales has been a major preoccupation of folklorists since the nineteenth century. This is a complex issue, but the accumulation of scholarly work on folktales has led to quite sophisticated classi¿cations of tale types from around the world. Many generations of scholars have 104 LYNN DRAPEAU AND MAGALI LACHAPELLE worked on what culminated in Uther’s (2004) index, built on the previous Aarne-Thompson Index (Thompson and Aarne 1928; Thompson 1961), which itself was based on Aarne’s catalog (1910). Uther’s latest compilation (2004) became known as the Aarne-Thompson-Uther (henceforth ATU) index, which now compiles over 2,750 tale types from all over the world. The “Path” Issue The “path” issue addresses the problem of the geographic migration and dissemination of tales. Boas (1925) mentions that tales of French origin have been disseminated from Nova Scotia through Quebec and the Plains all the way to British Columbia, as well as the northern United States (Wisconsin). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Thompson (1919) produced his European Tales among the North American Indians. His work contains a map locating the Native populations among which tales of European origin had been found before 1919. With the exception of Barbeau’s work with the Hurons of Lorette, no reports were available on the Native population in Quebec at the time. In his work on European tales among Native North American groups, Ramsey (1987) notes that the tales of the Ti-Jean cycle are by far the most commonly found. According to Voldeng (1993, 1994), those tales originate in Brittany where the hero was known as Yann or Yannig in Breton. The name was later adapted depending on the region. Gartenberg (1949) suggests that Paul Bunyan, the famous American lumberjack, is an avatar of Bon Yann disseminated through the French Canadian lumberjacks in the U.S. northeast. The corpus under study in this paper stems from the Innus, who have been in contact with immigrants of French origin in Quebec since their arrival in North America. It therefore seems reasonable to think that the tales recorded among the Innus originated in Europe, more speci¿cally in France. Given that the oral folktale tradition in Quebec has remained alive well into the twentieth century (Lacourcière 1961), the French connection is the obvious one.2 The “Genre” Issue According to Boas (1925) and Ramsey (1987), the most frequent tales encountered among Native populations are animal tales, fairy tales, and 2. On French tales, see also Delarue and Ténèze (2002) and Massignon (1968). EUROPEAN FOLKTALES IN BETSIAMITES INNU 105 religious tales. The tales of the Ti-Jean cycle, purportedly the most common type found among North American Indians, are classi¿ed as fairy tales. Fairy tales include those that involve a supernatural opponent, relative, or helper, or supernatural powers, knowledge, or tasks (Uther 2004). The “Fidelity” Issue There appears to be a great deal of variation with respect to the degree of adaptation and integration of the tales within the borrowing culture. In many instances, the tales are easily recognizable and the different motifs are left almost intact, as reported by Honigmann (1953) and Ramsey (1987). In other instances, however, the borrowed tale varies a great deal from its source. The issue of adaptation is often linked to time-depth. More recent adoptions yield minor adaptations whereas earlier adoptions are likely to be more heavily adapted as the Native group has time to mold the tales within its own cultural model. The “Mediator” Issue The mediator issue addresses the question of the persons or groups who were actually responsible for the dissemination of the European tales into the Indigenous group. In his paper, Wolfart (1990) notes two types of media- tors among the Plains Cree: ¿rst, at an early date, the French Canadian coureurs des bois and voyageurs, and next the missionaries, responsible for the occurrence of a Thousand and One Nights tale in Bloom¿eld’s Tales of the Sweet Grass Cree (1930). Boas (1925) and Lévi-Strauss (1991) also mention the Hudson’s Bay Company traders and employees as mediators in the diffusion of the tales. According to Honigmann (1953), the disper- sion of the Red River Métis, after 1870, is also largely responsible for the diffusion of tales of French origin throughout the Canadian West and the American Midwest. One ought also to consider the possibility that the tales may have been passed on by Natives themselves in the chain of diffusion. THE CORPUS The tales analyzed in this paper were recorded in Betsiamites from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. It should be emphasized that none of the tales in our corpus were elicited directly as tales of French origin. They simply showed up among the other recordings. On one occasion, as Drapeau was 106 LYNN DRAPEAU AND MAGALI LACHAPELLE interviewing the late Côme St-Onge (born in 1908), he narrated a series of myths (âtalûkana in Innu) and, interpolated among them, the lengthy story of Sheshiliss3 ‘Little Cecile,’ which was to become an important item in the corpus (St-Onge 1987). The other tales of the corpus were gathered by band employees in Betsiamites, as they sought to record their elders in order to make reading materials for the Innu language classes in the band’s schools. In early 1983, the late Suzanne Tshernish (born in 1941), who was herself an avid storyteller, was asked to record the elders she thought were most competent storytellers.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Download Download
    REPORTS 155 The “Local Culture and Diversity on the Prairies” Project (1) Nadya Foty and Andriy Nahachewsky University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Introduction The Peter and Doris Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore at the University of Alberta is in the process of concluding a project with several partners to record some 900 hours involving 2,000 interviews with people who remember life on the Canadian prairies prior to 1939. The project is called “Local Culture and Diversity on the Prairies” At the time of this writing, most of the interviews have been conducted but the compilation, coding, analysis and description of findings are still underway. For this reason, this essay takes the form of a personal perspective of the project, description of issues influencing project design, and a statement of aspirations rather than an authoritative reporting of its results. The aim of the project has been to document everyday life, ethnic identity and regional variation among people of Ukrainian, French, German and English heritage.(2) How did people from diverse backgrounds interact, adapt and become “prairie Canadians” in the first half of the twentieth century? What was the relationship between cultural inheritance and local community participation? How did they express their various identities on the local community level? What factors affected regional variation in these communities? The project is designed to generate a great deal of documentary information and primary archival resources for further research in many aspects of these people’s lives. Ethnographic research about ethnicity, integration and Canadianiza- tion as social processes in a given period is perhaps best conducted indirectly.
    [Show full text]
  • Acadiens and Cajuns.Indb
    canadiana oenipontana 9 Ursula Mathis-Moser, Günter Bischof (dirs.) Acadians and Cajuns. The Politics and Culture of French Minorities in North America Acadiens et Cajuns. Politique et culture de minorités francophones en Amérique du Nord innsbruck university press SERIES canadiana oenipontana 9 iup • innsbruck university press © innsbruck university press, 2009 Universität Innsbruck, Vizerektorat für Forschung 1. Auflage Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Umschlag: Gregor Sailer Umschlagmotiv: Herménégilde Chiasson, “Evangeline Beach, an American Tragedy, peinture no. 3“ Satz: Palli & Palli OEG, Innsbruck Produktion: Fred Steiner, Rinn www.uibk.ac.at/iup ISBN 978-3-902571-93-9 Ursula Mathis-Moser, Günter Bischof (dirs.) Acadians and Cajuns. The Politics and Culture of French Minorities in North America Acadiens et Cajuns. Politique et culture de minorités francophones en Amérique du Nord Contents — Table des matières Introduction Avant-propos ....................................................................................................... 7 Ursula Mathis-Moser – Günter Bischof des matières Table — By Way of an Introduction En guise d’introduction ................................................................................... 23 Contents Herménégilde Chiasson Beatitudes – BéatitudeS ................................................................................................. 23 Maurice Basque, Université de Moncton Acadiens, Cadiens et Cajuns: identités communes ou distinctes? ............................ 27 History and Politics Histoire
    [Show full text]
  • Canadian and Russian Animation on Northern Aboriginal Folklore
    Canadian and Russian Animation on Northern Aboriginal Folklore Elena Korniakova A Thesis in The Individualized Program of The School of Graduate Studies Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Fine Arts) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada September 2014 Elena Korniakova, 2014 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Elena Korniakova Entitled: Canadian and Russian Animation on Northern Aboriginal Folklore and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts (Fine Arts) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final Examining Committee: _________________________________Chair Chair's name _________________________________Examiner Examiner's name _________________________________Examiner Examiner's name _________________________________Supervisor Supervisor's name Approved by ______________________________________________________ Chair of Department or Graduate Program Director _____________2014 ____________________________________________________ Dean of Faculty -iii- ABSTRACT Canadian and Russian Animation on Northern Aboriginal Folklore Elena Korniakova Aboriginal legends depict the relationships between humans and nature as deeply symbolic and intertwined. When adapted to films by non-Aboriginal filmmakers, these legends are often interpreted in ways which modify human-nature relationships experienced by Aboriginal peoples. I explore such modifications by looking at Canadian and Russian ethnographic animation based on Northern Aboriginal folklore of the two countries. In my thesis, I concentrate on the analysis of ethno-historical and cinematic traditions of Canada and Russia. I also explore the Canadian and Russian conventions of animated folktales and compare ethnographic animation produced by the National Film Board of Canada and Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm.
    [Show full text]
  • Native Witchcraft Beliefs in Acadian, Maritime and Newfoundland Folklore Ronald Labelle
    Document généré le 25 sept. 2021 20:47 Ethnologies Native Witchcraft Beliefs in Acadian, Maritime and Newfoundland Folklore Ronald Labelle Hommage à Peter Narváez Résumé de l'article In Honour of Peter Narváez Les légendes et les croyances traditionnelles acadiennes ont été recueillies et Volume 30, numéro 2, 2008 étudiées par différents chercheurs, la première étant Catherine Jolicoeur, qui amassa approximativement 400 récits traitant de la population autochtone des URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/019949ar Maritimes, alors qu’elle menait ses enquêtes de terrain dans les zones DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/019949ar acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick. Cet article s’intéresse à la question de la croyance en la sorcellerie amérindienne, non seulement dans le folklore acadien mais également chez les anglophones des Maritimes et de Aller au sommaire du numéro Terre-Neuve, afin de mettre en valeur les ressemblances ou les différences entre leurs systèmes traditionnels de croyance ainsi que leurs attitudes envers les groups amérindiens. On établit une comparaison entre les positions des Éditeur(s) groupes catholiques et protestants, et on porte une attention particulière aux questions liées au sexe et à l’identité des « sorcières », en s’appuyant sur des Association Canadienne d'Ethnologie et de Folklore sources allant du dix-septième au vingtième siècle. L’article démontre que durant toutes les périodes de l’histoire, depuis les premiers contacts entre les ISSN Européens et les populations autochtones des provinces maritimes, ces 1481-5974 (imprimé) dernières ont été perçues par les Européens comme étant potentiellement 1708-0401 (numérique) dangereuses et elles ont été soupçonnées de posséder des pouvoirs surnaturels et malveillants.
    [Show full text]
  • Institution Available from Descriptors
    DOCUMENT RES UME ED 070 045 CS 000 230 AUTHOR Carlson, Ruth Kearney, Comp. TITLE Folklore and Folktales Around the world. Perspectives in Reading No. 15. INSTITUTION International Reading Association, Newark, Del., PUB DATE 72 NOTE 179p.; Papers presented at the International Reading Association'sAnnual Convention (15th, Anaheim, Calif., 1970) AVAILABLE FROMInternationalReading Association, Six Tyre Avenue, Newark, Del.19711 ($4.50 non-member, $3.50 member) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$6.58 DESCRIPTORS *Booklists; Fables; *Folklore Books; Legends; Literature Appreciation; Mythology; Reading Materials; *Reading Material Selection; *world Literature IDENTIFIERS *Folktales ABSTRACT This volume, the third in the International Reading Association's Perspectives Series on literature for school age children, concerns the role of folklore and the types of folktales in several areas of the world. These papers were originally presented at IRA's Fifteenth Annual Convention held in Anaheim, California, in 1970. Several articles are devoted to folktales of the western hemisphere and those of Europe. One essay concerns the world folktale, and another the folktales of the Pacific area. An extensive bibliography of folklore and folktales completes the book. (Author/TO) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO. DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIG. INATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN IONS ST ATFD DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU CATION POSITION OR POLICY Perspectives in Reading No. 15 FOLKLORE AND FOLKTALES AROUND THE WORLD Compiled and Edited by Ruth Kearney Carlson California State College at Hayward Prepared by theIRALibrary and Literature Committee Ira INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION Newark, Delaware 19711 9 b INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION OFFICERS 1971-1972 President THEODORE L.
    [Show full text]
  • Books & Articles by Edith Fowke
    Canadian Folk Music BULlEllN 30.4 (1996) ...19 Books by Edith Fowke Folk Songs of Canada I & II, (with Richard Johnston).Waterloo, Ontario: Folklore of Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1976. Waterloo Music, 1954; 1967. Ring Around the Moon. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977; NC Press, Folk Songs of Quebec (with Richard Johnston). Waterloo, Ontario: Waterloo 1987. Music, 1957. Folk Tales of French Canada. Toronto: NC Press, 1979. Canada's Story in Song (with Alan Mills and Helmut Blume). Toronto: Gage, 1960. Bibliography of Canadian Folklore in English (with Carole Ca11Jenter). Rev. as Singing Our History.Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1984. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1981. Traditional Singers and Songs from Ontario. Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Sea Songs and Ballads from Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia. Hathoro, Associates, 1965. Pennsylvania:Folklore Associates,1965. Songs of Work and Freedom (with Joe Glazer). Chicago: Roosevelt University, Editor, Songs and Sayings of an Ulster Childhood by Alice Kane. McLelland 1965. & Stewart, 1981. Rpt. as Songs of Work and Protest. New York: Dover, 1973. Explorations in Canadian Folklore (with Carole Carpenter). Toronto: Editor, Logging with Paul Bunyan by John D. Robins. Toronto: 1967. McLelland & Stewart, 1985. Rpt. as Paul Bunyan: Superhero of the Lumberjacks. Toronto: NC Press, 1981. Tales Told in Canada. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1986. Sally Go Round the Sun: 300 Songs, Rhymes, and Games of Canadian Red Rover, Red Rover. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1988. Children. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1969. Canadian Folklore. Oxford University Press, 1988. Lumbering Songs from the Northern Woods. Austin: U of Texas P, 1970. Rpt. Toronto: NC Press, 1985. Legends Told in Canada.
    [Show full text]
  • The Folklore Treasure There Is Astounding”: Reappraising Margaret Sargent Mctaggart’S Contribution to the Documentation of Newfoundland Folksong at Mid-Century"
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Érudit Article "“The folklore treasure there is astounding”: Reappraising Margaret Sargent McTaggart’s Contribution to the Documentation of Newfoundland Folksong at Mid-Century" Anna Kearney Guigné Ethnologies, vol. 29, n°1-2, 2007, p. 171-214. Pour citer cet article, utiliser l'information suivante : URI: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/018749ar DOI: 10.7202/018749ar Note : les règles d'écriture des références bibliographiques peuvent varier selon les différents domaines du savoir. Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter à l'URI https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Montréal, l'Université Laval et l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. Érudit offre des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998. Pour communiquer avec les responsables d'Érudit : [email protected] Document téléchargé le 10 février 2017 06:39 “THE FOLKLORE TREASURE THERE IS ASTOUNDING” VReappraisingINGT-CINQ Margaret ANS DE Sargent TÉLÉRÉALITÉ McTaggart’s Contribution to the Documentation of Newfoundland Folksong at Mid-Century1 Anna Kearney Guigné Memorial University of Newfoundland In the 1987 special issue of The Journal of American Folklore titled “Folklore and Feminism,” Barbara Babcock observes that “the history of folklore studies is the history of the male line” and that “women folklorists have been marginalized if not rendered altogether invisible” (Badcock 1987: 395).
    [Show full text]
  • Culture & Tradition, Memorial University Newfoundland, Canada
    Paideusis - Journal for Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Studies: Volume 1 / 1998 - Meeting Point Letters - CULTURE & TRADITION Canada Culture & Tradition is Canada's oldest bilingual folklore and ethnology journal. First published in 1975, this graduate student publication was founded by the students of the ethnology/folklore departments of Universite Laval (Quebec) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (St. John's), which are the only two Ph.D. programs in Canada. Culture & Tradition is currently located in the Department of Folklore at Memorial University, Newfoundland and produced solely by the graduate students of MUN. It is published annually, and as of 1996, subscriptions are accompanied by free copies of Transmission, the Culture & Tradition newsletter. The journal exists to provide a forum for work done primarily by graduate students in the fields of Folklore, Ethnology and cognate disciplines such as museum studies, history, ethnomusicology and anthropology. We aim to promote Canadian Folklore and Ethnological studies and related interests. Published articles have addressed topics in the traditional arts, music, cuisine, architecture, beliefs, cultural psychology, occupational and factory folklore, and the social structure of regional, ethnic and religious groups in Canada. Listing of our articles and selected abstracts can be found on our web-page. Many of our articles arise out of fieldwork and archive projects undertaken by (primarily) graduate students, and thus a high proportion focus on the unique and vibrant cultures of Atlantic Canada. This focus, though far from exclusive makes the journal a valuable resource for anyone interested in the ethnographic study of this region. The editorial board is particularly concerned with facilitating cross-disciplinary studies in both of Canada's national languages and will gladly accept submissions in both French and English.
    [Show full text]
  • OCR Document
    Developing and Appreciation for the Cultural Significance of Childlorel Carole H Carpenter Part of the responsibility of contemporary scholars of childlore rests in their actively promoting a genuine appreciation for children's own traditions so as to counteract the continuing perception of such material as merely the charming, nostalgia laden ephemera of innocents. Childlore would seem by its very persistence in the modern age to merit serious investigation, for in a world of consid- erable cultural change that which endures ought to acquire particular significance and its uses, meanings and function in contemporary society should command attention. Rather than dismissing childlore as culturally irrelevant, then, it is quite arguably more responsible to highlight this material and consider the impact of these durable traditions on the development and expression of individual, group and national identity. There are several reasons for assuming this responsibility, namely: 1. this approach potentially affords considerable illu- mination of the dynamics of cultural acquisition, generally and during childhood in particular; 2. there is a necessity given the complexity and de- mands of contemporary multicultural circumstances to gain as full an understanding as possible of the cultural milieu of children in order to shape and plan judiciously for their future; and 3. it is desirable to combat the persisting popular tendency to disregard the holistic humanity of children as equal, fully human beings—even to the extent of their having meaningful culture. By taking on this responsibility, folklorists can more adequately meet their ethical obligations to their young informants while contributing to a richer understanding of perhaps the single most important yet culturally neglected minority group in North America—our children.
    [Show full text]
  • Radical? Feminist? Nationalist? the Canadian Paradox of Edith Fowke1
    Radical? Feminist? Nationalist? The Canadian Paradox of Edith Fowke1 Pauline Greenhill, University of Winnipeg Historical perspectives on academic folksong study Traditional Singers and Songs from Ontario (1965) in English Canada have tended to stress the extensive and Lumbering Songs from the Northern Woods influence of foreign models.2 The ethnographic, (1970). functionalist perspective brought from the United States to the Folklore department of Memorial Some keys to Edith Fowke’s place in Canadian University of Newfoundland by Herbert Halpert in folkloristics--particularly in relation to Helen 1962 dominated academic fieldwork and song Creighton’s--emerged in historian Ian McKay’s analysis until quite recently. At the beginning of the ground-breaking The Quest of the Folk (1994). Near twentieth century, Canadian W. Roy Mackenzie contemporaries, the two women nevertheless retained studied his own Nova Scotia regions and traditions, throughout their lives fundamentally different but used models he had learned in the U.S. The sociopolitical outlooks. McKay asserts “One reason British Maud Karpeles based her folksong collection for Creighton’s strained relationship with in Newfoundland on that of her mentor, Cecil Sharp. Fowke...was the absence of any clear boundaries Americans Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf and Grace separating their areas of jurisdiction. Fowke, who Yarrow Mansfield also collected in Newfoundland, defined her field as all of Canada seems to have as students of Martha W. Beckwith at Vassar College angered Creighton by not deferring to Creighton’s and George Lyman Kittredge at Harvard. claims to control of almost all Nova Scotian materials” (my emphasis, 141). Clearly, Creighton The twentieth century also saw local collectors, defined her relationship to folklore, folklife, and gathering and studying their own regions’ song ethnology in regional terms, and Fowke in national traditions, without a foreign scholarly departure terms.
    [Show full text]
  • THE FOLKLORE of "OLD FOOLISHNESS' Newfoundland Media Legends
    THE FOLKLORE OF "OLD FOOLISHNESS' Newfoundland Media Legends Peter Narvaez ΤIHE TECHNOLOGICAL MEDIA which transmit popular culture have often been vieweIHd Eby folklorists and other students of culture as "destroyers of folklore."1 Folklore, however, is a dynamic component of culture which func- tions adaptively in situations of rapid cultural change; such adaptiveness is especially reflected in the generation of folkloric forms which make critical com- ments about new situations. For more than a century, rapidly developing techno- logical media have been modifying the sensory experiences of the populations of Newfoundland and Labrador. The adaptive function of folklore will be illustrated in this discussion through an analysis of a cluster of media legends which reveal adjustments to new media technologies. Mass Media and Popular Culture as Destroyers of Folklore The study of contemporary folklore encompasses a vast array of old and modern expressive behaviours, texts, and contexts. Although the "media as destroyers" idea is not universally entertained, it is an important notion, which merits more than peripheral consideration. The destroyers argument is a deter- ministic value judgement whose tenets are: folklore is basically good; when popular culture, an inferior expressive form, and the technological media of its transmission are introduced into given cultural scenes, they either supplant or unfairly compete with folklore. It follows implicitly from such an argument that the responsibility of the folklorist is to save, nurture, and
    [Show full text]
  • Folklore and the Liberal Arts 1
    Folklore and the Liberal Arts 1 Folklore and the Liberal Arts Ian Brodie Cape Breton University [email protected] Presented at the International Conference on the Liberal Arts September 30th – October 1st, 2010 at St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Ian Brodie 2010 Folklore and the Liberal Arts 2 Abstract: If the etymology of “Liberal” is a legitimate starting point for reflection on the original direction and intention of a Liberal Arts education – studies fit for a free citizen and not a slave – we may be well served to look at parallel terms as starting points for a reconceiving the Liberal Arts as we shift from a classicist to a modern and postmodern mindset, and from an exclusive to an inclusive worldview. The discipline of Folklore has as its field of inquiry informal expressive culture, with an emphasis on the tacit, the informal, the quotidian, the interstitial, the local, and the marginalized. Within recent Folklore scholarship the use of the term “Vernacular,” from vernaculus, a slave born within a master‟s household, has emerged as a useful entry into spheres ranging from architecture (Glassie 2000) to religious studies (Primiano 1995), song (Narváez 1995), and theory (Baker 1984). This paper suggests how Folklore not only can (and does) contribute to the Liberal Arts curriculum as traditionally conceived but also provides a theoretical framework for how the Liberal Arts can address and adapt to the shifting expectations of cultural literacy and global citizenship in a post-Colonial, de-centered world. Biography: Ian Brodie is an Assistant Professor of Folklore at Cape Breton University.
    [Show full text]