French Traditions: Their History and Continuity in North America Winnie Lambrecht

French Traditions: Their History and Continuity in North America Winnie Lambrecht This year we celebrate the bicentennial of between pressures toward conformity with a the French Revolution by examining con singular national culture and the rights of in temporary folk traditions of France and of dividuals and communities to assert their French-speaking peoples of North America. own cultural identities. This Festival of The people of Britanny, Normandy, Poitou, American Folklife program illustrates both Quebec, and the French-speaking communi the continuity of folk culture in the Franco ties of New England and Louisiana, North phone communities of France and America Dakota and Missouri share a common origin and the contemporary importance of human and linguistic affinity. Each of these com cultural rights for the free expression of munities has selectively preserved and modi communal identity. fied this French cultural heritage in a specific Francophone North America was mainly historical and geographical setting despite peopled by immigrants from the Atlantic pressures toward cultural homogenization coast of France and their descendants. The and political attempts to restrict cultural con evolution of traditional French culture in the tinuity. Common and transformed elements new continent was the result of historical of expressive culture continue to serve each forces specific to each area. Desires to group's own internally defined needs, in maintain self-identity, to assert one's heritage cluding that of self-identification within a or to distinguish oneself from others altered larger society. What then connects the ex the lifestyle of each group. Internal social pressive culture-the musics, crafts and and political transformations, external influ dance-of these communities with the politi ences and pressures, and cultural elements cal events of distant history, and with the borrowed from neighboring communities ideas that animated those events? contributed to the traditions that took shape The Declaration of the Rights of Man and in the New World. of the Citizen, proclaimed in the first weeks Cultural diversity is no less important of the French Republic on August 26, 1789, within France. To the outside world France asserts the inalienable human rights of self might appear as a cultural unity, but in fact determination and freedom of expression. it is a country of considerable cultural diver From the Bretons of Basse-Bretagne to the sity. One of the goals of the Revolution Michif of North Dakota, Manitoba and Sas national unification-was not welcome in katchewan, today's traditional music, verbal those regions of France that were not only art and material culture reflect the tensions distant from the events in Paris, but were Les Fetes Chez Nous: France and North America, a program on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the French Revolu tion and the Detlaration of the Rights ofMan and of the Citizen, has been made possible by the American Committee on the French Revolution with the generous support of the following corporations and foundations: Archer-Daniels Midland Foundation, Arthur Andersen & Co ., General Electric Foundation, Gulf+ Western Foundation, ITT Corpora tion, KPMG Peat Marwick, Lazard Freres, Warner-Lambert Company and the assistance of the governments of the Republic of France and the province of Quebec. 51 Missouri French speakers have preserved French music and foodways despite being isolated from other Francophone groups for generations. Roy Boyer, fiddle (1.), Gene Hall, fiddle (back), Paul Dennan, guitar and Charlie Pashia. (Photo by Howard W. Marshall, Missouri Cultural Heritage Center) also culturally and linguistically different. French settlements in the Mississippi and Ethnic minorities within France who spoke Missouri Valleys were the result of early ex languages other than French were subject to peditions by fur traders coming from the the same kind of edicts as those that later north in search of additional bounty, and forced French speakers in Acadia, Quebec explorers from the south in search of mines and Louisiana to adopt English, the language that had already been signaled by De Soto of the culture that came to dominate North in the late 16th century. These early French America politically and economically. This settlements started as forts or missions, and compelled conformity and intolerance of most had French populations too small to cultural difference led minority communities produce enough food for their own subsis in France to seek greater opportunity else tence. They soon imported slaves from the where-primarily in North America. Condi French colonies in the Caribbean-Haiti, tions in France prior to the Revolution Martinique and Guadeloupe. Indeed, in prompted disenfranchised people, especially many communities the African population in the rural areas, to follow earlier mariners outnumbered the French. Thus, many of the and explorers to North America. The French oral traditions in these communities reflect Revolution prompted new migrations among very strong African and Creole (Afro-Carib its dissenters (royalists, some of the Catholic bean) influences. The French in Missouri clergy, and tenant peasants, the most no were cut off from regular contact with other table of these counter-revolutionary groups French-speaking communities during the being the chouans). late 18th and early 19th centuries. English The complexities of these historical move speakers started settling in the area in great ments and their results can be illustrated by numbers; political authority and mercantile the case of French settlement in Missouri. activity became their domain, and the 52 French found themselves a disenfranchised immigrated to New England. In some com minority. As a result of these historical munities a large number of active bearers of events, French musical traditions are scarce these traditions maintain them proudly; in in Missouri and absent in neighboring Illi other communities French-derived traditions nois. Instead, the Francophone community are scarce, and the number of active bearers maintains its distinctiveness largely through very small. In yet others, such as the Metis its foodways and oral traditions. Boudin in North Dakota, French traditions have be nair (blood sausage), beignets or beign come part of a new cultural complex chauwage (puff cakes), and tart a bouillir (a through "ethnogenesis." Ethnogenesis is the pie) are all part of the culinary tradition in conscious creation of a new cultural lifestyle current day Missouri. by a group of people who, having lost their On the other side of the Atlantic, the story cultural identity through oppression or as is no less complex, though internal migra similation, feel the need to reassert a sepa tions were not as frequent in France as they rate cultural community. were in North America. Brittany is part of France, and therefore partakes of French Conjoined Cultures: France and culture. While Bretons share a number of North America. cultural elements with other French citizens, On July 14, 1789, Parisian citizens took they are historically and linguistically more the Bastille, an act that came to symbolize part of the Celtic world, especially those in the overturn of the old regime and the be the region of Basse-Bretagne. Brittany (or ginning of the French Revolution and a new "Amorica" as it was known) was not widely era. A few weeks later, on August 26, the evangelized until the 5th or 6th century, af Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the ter other parts of France had already been Citizen was proclaimed. It contained the Christianized. As a result, oral traditions and formative principles of the French belief systems of the area remain quite dis Constitution of 1791. It states that "Men are tinct from those of other parts of France. In born and remain free and equal in some French areas it is topography that rights .... These rights are Liberty, Property, leads to isolation, but in the case of Brittany Safety, and Resistance to Oppression." On the isolation is cultural in origin. Many Bre another continent, thirty days later, the Bill tons migrated to North America, but they of Rights was signed in New York as a ful were outnumbered by those who came from fillment of the American Revolution. Two other parts of France, and their language did men on either side of the Atlantic with a not survive the cultural milieu in Acadia and shared vision of liberty contributed to these the other French Canadian areas where they events: Lafayette and Jefferson. Lafayette settled. Interestingly, however, Cajun first served in the American revolutionary French is testimony to an early migration of army, and later played a leading part in the Acadians (including Bretons) to South Lou French Revolution; Jeffersonian ideas were isiana and includes nautical terms and other embodied in the political movements on linguistic evidence of Celtic influence. both continents. Today's varied mosaic of French-derived The political and philosophical connec or influenced oral traditions in North Amer tions between France and the New World ica results from various migrations: French were never again as strong and direct as who came to Quebec or Acadia, others who during that period, but France had already settled in Louisiana, Acadians who returned established ties to the American continent to France and then migrated again to Louisi prior to these historic events. From the early ana, French Canadians who came down the 16th century, French fishermen and mariners Mississippi and settled in Illinois and Mis from Le Havre, Dieppe, Rouen, Honfleur, souri, French coureurs de bois (woodsmen) and other fishing ports explored the waters who intermarried with American Indians, off the North American coast. Initially, these slaves brought to French colonies to help mariners carried their haul back to France; meet agrarian needs, and Quebecois who soon, however, they began to dry their catch 53 Louis LeBellanger in his home in Marigny, Normandy. Though the French played a variety of instruments, the fiddle became the dominant instrument in French communities in North America.

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