Abstracts
Abstract
In 1949, anthropologist Marius Barbeau recruited Margaret Sargent, a young classically trained musician from Ontario to work for him at the National Museum of Canada. As the first ever musicologist to be employed by this institution, Sargent’s first task was to transfer Barbeau’s wax cylinder sound recordings to magnetic tape. While working on Barbeau’s massive collection, Sargent became interested in collecting folksongs and proposed to him the idea of going to Newfoundland to do research. With Barbeau’s support, in 1950 she spent eight weeks in the province, collecting folksongs, fiddle tunes, and other folklore materials mainly in St. John’s and Branch. Despite launching the first Canadian funded research into Newfoundland’s folksong traditions, little is known about Sargent’s activities for the National Museum mainly because she published nothing of her Newfoundland work. Instead, her successor Kenneth Peacock is often viewed as launching this research. Although Peacock later visited the province six times, eventually publishing a three-volume collection Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1965), it was Sargent who initiated the Museum’s folksong research program in that province. This essay, which is based in part on interviews with Sargent, as well as her field notes and tapes, provides a detailed account of her Newfoundland fieldwork and of the kinds of material she was able to acquire during her one summer of fieldwork. It highlights the fieldwork challenges Sargent faced while in Newfoundland and how her groundbreaking fieldwork paved the way for Peacock’s later research.
Résumé
En 1949, l’anthropologue Marius Barbeau recruta Margaret Sargent, jeune musicienne de formation classique de l’Ontario, pour travailler avec lui au Musée national du Canada. En tant que première musicologue jamais employée par cette institution, la première tâche de Sargent fut de transférer les enregistrements des cylindres phonographiques de cire sur bande magnétique. Tandis qu’elle travaillait à la massive collection de Barbeau, Sargent commença à s’intéresser à la collecte de chansons folkloriques et lui proposa de se rendre à Terre-Neuve pour effectuer des recherches. En 1950, avec l’appui de Barbeau, elle passa huit semaines dans la province, recueillant des chansons, des airs de violon et d’autres matériaux folkloriques, principalement à Saint-John’s et à Branch. Mais, bien qu’elle ait réalisé la première recherche subventionnée dans le domaine des traditions de la chanson folklorique à Terre-Neuve, les activités de Sargent pour le Musée national sont peu connues, car elle n’a rien publié de son travail à Terre-Neuve. Au lieu de cela, son successeur, Kenneth Peacock, est souvent considéré comme étant celui qui a inauguré cette recherche. Bien que par la suite Peacock ait visité six fois la province et qu’il ait fini par publier un recueil en trois volumes des Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1965), c’est Sargent qui avait lancé le programme de recherche en chansons folkloriques du Musée dans cette province. Cet article, qui se base en partie sur des entrevues avec Sargent autant que sur ses notes de terrain et ses enregistrements, relate en détail son travail de terrain à Terre-Neuve et décrit le type de matériaux qu’elle put recueillir au cours de son été passé sur le terrain. Il souligne les défis auxquels Sargent avait eu à faire face sur le terrain à Terre-Neuve et comment son travail précurseur a facilité plus tard les recherches de Peacock.
Appendices
References
- Babcock, Barbara A. 1987. “Taking Liberties, Writing from the Margins, and Doing It With a Difference.” Journal of American Folklore 100: 390-411.
- Barbeau, Marius. 1919. “The Field of European Folk-lore in America.” Journal of American Folklore 32: 185-197.
- Blouin, C. 1982. “Index to Collection Sargent, M./Tower, L. Audio Documents, 1950. S.T-A-1.1 to 1.9” Canadian Centre for Folk Studies. Library and Documentation Services, Canadian Museum of Civilization.
- Bronson, Bertrand Harris. 1977. “Maud Karpeles.” Journal of American Folklore 90: 455-464.
- Burke, John. 1928. Burke’s Popular Songs. St. John’s: Long Brothers.
- “Cable, Howard (Reid).” 1992. In Hellmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin and Kenneth Winters (eds.), Encyclopedia of Music in Canada: 182-83. Toronto: University of Toronto Press
- Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Québec. Fonds Marius Barbeau, Sargent Correspondence.
- ———. Fonds Margaret Sargent, Barbeau Correspondence.
- ———. Fonds Michael Owen Jones. “Index of Tapes Concerning Folk Belief, Ritual and Medicine Recorded in Newfoundland November-December 1969.”
- Carpenter, Carole. 1979. Many Voices: A Study of Folklore Activities in Canada and Their Role in Canadian Culture. Canadian Centre For Folk Culture Studies, Paper no 26. National Museum of Man Mercury Series, Ottawa: National Museum of Canada.
- Casey, George. Collection. Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. Accession 71-57.
- Crellin, John. 1994. Home Medicine: The Newfoundland Experience. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Cowle, Alan H. 1992. “The Leslie Bell Singers.” In Hellmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin and Kenneth Winters (eds.), Encyclopedia of Music in Canada: 744. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Creighton, Helen, and Doreen H. Senior. 1950. Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia. Toronto: Ryerson Press.
- Croft, Clary. 1999. Helen Creighton: Canada’s First Lady of Folklore. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing.
- Cuff, Robert H. 1984 [1967]. “Howse, Claude K. (1907- )”. Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 2: 1097. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers.
- ———. 1991. “Labrador Fishery.” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 3: 225-230. St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications.
- Cullum, Linda. 1992. Under Construction: Women, the Jubilee Guilds and Commission of Government in Newfoundland and Labrador 1935-1941. Unpublished thesis, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.
- Doyle, Gerald S. (comp and pub.) 1955. Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. St. John’s: Gerald S. Doyle Ltd.
- ———. 1940. Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. St. John’s: Gerald S. Doyle Ltd.
- ———. 1927. Old-Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland. St. John’s: Manning and Rabbitts.
- Doyle, Marjorie. 1989. “Gerald Stanley Doyle, O.B.E., K.S.G.” The Newfoundland Quarterly 84(3): 32.
- Duke, David. 1981. “Sargent, Margaret (m McTaggart).” In Hellmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin and Kenneth Winters (eds.), Encyclopedia of Music in Canada: 843. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Emerson, Frederick R. 1937. “Newfoundland Folk Music.” In J. R. Smallwood (ed.), The Book of Newfoundland, vol. 1: 234-238. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers.
- Emerson-Furlong, Carla. Collection. Frederick Emerson, lectures and musical compositions circa 1930s and 1940s. Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. Accession 98-125.
- English, L. E. F. Collection. Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. Accession 84-570.
- Fowke, Edith. 1988. Canadian Folklore. Oxford University Press, Toronto.
- ———. (comp.) 1973. 1986. The Penguin Book of Canadian Folksongs. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
- Frecker, G. A. 1972. “F. R. Emerson.” M.U.N. Gazette [St. John’s] 5(14): 2.
- “Gallant Hussar.” The Word on the Street. National Library of Scotland. http://www.nls.uk/ broadsides/broadside.cfm /id15036, retrieved 17 April 2006.
- Gard, Peter. Collection. Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. Accession 80-197.
- Gordon Murray, Ettie L. 1981 [1967]. “Devine, Patrick Kevin (1859-1950).” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 1: 614-15. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers.
- Graham, Elizabeth. 1994. “Women’s Institutes and Jubilee Guilds.” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and and Labrador, vol. 5: 606-607. St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications.
- Greenleaf, Elisabeth B. and Grace Y. Mansfield. 1933. Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Greenhill, Pauline and Diane Tye. 1997. Undisciplined Women: Tradition and Culture in Canada. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Gregory, David. 2000. “Maud Karpeles, Newfoundland, and the Crisis of the Folksong Revival, 1924-1935.” Newfoundland Studies 16(2): 151-165.
- Guigné, Anna Kearney. 2004. Kenneth Peacock’s Songs of the Newfoundland Outports: The Cultural Politics of a Newfoundland Song Collection. Unpublished dissertation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s.
- ———. 2000. “Obituary. Kenneth Howard Peacock, 1922-2000.” Ethnologies 22(2): 289-294.
- Halpern, Ida. Indian Music of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Folkways (FE 4523, 1967) LP, 33 1/3 rmp.
- Hiscock, Philip. 2005. “I’se the Bye and its Sisters: Language, Symbol and Crystallization.” In Martin Lovelace, Peter Narváez and Diane Tye (eds.), Bean Blossom to Bannerman, Odyssey of a Folklorist: A Festschrift for Neil V. Rosenberg: 205-242. St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Publications.
- Horan, Catherine F. 1981. “Branch.” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 1: 240-41. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers (1967).
- Janes, Diane P. 1981 [1967]. “English, Leo Edward Francis (1887-1971).” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 1: 780. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers.
- “John Joe English: 16 June 1886-6 February 1991.” 1991. The 15th Annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival, August 2, 3, and 4. St. John’s: St. John’s Folk Arts Council, 4.
- Kallmann, Helmut, Gilles Potvin and Kenneth Winters (eds.). 1992. Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Karpeles, Maud (coll. and ed.). 1934. Folk Songs from Newfoundland, 2 vols. Accom. Ralph Vaughan Williams et al. London: Oxford University Press.
- ———, (ed.) 1932. English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians Collected by Cecil Sharp, 2 vols. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press.
- Kirwin, William J. (ed.). 1982. John White’s Collection of Johnny Burke Songs. St. John’s: Harry Cuff.
- Krachun, Carla S. 1991. “Macleod, Robert Ferguson (1908-1982).” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 3: 418-419. St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications.
- Lehr, Genevieve. 1985. Come and I Will Sing You. St. John’s: Breakwater.
- Laws, G. Malcolm. 1963. Native American Balladry. The American Folklore Society: Philadelphia.
- ———. 1957. American Balladry From British Broadsides. The American Folklore Society: Philadelphia.
- Lornell, Kip. 2002 [1992]. Introducing American Folk Music: Ethnic and Grassroot Traditions in the United States. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
- Lovelace, Martin. 2004. “Unnatural Selection: Maud Karpeles’s Newfoundland Field Diaries.” In David Atkinson and Ian Russell (eds.), Folksong: Tradition, Revival and Re-Creation: 284-298. Aberdeen: The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen.
- MacEdward Leach and the Songs of Atlantic Canada, 2006, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive and Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media and Place, http:// www.mun.ca/folklore/leach/, retrieved April 2006.
- MacKenzie, W. Roy. 1928. Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- ———. 1919. The Quest of the Ballad. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Mannion. John J. 1976. Point Lance in Transition: The Transformation of a Newfoundland Outport. Memorial University of Newfoundland: McClelland and Stewart.
- ———. McTaggart, Margaret Sargent Collections. Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. Accessions 98-237 and 99-138.
- McTaggart, Margaret Sargent. 1967. “A Preliminary Survey of Folk Music in British Columbia, 1965.” The Newsletter of the Canadian Folk Music Society 11(1-4): 67-71.
- McNaughton, Janet C. 1981. “John Murray Gibbon and the Inter-War Folk Festivals.” Canadian Folklore canadien 3(1): 67-73.
- Mercer, Paul. 1979. Newfoundland Songs and Ballads in Print 1842-1974: A Title and First Line Index. Bibliographic and Special Series no 6. St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland.
- Merriam, Alan. 1963. “Purposes of Ethnomusicology: An Anthropological View.” Ethnomusicology 7: 206-13.
- Murphy, James, comp. 1923. Songs Their Fathers Sung. For Fishermen. Old Time Ditties. St. John’s: James Murphy.
- Murray, Hilda Chaulk. 1979. More Than 50%: Woman’s Life in a Newfoundland Outport, 1900-1950. St. John’s: Breakwater books.
- Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Creigton, Helen. Collection. Margaret Sargent Correspondence, Vol. 2818, file 116; Accession MG1.
- Nowry, Laurence. 1995. Man of Mana: Marius Barbeau. Toronto: NC Press.
- O’Brien, Patricia. 1994. “Tuberculosis.” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 5: 430-434. St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications.
- O’Connor, Manus. 1901. Irish Come All Ye’s: A Repository of Ancient Irish Songs and Ballads Comprising Patriotic, Descriptive, Historical and Humorous Gems, Characteristic of the Human Race. New York: Lipkind.
- Ouimet, Louise. 1985. “Carmen Roy.” Culture & Tradition 9: 41-57.
- Paddock, Fay. 1991. “ Harold MacPherson (1885-1963),” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador., vol. 3: 425-26. St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications.
- Peacock, Kenneth. 1969. “Folk and Aboriginal Music.” In Arnold Walter (ed.), Aspects of Music in Canada: 62-89. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- ———. 1965. Songs of the Newfoundland Outports. 3 vols. Bulletin no 197, Anthropological Series 65. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada.
- Pelletier, Carol (comp.). 1996. “Kenneth S. Goldstein MUNFLA Song Collections Finding Aid.” Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA): St. John’s, Newfoundland.
- Power, Ernestine, Bernadine Careen and Cathy Nash. 1989. Our Cultural Heritage: A Short History of the Cape Shore Area. Green’s Harbour, NL: Full Circle Printing.
- Rosenberg, Neil V. 1994. “The Canadianization of Newfoundland Folksong; Or The Newfoundlandization of Canadian Folksong.” Journal of Canadian Studies 29(1): 55-73.
- ———. 1991. “The Gerald S. Doyle Songsters and the Politics of Newfoundland Folksong.” Canadian Folklore canadien 13(1): 45-57.
- ——— and Anna Kearney Guigné. 2004 [1933]. “Foreword to the 2004 Edition.” In Elisabeth Greenleaf and Grace Mansfield, Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland: ix-xxv. St. John’s: Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Publications.
- Russell, Kelly. Tall are the Tales: Newfoundland Stories and Recitations. Pigeon Inlet (PIP-7332).
- ———. 2003. Kelly Russell’s Collection: The Fiddle Music of Newfoundland and Labrador. Vol. 2: All The Rest. Trinity, Newfoundland: Pigeon Inlet Productions.
- Sargent, Margaret. 1951. “Folk and Primitive Music in Canada.” Annual Report of the National Museum of Canada for the Fiscal Year 1949-1950: 75-79. Bulletin no123, National Museum of Canada. Ottawa: Dept. of Resources and Development.
- ———. 1950. “Seven Songs from Lorette.” Journal of American Folklore 63(248): 175-180.
- ———. 1943. “The Native and Primitive Music of Canada.” Bachelor’s Dissertation, School of Music, University of Toronto.
- Scarl, Joseph. 1972 [1944]. The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon Books.
- Seary, E. R, G. M. Story and W. J. Kirwin. 1968. The Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland: An Ethno-linguistic Study. Bulletin no 219, National Museum of Canada, Anthropological Series no 81. Ottawa: Secretary of State.
- Smallwood, J. R. (ed.). 1937. Book of Newfoundland, 2 vols. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers.
- Smallwood, Joseph R. Collection. Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archive. Memorial University of Newfoundland, Coll-075.
- Steve O’Donnell’s Wake. http://www.petemcdonald.com/print/steveodonnellswake.htm, retrieved 18 April 2006.
- Stockwood, Wayne C. 1981 [1967]. “Bursey, William Joseph (1892-1980). Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 1: 300. St. John’s: Newfoundland Book Publishers.
- Story, George, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson. 1982. Dictionary of Newfoundland English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Taylor, Mary Catherine and Carol Dyk. 1977. The Book of Rounds. New York. E.P. Dutton.
- Thomas, Philip J. 1964. The Caribou Wagon Road 1858-1868: The Opening of a Frontier. Documents in Song. Vancouver, B.C.: Folkways.
- ———. 1962. “B.C. Songs.” British Columbia Library Quarterly July: 15-29.
- Thompson, Stith. 1947. 1977. The Folktale, Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Tye, Diane. 1991. “Lessons from ‘Undisciplined’ Ethnography: The Case of Jean D. Heffernan.” In Pauline Greenhill and Diane Tye (eds.), Undisciplined Women: Tradition and Culture in Canada: 49-64. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
- Will, Gavin M. 1991. “Moakler, Leo Patrick (1910 - ).” Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador., vol. 3: 592. St. John’s: Harry Cuff Publications.
- Woodford, Paul. 1988. We Love the Place O Lord: A History of the Written Musical Tradition of Newfoundland and Labrador to 1949. St. John’s: Creative Publishers.