On Some Indigenous Folklore (1891)
Dubhghlas de hÍde, drawn from his experiences living in Fredericton, New Brunswick
The historical connections between the Gaels and the Indigenous Peoples of Canada reveal a fascinating interplay of perceptions and cultural comparisons. Some authors tried to explain the complex Indigenous societies of North America by likening them to the chieftainships of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland that were more familiar to European audiences. Surviving written sources attest to a mistaken belief among some Irish and Scottish Gaelic speakers themselves that Indigenous North Americans might also be Gaels. Linguistic similarities, based on very dubious spellings and pronunciations, attempted to show that the Anicinàbemowin language was related to Irish,(1) or Ojibwemowin to Scottish Gaelic.(2) Charles Vallancey, in his 1782 “Grammar of the Iberno-Celtic or Irish Language”, even asserted that the Algonquin name in Irish, "Algan-Cine," signified the ‘Noble People.’ (3)
Beyond invented linguistic similarities, Indigenous cultural practices and mythologies were also examined through this colonizing lens. Douglas Hyde, prior to founding Conradh na Gaeilge in Ireland, was a teacher at the University of New Brunswick. While there, Hyde learned about the culture of the Wolastoqey people during his winter cariboo hunting trips. During these hunts, Hyde was regaled with the stories of his Indigenous companions, although they we clear with him that much was lost in translation. In Canada, Hyde had seen Indigenous communities preserve a distinct element of their cultural identity in their language, which he attempted to learn. This interaction, as well as meeting another Irish speaker in Canada, stirred something deep within Hyde and recalled Ireland’s own Gaelic storytelling tradition to him. He wrote an article on what he saw as possible connections across the traditions, delicately suggesting common elements as well as some few stories that may have been influenced by Gaelic culture through the early fur trade. While some language and views in his article, titled “On Some Indian Folk-Lore,” are dated and paternalistic, Hyde clearly held his companions and their culture in high regard. Rather than assume Irish as the primary source for any element, Hyde compared the two oral cultures as equals, discovering commonalities through shared humanity.
Returning to Ireland, Hyde expanded on the wisdom he had been shown in Canada and set to work on his own manifesto “The Necessity of De-Anglicizing Ireland,” which marked the beginning of the Irish language revival. Hyde was made Ireland’s first Uachtarán (President) in 1938.
The following article, published by Hyde in the Providence Sunday Journal, is presented for historical consideration, but must be understood within its context. There are several antiquated passages here omitted, and [square brackets] have been used to replace terms in the original text and title with culturally sensitive words.
“There are many spots in Canada where, despite repeating Winchesters and growth of population, the big game, moose and caribou, are not yet extinct. Such places are to be found all over the province of New Brunswick, especially in the Northern counties. This province is thinly populated, and about four-fifths, or even more, of it is still covered with forest and jungle, interspersed by ‘barrens’ or pieces of poor, untimbered land, varying from a quarter of a mile to several miles in extent, and forming the feeding ground of the caribou, who live on moss, which they paw up from under the snow, and on a kind of grey lichen, which hangs from the branches of the hackmatack or tamarack (English spruce) trees.
I had long been endeavouring to secure some folklore and old stories from the [Wolastoqiyik], who dwell along the Saint John [Wolastoq] and other inland rivers in New Brunswick…
[One companion of mixed descent] was the son of an old Hudson Bay voyageur, who had become so [naturalized] that he had never spoken anything to his children but [Wolastoqey*], and this man, who had an exuberance of French vivacity in his nature, was, like Mercurius, chief speaker and also chief story teller for the rest of the party. [The Wolastoqiyik] were more taciturn and did not know English sufficiently well to tell a long story in it, and although I had picked up several hundred words and phrases of [Wolastoqey] I did not understand it sufficiently to follow a rapidly told story. Accordingly the majority of the stories which I jotted down came from the French [person of mixed descent], who, having been born in an English-speaking part of the province of New Brunswick, where his father settled, spoke [Wolastoqey*] and not very fluent English, but strange to say, hardly any French…
…Many of the stories of [the companions of mixed descent] seemed to me to have filtered into [Wolastoqey*] from a French Canadian, and some actually from a Scotch Gaelic or Irish source… It was, however, quite natural that his father, having been an old Hudson Bay voyageur, should have picked up Scotch Gaelic stories from his fellow hunters, great numbers of whom were Scotch, and afterwards recited them in [Wolastoqey*] to his children…
…The supernatural stories told by the [Wolastoqiyik] bore a great resemblance to those of the old world, and several of them were close parallels to stories which I had already taken down in Gaelic from the recitation of Irish peasants; one in especial, of which I gave a brief abstract with its Czech equivalent in my last paper on folklore, ‘The King of Ireland’s Son.’ I found that the blow man who figures there, and who blew with one nostril so hard that the wind from it would turn a mill, and the foot-man, who, with one foot over his shoulder, was still swift enough to keep a field full of hares from running away, were familiar figures to my [Wolastoqiyik companions], though whence they derived their acquaintance with these worthies, I cannot say, for it may possibly have been from some Gaelic source. On the other hand, I found a pretty close [Indigenous] parallel to one of my Gaelic stories, which, from the name of the hero and the nature of the incidents, could never, I think, have been the result of [Indigenous] imagination polishing up a white man’s tale, but must have been a genuine [Wolastoqiyik] story. It was as follows: [Hyde here continues by relating the story, leading to this conclusion:]
As soon as [the bear] awoke he went in search of Noval to tear him to pieces. He met the white stallion and the white bull also, who were going on the same journey, for after being thrown down the rocks they managed somehow to escape and get back again. All three went to Noval’s house and when Noval heard they were coming he ran away along with his wife, and the bear, the bull and the stallion pursued them. At last Noval and his wife got into a boggy place, where they could run no longer, and Noval said, ‘It’s as good for us to wait for our death quietly as to kill ourselves running.’ With that he sat down on the ground, and waited for them. But when they saw him sitting down waiting for them they were afraid to come near him for fear he would do them some other harm. ‘That’s the way he was,’ says the stallion, ‘when he made music for me and the next thing he did was to push me over the rocks.’ ‘That’s the way he was with me too,’ said the bull. ‘That’s the way he sat above on the tree with me,’ said the bear, ‘we may as well go home and leave him.’ They went away then and left him, and Noval and his wife went home and made a feast and I was there, too, and I drank too much, and they pitched me out of the door, and that’s how I got this broken finger.
Such was the [Wolastoqiyik] story, retold here in all points exactly as I heard it, from numerous notes jotted down during the narration, but the Irish parallel is so curious that I must give at least its conclusion. In the Irish story the beasts are white horse, lion and fox, upon each of which the hero, who is a tailor, has played off a trick, with the intention of keeping them in captivity forever; the lion, for instance, had his tail pegged into a hole, like the bear in the [Wolastoqey] story. They regain their freedom and pursue the tailor, along with ‘the King’s army from Dublin.’ The tale concludes thus:
The lion and the fox, and the army of Dublin, went on then, trying to catch the tailor, and they were going till they came to the place where the old white gearrán (horse) was, and the old white gearrán said to them that the tailor and his wife had been there in the morning, and ‘loose me out,’ said he, ‘I am swifter than ye, and I’ll overtake them.’ They loosed out the old white gearrán then and the old white gearrán, the fox, the lion, and the army of Dublin pursued the tailor and wife together, and it was not long till they came up with him, and saw himself and his wife out before them.
When the tailor saw them coming he got out of the coach with his wife, and he sat down on the ground. When the old white gearrán saw the tailor sitting down on the ground he said: ‘That’s the position he had when he made the hole for me, that I couldn’t come out of, once I went down into it. I’ll go no nearer to him.’"
‘No,’ said the fox, ‘but that’s the very way he had when he was making the thing for me, and I’ll go no nearer to him.’
‘No,’ said the lion, ‘but that’s the very way he was when he was making the plough that I was caught in. I’ll go no nearer to him.’
They all went from him then and returned. The tailor and his wife came home to Galway. They gave me paper stockings and shoes of thick milk. I lost them since. They got the ford and I the stepping stones. They were drowned, but I came safe.
It is a very noticeable fact that in these two parallel stories the attitude of the hero to the beasts which treat him well and whom he treats badly is unexplained. It is the more curious because folk Marchen are, as a rule, perfectly intelligible and reasonable, but here there is no intelligible moral at all, for not only does the hero treat the beasts badly without a cause, but he escapes from the consequences of his own cruelty.”
*Hyde simply uses the term “the Indian language.” It is assumed here as Wolastoqey as the other companions are specifically identified as speakers of Wolastoqey.
For citation, please use: De hÍde, Dubhghlas. 1891. “On Some Indigenous Folklore.” Ó Dubhghaill, Dónall. 2024. Na Gaeil san Áit Ró-Fhuar. Gaeltacht an Oileáin Úir: www.gaeilge.ca
Adapted from: Hyde, Douglas. 1891. “On Some Indian Folklore.” Providence Sunday Journal. 12 April.
