There is an old saying: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" The implications being that by ignoring the past you will continually make the same mistakes over and over again
Outside of religious texts, which we did not develop, North Americans have very few stories that provide life lessons or guidance specific to our environment. The stories that have been the lifeblood of so many great civilizations either don't exist, or have lost their places in our lives. In consequence we latch on to objects, such as flags, or institutions, like political office, to define ourselves.
These symbols of nationhood while powerful and meaningful in their own way do not provide a story to build an identity around. A folk tale like Paul Bunyon or Johnny Appleseed tells more about the American spirit than any number of flags. By severing our ties to, or diminishing the importance of, stories like these, countries do themselves irreparable harm.
Fortunately for us those few that we have are still out there, waiting for us to pick them up and tell them. A good story never dies; it just waits for someone willing to listen for it to come back to life. As a continent we need to slow down and listen to our past before it is too late to learn the lessons it has to offer.
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Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
Culture Section Editor Lisa Hoover thought this post was great and worthy. Click HERE to find out why.
2 - Lorna
Media with its love of all that is youthful has created an inhospitable environment of cynicism. We are told to value youth above all else. There is no respect for what the elderly have to offer and as a result the traditional tales are lost and forgotten.
3 - Alexina MacEwan
Excellent Article!
I stumbled upon your blog entry while searching for the same thing myself. I am currently organizing a night of winter story telling for children and was trying to find some Canadian folktales such as the Chasse-Galerie, and have been turning up nothing on the internet.
Isn't it interesting how we can't even remember even a few folk tales from our own culture, but we are being flooded with stories from other peoples? I wish this trend was only in North America, but sadly it is spreading all across Western Europe. As more and more immigrants flood into our homelands, we are forgetting more and more of our heritage and culture. By the year 2050 statistics show that 50% of Britain will no longer be of British Origin, Italy is due to have more than hald of their population be of African descent, and with the Canadian government uping our immigrants to 310 000 a year (well over 50% of those immigrants coming from China and another good portion from India), and wanting to flood small-town Canada with a large portion of those immigrants, you may well think our country a lost cause.
I am worried for our people and for our ways. European History is so rich and every we turn it seems to be disappering more and more. It makes me sad that I hear and see Chinese more often in this country than French. And I am angered by the fact that one cannot even have pride in one's European ancestry without being labeled a racist...
If we want our stories and our ways to survive we have to start fighting for them. If we want our children to know what Canadian culture really is, we have to start teaching them ourselves. The school system certainly won't do it. (A friend of mine had to remove her daughter from public school because the children were not even allowed to celebrate Christmas in class any more, because some students "may be offended" by the practise.)
It's enough to make one crazy. But when I read articles like yours I am heartened that I am not the only one noticing the degradation of our culture, and if I'm not the only one than maybe we can start to do something about it.
Thank you for your essay.
Hail Our Folk!
~A.MacEwan
4 - vikk
Yes, one more example of our children's loss of innocence. I remember one year when I was about nine or ten I decided to read all the fairytales from all over the world. It was wonderful reading, but then I read all the mythologies, too, and the next year I read about all the religions in the world. I wonder if kids today mine subjects as deeply as I once did.
5 - gypsyman
Its not often that I comment in my own comment section, but I'm afraid commetn #3 has left me no choice.
I regret to inform you that if I thought for a moment that people would take such a racist and xenophobice response as you did when I wrote this article I never would have written it.
The problem lies not in us accepting other cultures into our midst, its the fact that we never developed a North American one. I'm quite shocked and appaled that you would take a simple peon to the joys of folk tales and interpret it as an attack of diversity and multiculuralism. I assume that you are Christian, so I'd like to ask you to try and open your mind and heart to the rest of the world. It might make you a little less unhappy
6 - Ann
I am putting together a lesson on Quebec culture for a high school French class in the U.S. I was wondering what it is about this particular Quebecois legend that has made it such an important part of the culture, as opposed to the loup garou, for instance. Is it the combination of elements contained in the legend--isolation from family and society, the conflict between temptation and religious adherence, etc. that have made it so long-lasting? I love the story, just would like to understand it from a socio-cultural perspective. Thank you.
7 - Richard Marcus
Ann
You don't mention which French Canadian legend you are refering to in your letter so all I can respond with is a generalization. Quebec has always been more aware of its culture than the rest of Canada, as part of attempts to preserve the integrity of their identity.
They are also the only province and people which do have a distinct culture, the rest of us are a mishmash of Brtitish and European descent. In spite of what an earlier commentator might think, the people of the British Isles aren't the only ones who have been here long enough for their folk tales to take root.
I don't know if the tales of Quebec are ones that grew up there or were ones that came over with them from France in the 1600's. If there are particular folk tales of Quebec you're looking to research I'm sure a search on the Internet will go a long way in assisting you.
Good luck
Richard Marcus
8 - Amy Friedman
I hope you'll check out our website; I've been researching and adapting folktales for 15 years, published weekly through Universal Press Syndicate. On our upcoming CD (www.mythsandtales.com), you'll find a renowned French Canadian folktale, one of my favorites, The Talking Cat, read by the marvelous Len Cariou.
9 - Richard Marcus
Just to add a note to Ms. Freidman's comment, I remember reading her stories when they were being printed in our local newspaper- I don't think they were in syndication then, I believe she lived locally and the newspaper ran them for its readers.
I always thought that she did a really wonderful job with her recreations and made them come to life. If this CD approaches the written stories in quality and all the readers are equal to Mr. Cariou, it will be worth what ever price they're asking.
Richard Marcus
10 - ria
its very good
11 - Jacqueline
I just came across your essay and I enjoyed reading it. I agree completely.
I'm an illustration major as Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and I just illustrated The Talking Cat for my senior degree project.
Keep up the good work
Jacqueline
12 - Edith Tarbescu
I'm the author of one of the books pictured above: "The Boy Who Stuck Out His Tongue," and I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed the article. I'm also available for school/libraray visits. [Personal contact info deleted]
Thanks,
edith Tarbescu
13 - Marni
Thanks Richard. I do know teachers who get kids telling Paul Bunyan and the gang. I'm a tale-teller myself, helping teachers to get kids telling. It's a joy. Great work when I can get it...BUT yes, you say something that is true. Few young people are getting soaked in tales as you and I were. So glad you plugged the books of Jane Yolen and others. TALEs are still ALIVE but we have to keep reading and telling them!
14 - Lee-Ellen Marvin
Ironically, the tales that you point to (Johnny Appleseed, Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, and Ichabod Crane) are all literary in origin.
The first European settlers came with strong religious convictions and a desire to escape the old world cultures, so perhaps there had been a conscious effort to forget the old fairytales so associated with lower classes and non-Christian superstitions.
Have you read the Jack Tales collected by Richard Chase? There are traditional folktales that reflect American life; many of the traditional European folktales were retold in Canada as well, collected by folklorists in the forties and fifties. They just haven't made it onto the Internet.
Consider this: we still tell folktales at parties and around the watercooler but we call them "jokes". Storytelling has re-emerged as a profession and many of us are using traditional folklore material.
Lee-Ellen
15 - Scott
Recently I was lucky enough to come across a full set of Childcraft books at a garage sale down here in Canberra, Australia. As a child I loved these books, but they were thrown out at some stage. My two favourite volumes were the ones with poems and rhymes, and the stories and fables.
I am now in my 30's, and reading these again is liking entering a time tunnel in any number of ways. Some pages brought back long-forgotten memories, but other realisations hit me now too.
For example, when I read the same stories as an adult, I realised that what I had thought (as a child) were contemporary stories and poems were in fact often 50-100 years older, many by famous authors.
The poems also reflected a Mid-West North American view of the world at the time, for example most of the pictures of children were white. This is not an attack, it was just something I noticed as a contrast to the multicultural city I live in, and my own foreign wife reflects this change.
But the biggest things I realised were that while these books had great stories, very few of them existed for me outside of the book. I have not yet gone looking for them on-line (don't have time), but it also made me realise that outside of the Disneyfied regulars (Cinderella, Snow White, etc), I couldn't actually tell any stories to children off the top of my head.
Also, similar to what Richard has said in his post, Australia also has some folk tales. Some are Aboriginal, some are from the pioneers/settlers, and some involve both. But outside of the folk music community, the same things impacting upon modern North America are wiping knowledge of these things out down here as well. My wife says that the same process is also occuring in Japan.
Many Australians (even those of a settler background like me) could not name more than a handful of poems or stories from either Banjo Paterson or Henry Lawson, and these two men are among the most renowned. I am sure there are plenty of others (Henry Handel Richardson, Adam Lindsey Gordon, and more)...
Perhaps there is a silver lining to this, however. I am starting to realise the value of being from the generation with a foot in both eras, i.e those who grew up learning from books and black-and-white TV, and yet among those who appreciate the benefits of the Web and use digital technology every day at work and beyond.
This post is an example that while it is wonderful to be able to share knowledge across the world, it is up to us as individuals to make our own decisions about who we are, what we value, and to be proactive in keeping alive stories and knowledge that relate to our own towns and regions :)