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Tag Archives: Évangéline

The Phoenix: on the Importance of Symbols & Myths

12 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Bestiaries, Myths, Symbols and Emblems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aberdeen Bestiary, Ave Phœnice, Évangéline, Job, Lactantius, mythology, myths, pays de Québec, symbols and emblems

Phoenix_detail_from_Aberdeen_Bestiary
“The Phœnix,” The Aberdeen Bestiary
(Photo credit: Wikipedia) 
 

Aberdeen Bestiary

If the myth of the phœnix did not exist, we would probably invent it. Mythical creatures are usually born of a human need, which, in this case, is the need for rebirth. Moreover, given that the Phœnix is a transcultural and nearly universal figure, we can presume that the need for rebirth is widely and profoundly rooted in the human imagination.

Our phœnix is the mythical singing bird that is reborn from its ashes. It [le phénix] is associated with a 170 elegiac-verse poem written by Lucius Cæcilius Fiminature  Lactantius, an early Christian author (c. 240 – c. 320) and an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I. The Ave Phœnice is about the death and rebirth of a mythical bird, a bird that rises from its own ashes. This poem was retold in English as The Phœnix, an anonymous Old English poem composed of 677 lines, based on Lactantius’s Ave Phœnice.

Given that the phœnix rises from its ashes, it constitutes a powerful symbol that one can associate with survival, as is the case with Évangéline and Maria Chapdelaine‘s mythic “pays de Québec.” The phœnix is a source of hope to the inhabitants of lands decimated by wars or natural disasters. As a symbol of rebirth, the phœnix also brings hope to those who, like Job, who have lost everything. This is how it appears in the Hebrew Bible:

 I thought I would end my days with my family/ And be as long-lived as the phœnix. (Job.29:18) [i]

Mythical and Mythological Animals

Although it appears in the Bible, I am tempted to consider the phœnix as a mythical rather than mythological figure. Mythological figures have ancestors and descendants, or a lineage, which can hardly be the case with the immortal phœnix. However, given that it can rise from its ashes and is therefore immortal and godlike, this distinction may be rather artificial and insignificant. In other words, whether mythical or mythological, the phœnix is a more powerful symbol than the dragon, the unicorn and the griffin, creatures that also lack a lineage, or mostly so.

In beast literature, he is zoomorphic in that he combines features borrowed from many animals, except obviously human features. Remember that Machiavelli’s centaur was half human and half horse. Our phœnix is an animal, albeit legendary.

In Greece, the phœnix (purple) was an “Arabian bird, the only one of its kind, which according to Greek legend lives a certain number of years, at the end of which it makes a nest of spices, sings a melodious dirge, flaps its wings to set fire to the pile, burns itself to ashes and comes forth with new life.”[ii]

The Phoenix (Bestiary.ca)

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica “in ancient Egypt and in Classical antiquity, [the phœnix] was a fabulous bird associated with the worship of the sun. The Egyptian phœnix was said to be as large as an eagle, with brilliant scarlet and gold plumage and a melodious cry.[iii] Besides, it had a life span of no less than 500 years and “[a]s its end approached, the phœnix fashioned a nest of aromatic boughs and spices, set it on fire, and was consumed in the flames. From the pyre miraculously sprang a new phœnix, which, after embalming its father’s ashes in an egg of myrrh, flew with the ashes to Heliopolis (“City of the Sun”) in Egypt, where it deposited them on the altar in the temple of the Egyptian god of the sun, Re.”[iv] The Egyptian phœnix symbolized immortality.

Phoenix depicted in the book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch (1747-1822).

F. J. Bertuch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Islamic mythology the phœnix was identified with the ‘anqā,’ also a bird, but one that “became a plague and was killed.”[v]

Fantasy Literature and elsewhere

The phœnix was used by J. K. Rowling in the fifth book of the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phœnix, 2003. It is also featured in Jean de La Fontaine, “Le  Corbeau et le Renart,” (Book I.2), or the “Raven and the Fox,” where the Fox tells the crow that because of its beautiful voice, it is a phœnix among the guests of forests:  “Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ces bois.”  In French, blackmail is translated by le chantage. The fox makes the corbeau sing and the cheese drops.

Even the ageless Cinderella narrative has phœnix-like dimensions. The word Cinderella (Cendrillon) is derived from ashes: cinders and cendres. Through the mediation of her fairy godmother, the ash-girl, reduced to that role by jealous sisters and a mean stepmother, a second wife, becomes the princess of fairy tales.

Christian Symbolism

Moreover, we cannot leave aside the phœnix as a Christian symbol. For Christians, the immortal bird represents the resurrection of Christ. On the third day, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead as the phœnix rises from his ashes. In the liturgical year, Christians go from Ash Wednesday to the Resurrection: Easter.

Mere Mortals

We cannot escape death as we are mere mortals, but life is nevertheless perpetuated.  Outside my window there are naked trees, but they will again be adorned. And even if one’s land is a paper land, a literary homeland, that too is a land. In 1889-1890, Henri-Raymond Casgrain, the author of Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline was President of the Royal Society of Canada and quite lucid. Yet there is no “real” Évangéline. She was created by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in 1847.

The manner in which humanity copes with its condition often leads to mythification and once the myth is in place, it can be as real and powerful as is Évangéline to Acadians and her “pays de Québec” to Maria Chapdelaine.  

 

Phoenix, from Aberdeen Bestiary


[i] Donald Ray Schwartz, Noah’s Ark: an Annotated Encyclopedia of Every Animal Species in the Hebrew Bible (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000), p. 400, p. 405, pp. 408-409.

[ii] “phœnix,” in Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, revised by Adrian Room (London: Cassel House, 2001[1959]).

[iii] “phœnix.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/457189/phoenix>.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

composer: Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971)
piece: “The Firebird”  first performed for Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes (1910)
performers:  Vienna Philharmonic (Salzburg Festival, 2000) 
conductor: Valery Gergiev
photograph: Igor Stravinsky
 

Igor Stravinsky©Micheline Walker
1 February 2012
WordPress

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More on the Tail-Fisher

01 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, United States

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Acadian, Évangéline, Cajuns, Deportation of Acadians, Georgia, Gregg Howard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Pourquoi tales, Reynard, Tail-fisher, Thirteen Colonies, Uncle Remus

How the Rabbit lost His Tail

Photo credit: Google

RELATED ARTICLES:

  • Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher (michelinewalker.com)
  • Reynard the Fox, the Itinerant (michelinewalker.com)
  • Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (michelinewalker.com)
  • Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (cont’d) (michelinewalker.com)
  • Uncle Remus & Tar-Baby (michelinewalker.com)

In a post published in 2011, I traced Reynard the Fox’s steps from various European countries to Georgia, US, where he is featured in Joel Chandler Harris‘ (9 December 1848 – 3 July 1908)[i] Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation.  It would be my opinion that deported Acadians told Reynard stories and Æsopic fables to the Black population of Georgia when they were finally allowed to leave the ships in which they sailed down the east coast of the current United States.  With the exception of Georgia, the Thirteen Colonies were not interested in providing a home to Catholics.  Acadians expelled in the second wave of the Grand Dérangement, c. 1857-58, were sent to England and France, but may also have moved to Louisiana.

The expulsion of the Acadians took place during the French and Indian War (1755-1763). British officials posted in Boston deported 11,500 Acadians to prevent this French-speaking population and their Amerindian allies from helping the increasingly dissatisfied citizens of the Thirteen Colonies gain independence from Britain.

Acadians lived in the present day Maritime Provinces of Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  They also lived in the state of Maine, US.  Many fled to Canada where they lived in “P’tites ‘Cadies” (small Acadies) or were rescued by Amerindians when British soldiers were rounding them up.  Moreover, many of the deportees whose ships sailed down the coast of the eastern US,[ii] found their way back from Georgia to the current Canadian Maritime provinces.[iii]

However, among those who arrived in Georgia, US, a large number travelled to Louisiana, then a French colony, and their descendants are called Cajuns.  These are the Acadians who, in my opinion, told Reynard stories and Æsopic fables to the coloured population of Georgia whose status they shared.  However, in The Tales of Uncle Remus, the trickster ceases to be the fox.  In America, with a few exceptions, the tricksters will be the rabbit (Uncle Remus) and the coyote.  In Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit is led by Brer Fox into fishing with his tail.  As for our Cherokee tale, told in a video inserted at the bottow of this post, Fox is not only leading the rabbit but trying to play a trick on an American “trickster,” the rabbit.

Old Plantation Play Song, 1881

Old Plantation Play-Song, 1881 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Expulsion of the Acadians WordPress [iii]

Expulsion of the Acadians (Photo credit: Gov. of N.S. & WordPress [iv])

Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie

The deported Acadians were put aboard ships in a pêle-mêle fashion.  Husbands were separated from wives, parents from children and couples from one another.  American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) immortalized this tragic event in an epic poem entitled Évangéline, published in 1847.  Longfellow‘s poem, Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie is a Gutenberg ebook (number 2039) that one can access by clicking on Évangéline.  Longfellow was motivated to write his Évangéline by American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864) and he may have been helped by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.

The poem tells the story of a fictional, and now mythic, Évangéline whose family name is Bellefontaine.  She is separated from her betrothed, Gabriel Lajeunesse, during the Great Upheaval (le Grand Dérangement) and spends years looking for him.  She finds him in Philadelphia where, as an old woman, she is working as a Sister of Mercy tending to  the victims of an epidemic.  Her beloved Gabriel dies in her arms.  (See Évangéline, Wikipedia.)

Deportation_of_Acadians_order,_painting_by_JefferysDeportation Order

Charles William Jefferys (25 August 1869 – 8 October 1951)
Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org 
 

Brer Rabbit replaces Brer Fox as Trickster

But let us now return to Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox.

Interestingly, as mentioned above, the Tales of Uncle Remus include the tail-fisher motif in that a rabbit’s bushy tail is shortened when it gets stuck in the hole through which he is fishing, trying to catch fish, as did Brer Fox.  Although Brer Fox may have intended for Brer Rabbit to lose his tail, in Uncle Remus, the tail-fisher motif is mostly a “pourquoi” tale, the French word for “why.”  Such tales are origin stories or etiological tales.

Joel Chandler Harris devised an eye dialect to represent a Deep South Gullah. To  summarize the story, it tells of Brer (Brother) Rabbit who is.  walking down the road shaking his long, bushy tail when he meets Brer Fox walking along with a string of fish.  They spend time with one another (“wid wunner nudder,”) and Brer Fox says that he got the string of fish at the Baptizing creek.  Brer Fox tells Brer Rabbit that he sat there with his tail in the water and that, in the morning, he discovered he had caught many fish.

“…en drap his tail in de water en set dar twel day-light, en den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w’at he don’t want, he kin fling back.”

(…and dropped his tail in the water and sat there until daylight, and then drew a whole armful of fish, and then those he did not want, he could throw back in the water.)

So Brer Rabbit tries to catch fish in the same manner, but the water freezes and when he tries to pull his tail it is no longer there:  “en lo en beholes, whar wuz his tail?” (and lo and behold, where was his tail?).

“One day Brer Rabbit wuz gwine down de road shakin’ his long, bushy tail, w’en who should he strike up wid but ole Brer Fox gwine amblin’ ’long wid a big string er fish!W’en dey pass de time er day wid wunner nudder, Brer Rabbit, he open up de confab, he did, en he ax Brer Fox whar he git dat nice string er fish, en Brer  Fox, he up’n ’spon’ dat he katch urn, en Brer Rabbit, he say whar’bouts, en Brer  Fox, he say down at de babtizin’ creek, en Brer Rabbit he ax how, kaze in dem days dey wuz monstus fon’ er minners, en Brer Fox, he sot down on a log, he did, en he up’n tell Brer Rabbit dat all he gotter do fer ter git er big mess er minners is ter go ter de creek atter sun down, en drap his tail in de water en set dar twel  day-light, en den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w’at he don’t want, he kin fling back. Right dar’s whar Brer Rabbit drap his watermillion, kaze he tuck’n sot out dat night en went a fishin’. De wedder wuz sorter cole, en Brer Rabbit, he got ’im a bottle er dram en put out fer de creek, en w’en he git dar he pick out a good place, en he sorter squot down, he did, en let his tail hang in de water. He sot dar, en he sot dar, en he drunk his dram, en he think he Gwineter freeze, but bimeby day come, en dar he wuz. He make a pull, en he feel like he comin’ in two, en he fetch Nudder jerk, en lo en beholes, whar wuz his tail?” Chapter XXV 

Conclusion

This particular tale is an example of the tail-fisher motif, Aarne-Thompson: AT type 2.  However, I have also found the tail-fisher motif in a the Cherokee tale, mentioned above and told in the video inserted below.  As is the case in The Tales of Uncle Remus, our Cherokee tale is, first and foremost, an etiological or “pourquoi” tales, rather than a trickster tale but the fox remains the trickster.  However, of particular interest here is that The Tales of Uncle Remus are an American version of the Reynard stories and Æsopic and that they may have been transmitted to the Black population of Georgia, US, by Acadians deported in the first wave of the expulsion, when the ships carrying Acadian deportees sailed down to Georgia.[v]  However, were it not for Joel Chandler Harris, we may never have known why the Black population of Georgia knew about Reynard and various Æsopic tales.

As for our Cherokee tale, it is a Reynard story inasmuch as Fox wants to get back at the Rabbit because the Rabbit is a tricskter.  Moreover, the dramatis personae also includes a Bear, Bruin or Brun, bearing a Cherokee name.  In the Cherokee tale, the Bear helps pull the Rabbit out of the hole in the ice, which is when the Rabbit loses his tail.

It could be, therefore, that the Glooscap myths include one tale about a rabbit who lost its tail.

_________________________

[i] Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist. (See Joel Chandler Harris, in Wikipedia.)

[ii] To my knowledge, the history of the Expulsion has not been fully investigated.  It would appear that the Acadians were expelled in two waves, rather than all at once, and that some ships sailed towards Europe, to England and France.  Moreover, Paul Mascarène (c. 1684 – 22 January 1760), a descendant of French Huguenots émigrés, may have been among the officers who organized or suggested the Expulsion or Deportation.

[iii] Antonine Maillet’s novel entitled Pélagie-la-Charrette is about Acadians returning to their former territory.

[iv] Canada: Cultures and Colonialism to 1800 (HIST 4508).  WordPress

[v] See Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, « La Patrie littéraire : errance et résistance », Francophonies d’Amérique, <http://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.html?vue=resume>.

_________________________

Native American Indian Children’s Stories Storyteller Tales Legends Myths, told by Gregg Howard

Rabbit who loses his tail, Uncle Remus

Rabbit who loses his tail, Uncle Remus

© Micheline Walker
1 May 2013
WordPress 
Photo credit:  Google

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The Phoenix: on the Importance of Symbols & Myths

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Bestiaries, Medieval Bestiary, Mythology, Myths, Symbols and Emblems

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Aberdeen Bestiary, Ave Phœnice, Évangéline, Job, Lactantius, legengary animals, mythology, myths, pays de Québec, symbols and emblems

Phoenix_detail_from_Aberdeen_Bestiary
“The Phœnix,” The Aberdeen Bestiary
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 

Aberdeen Bestiary

If the myth of the phœnix did not exist, we would probably invent it. Mythical and legencreatures are usually born of a human need, which, in this case, is the need for rebirth. Moreover, given that the Phœnix is a transcultural and nearly universal figure, we can presume that the need for rebirth is widely and profoundly rooted in the human imagination.

Our phœnix is the mythical singing bird that is reborn from its ashes. It [le phénix] is associated with a 170 elegiac-verse poem written by Lucius Cæcilius  Fiminature  Lactantius, an early Christian author (c. 240 – c. 320) and an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I. The Ave Phœnice is about the death and rebirth of a mythical bird, a bird that rises from its own ashes. This poem was retold in English as The Phœnix, an anonymous Old English poem composed of 677 lines, based on Lactantius’s Ave Phœnice.

Given that the phœnix rises from its ashes, it constitutes a powerful symbol that one can associate with survival, as is the case with Évangéline and Maria Chapdelaine’s mythic “pays de Québec.” The phœnix is a source of hope to the inhabitants of lands decimated by wars or natural disasters. As a symbol of rebirth, the phœnix also brings hope to those who, like Job, who have lost everything. This is how it appears in the Hebrew Bible:

 I thought I would end my days with my family/ And be as long-lived as the phœnix. (Job.29:18) [i]

Mythical, Mythological and Legendary Animals

Because of his features, the phœnix is a zoomorphic. It combines features borrowed from other animals. Given that he is not a real animal, one is tempted to call it a mythical creature, but it appears in the Bible, and Greek mythology. Mythological figures have ancestors and descendants, or a lineage, which can hardly be the case with the immortal phœnix. However, given that it can rise from its ashes and is therefore immortal and godlike, the phœnix is a more powerful symbol than the dragon, the unicorn, the griffin, creatures that lack a lineage, or mostly so. See List of Legendary Creatures, Wikipedia)

In beast literature, he is zoomorphic in that he combines features borrowed from many animals, except obviously human features. Remember that Machiavelli’s centaur was half human and half horse. Our phœnix is an animal, albeit legendary.

In Greece, the phœnix (purple) was an “Arabian bird, the only one of its kind, which according to Greek legend lives a certain number of years, at the end of which it makes a nest of spices, sings a melodious dirge, flaps its wings to set fire to the pile, burns itself to ashes and comes forth with new life.”[ii]

The Phœnix (Photo credit: Bestiary.ca)

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica “in ancient Egypt and in Classical antiquity, [the phœnix] was a fabulous bird associated with the worship of the sun. The Egyptian phœnix was said to be as large as an eagle, with brilliant scarlet and gold plumage and a melodious cry.[iii] Besides, it had a life span of no less than 500 years and “[a]s its end approached, the phœnix fashioned a nest of aromatic boughs and spices, set it on fire, and was consumed in the flames. From the pyre miraculously sprang a new phœnix, which, after embalming its father’s ashes in an egg of myrrh, flew with the ashes to Heliopolis (“City of the Sun”) in Egypt, where it deposited them on the altar in the temple of the Egyptian god of the sun, Re.”[iv] The Egyptian phœnix symbolized immortality.

Phœnix depicted in the book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch (1747-1822) (Photo credit: Wikipadia)

In Islamic mythology the phœnix was identified with the ‘anqā,’ also a bird, but one that “became a plague and was killed.”[v]

Fantasy Literature and elsewhere

The phœnix was used by J. K. Rowling in the fifth book of the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phœnix, 2003. It is also featured in Jean de La Fontaine, “Le  Corbeau et le Renart,” (Book I.2), or the “Raven and the Fox,” where the Fox tells the crow that because of its beautiful voice, he is a phœnix among the guests of forests:  “Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ces bois.”  In French, blackmail is translated by le chantage. The fox makes the corbeau sing and the cheese drops.

Even the ageless Cinderella narrative has phœnix-like dimensions. The word Cinderella (Cendrillon) is derived from ashes: cinders and cendres. Through the mediation of her fairy godmother, the ash-girl, reduced to that role by jealous sisters and a mean stepmother, a second wife, becomes the princess of fairy tales.

Christian Symbolism

Moreover, we cannot leave aside the phœnix as a Christian symbol. For Christians, the immortal bird represents the resurrection of Christ. On the third day, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead as the phœnix rises from his ashes. In the liturgical year, Christians go from Ash Wednesday to the Resurrection: Easter.

Mere Mortals

We cannot escape death as we are mere mortals, but life is nevertheless perpetuated.  Outside my window there are naked trees, but they will again be adorned. And even if one’s land is a paper land, a literary homeland, that too is a land. In 1889-1890, Henri-Raymond Casgrain, the author of Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline was President of the Royal Society of Canada and therefore lucid. Yet there is no “real” Évangéline. She was created by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in 1847.

The manner in which humanity copes with its condition often leads to mythification and once the myth is in place, it can be as real and powerful as is Évangéline to Acadians and her “pays de Québec” to Maria Chapdelaine.

 

Phoenix, from Aberdeen Bestiary


[i] Donald Ray Schwartz, Noah’s Ark: an Annotated Encyclopedia of Every Animal Species in the Hebrew Bible (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000), p. 400, p. 405, pp. 408-409.

[ii] “phœnix,” in Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, revised by Adrian Room (London: Cassel House, 2001[1959]).

[iii] “phœnix.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/457189/phoenix>.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

composer: Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971)
piece: “The Firebird”  first performed for Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes (1910)
performers:  Vienna Philharmonic (Salzburg Festival, 2000) 
conductor: Valery Gergiev
photograph: Igor Stravinsky
 

Igor Stravinsky©Micheline Walker
1 February 2012
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

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Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (cont’d)

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Antonine Maillet, Évangéline, Jean-Mandé Sigogne, Pélagie-la-Charette, Prix Goncourt, Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Une Acadie heureuse

So we were discussing the manner in which a dispersed nation can find a mythic yet very real past that allows resistance. Yes the deportation of Acadians did take place. It’s a fact. But it did not destroy Acadie. Although he could not have anticipated the fate of his heroine, Longfellow had given Acadians a redeeming symbol. Acadie was Évangéline, both a saint and a martyr!

There were twelve-thousand Acadians who lived more or less amicably with Amerindians. They were farmers.

Most of the Acadians who were deported did not come back. But among those who were finally allowed to leave the ships in Georgia, US, some started travelling towards Louisiana which was still a French colony. However, many decided to return home. Antonine Maillet’s Pélagie-la-Charette tells the story of Acadians travelling back home. Madame Maillet was awarded the 1979 prestigious Prix Goncourt for this truly fine novel.

Antonine Maillet

If fact, I analyzed Pélagie-la-Charette, and my publication is online, in French. If you click on Patrie Littéraire, my article will appear. Bourbeau is my mother’s name.

Le Père Sigogne

We are now returning to Acadie where we will meet one of the French Catholic priests who fled to England, but whom England sent to its French-speaking colony where some became missionaries to Acadians who were settling back.

Father Sigogne [i] was born on April 6, 1763, in Beaulieu-lès-Loches, France, and died in Ste Marie (Church Point or Pointe-de-l’Église) on November 9, 1844. He had spent forty-five years in what is now Nova Scotia, and he is the best known of the French missionaries sent to the Maritime Provinces.

Sigogne’s story is quite the story. According to l’abbé Casgrain, our Father Sigogne had his head under the about-to-fall blade of the guillotine when he was saved: [ii]

Father Sigogne & the guillotine

(please click one page to read text) 

Yet, although he had escaped the guillotine, father Sigogne decided to join several other priests who had fled to England. This was the same England that had been a refuge to Huguenots, French Calvinist Protestants. And this was the England who having deported thousands of Acadians would make its French-speaking Canadian subjects into full-fledged British subjects, under the terms of the Quebec Act of 1774.  History is so convoluted.

* * * 

The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoléon and Pope Pius VII, signed on July 15, 1801. Priests could return to France safely, but Father Sigogne and other priests were already in Canada. Sigogne stayed in the current Nova Scotia, and some stayed in Quebec, then Lower Canada. When studying Canadian Music, I was able to detect the presence of French priests in Quebec. Between 1800 and 1802, three chant and hymn books, “modelled on the traditional French service,” were published in Quebec: Le Graduel romain, published in 1800, Le Processional romain, published in 1801, and Le Vespéral romain. [iii] There can be no doubt that these hymn and chant books are the product of fresh information from France.

As for the Maritimes, the Acadians who were settling back needed the institutions they had had: parishes, schools, colleges. This is how Father Sigogne and other French priests could help them. Moreover, as well educated and refined a gentleman as Father Sigogne befriended the authorities. In his article on Thomas Chandler Haliburton, (December 17, 1796 at Windsor, N.S — August 27, 1865 at Isleworth, Middlesex, England), Fred Cogswell writes that Haliburton was a “friend of the celebrated Abbé Jean-Mandé Sigogne.” [iv]  As for Bernard Pothier, in his entry on Jean-Mandé Sigogne he writes that Haliburton, the creator of Sam Slick, found him, i.e. Sigogne, “a man of strong natural understanding, well informed.”

* * *

So, the fictional Pélagie, who travels back to Acadie, and Father Sigogne, who creates parishes, schools, etc., resemble our voyageurs. They gave themselves a purpose and they were happy to have a job. In England, there was very little for l’abbé Sigogne to do, but in Acadia, everything had to be rebuilt. For Sigogne, this was a real opportunity. People stumble and rise up again.

As for l’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain, during his pilgrimage, he was looking at what a priest would consider a miracle: an Acadie rising from its ashes with priests leading the way. Times have changed. 

Charette

 Grieg: Ave Maris Stella,* St. John’s College Choir

(please click on title to hear music)
* The Ave Maris Stella is the national anthem of Acadians. 
 
 
_________________________
[i] Bernard Pothier, “Jean-Mandé Sigogne,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol VII) <http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=3662>
 
 
[ii] Henri-Raymond Casgrain, Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline, p. 426. 
<http://www.archive.org/stream/cihm_00528#page/425/mode/2up>
 
 
[iii] Timothy J. McGee, The Music of Canada (New York & London: Norton & Company, 1985), p. 42.
 
 
[iv] Freg Cogswell, “Thomas Chandler Haliburton,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol VII) <http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=4475>
 
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