Baptizing Novices: Ritual Moments among French Canadian Voyageurs in the Montreal Fur Trade, 1780-1821

Podruchny, Carolyn

doi:10.3138/chr.83.2.165

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Canadien, and often métis, men were cast in the role of fur trade laborers-engagés and especially voyageurs-due to a "supposed affinity" for that particular segment of the reorganized fur trade labor market (see Wolf 1982, p. 381). At the same time, young Canadien men, who typically were already connected to the fur trade, came to "value membership in the group thus defined, as qualification for establishing economic and political claims," as well as for reinforcing a preexisting sense of personal and group (i.e., voyageur) identity that in many ways revolved around the fur trade (Wolf 1982, p. 381;Podrunchny 2000Podrunchny , 2002Podrunchny , 2004.…”

Section: Ethnic Segmentation Of the Fur Trade Labor Marketmentioning

confidence: 98%

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing Identity and Houses in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

Mann

2008

Int J Histor Archaeol

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This study asks the question, "What happens when the colonizers become the colonized?" It examines the social, cultural and political-economic transformations that took place as first the British and then the Americans wrested control of Great Lakes fur trade from the French and their Native American allies. One result was the ethnic segmentation of the fur trade labor market, which attempted to relegate Canadiens to the role of fur trade laborers. In response Canadien traders constructed homes and identities that were constitutive of both their fur trade society heritage and their political-economic position.

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Section: Ethnic Segmentation Of the Fur Trade Labor Marketmentioning

confidence: 98%

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing Identity and Houses in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

Mann

2008

Int J Histor Archaeol

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“…Peterson s'inspire des propos du sociologue Chris Andersen, qui critique la compréhension populaire de la Nation métisse -souvent considérée sous 3 Nous pensons ici à l'importance de la parenté fi ctive dans le développement de relations commerciales et sociales qui donnèrent forme et défi nition au corridor créole. Plus précisément, le présent article s'inspire des travaux de Susan Sleeper-Smith ( 2005) et de Carolyn Podruchny (2002), qui accordent un rôle essentiel au rite du baptême dans la survie, la croissance et la défi nition de l'identité ainsi que dans le succès économique des gens engagés dans le commerce des fourrures. Le rituel du baptême fut un élément important dans la création de réseaux de parenté fi ctive, car les parrains et marraines des néophytes n'étaient pas toujours liés par le sang ou par alliance aux charges qu'ils prirent sous leur aile dans le contexte de l'enseignement religieux.…”

Section: Jalons Historiographiques Et Méthodologiquesunclassified

“…En signant le registre des baptêmes et en participant à la cérémonie, ils s'engagent à enseigner la foi et ses pratiques à la personne désignée et à suivre leur fi lleul ou fi lleule lors des sacrements subséquents, si possible. L'importance du rite du baptême chez les Canadiens fut remarquable, comme en témoigne la présence d'adaptations du rituel dans la culture populaire des voyageurs qui séjournèrent à Michilimackinac dans le but de se livrer au commerce des fourrures (Corblet, 1881 : 376 ;Podruchny, 2002).…”

Section: Le Baptême Catholique : Sa Pratique Sa Portée Et Ses Croyantsunclassified

Réseaux sociaux catholiques et construction identitaire dans les Pays d’en haut : l’exemple du fort Michilimackinac (1741-1821)

Pigeon

2018

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Cet article explore le rôle clé qu’ont joué les femmes dans la construction de réseaux sociaux catholiques en marge du commerce des fourrures dans les Pays d’en haut entre 1741 et 1821. Nous constatons que le rite du baptême au fort Michilimackinac devint à la fois un outil religieux et économique. En mariant l’histoire sociale aux humanités numériques, nous observons, par l’entremise de graphes, la construction de liens idéologiques et commerciaux au sein de nombreux réseaux sociaux historiques. Nous dépassons la métaphore du réseau en utilisant un logiciel d’analyse de réseaux sociaux (nommé visone) qui permet de voir et de comprendre comment une femme en particulier, Louise Dubois, se servit du catholicisme pour améliorer sa situation sociale dans la région des Grands Lacs. Les femmes autochtones et allochtones devinrent marraines à plusieurs reprises dans les Pays d’en haut. Ce faisant, elles tissèrent des liens stratégiques, se rapprochant des communautés autochtones avoisinantes grâce au baptême, premier sacrement d’initiation à la religion catholique.

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Werewolves and Windigos: Narratives of Cannibal Monsters in French-Canadian Voyageur Oral Tradition

Podruchny¹

2004

Ethnohistory

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Oral Tradition," Ethnohistory (in press, forthcoming 2003). While traveling around Lake Superior in the 1850s, German explorer Johann Georg Kohl met many retired and elderly French Canadian voyageurs and their Aboriginal wives and families. A constant theme in his discussions with them was privation. One old voyageur reflected that "In my utter misery, I have more than once roasted and eaten my mocassins." 1 Stories about starvation often led to stories about cannibals, such as that of a man who killed and ate his two wives and all his children in succession; another who turned on his friend; and a third who wandered about the forests like a hungry wolf, preying on unsuspecting humans. 2 Much as in the stories of werewolves in European and Euro-American communities, cannibals were frequently portrayed as humans transformed into monsters, terrorizing any that crossed their paths. Kohl reported that in 1854 on Île Royale, close to the north bank of Lake Superior, a "wild man" hunted humans, and was thought to be a windigo. 3 Windigos were specifically Algonquian monsters who ate human flesh and had hearts of ice. 4 Human beings could be transformed into windigos by witchcraft or famine cannibalism. 5 In one story told to Kohl, A Canadian Voyageur, of the name of Le Riche, was once busy fishing near his hut. He had set one net, and was making another on the beach. All at once, when he looked up, he saw, to his terror, a strange woman, an old witch, une femme windigo, standing in the water near his net. She was taking out the fish he had just caught, and eating them raw. Le Riche, to his horror, took up his gun and killed her on the spot. Then his squaws ran out of the adjoining wigwam and shouted '[R]ish!' ... '[R]ish! cut her up at once, or else she'll come to life again, and we shall all fare ill.' 6 2 What can we learn from these stories? On first glance it seems that the French Canadian voyageurs who chose to spend their lives in the pays d'en haut (literally translates as "the country up there") adopted the cultural ways of their Algonquian wives and kin, which included a fear of windigos. Yet the stories reflect more complex cultural movement, a mingling of cosmologies, and oral technologies, distinct to French Canadian voyageurs. The cannibal monster stories that voyageurs told each other reveal many aspects of their lives and cosmology, such as starvation, mental illness, and metamorphosis. In addition, the French Canadian belief in werewolves (loups garoux) provided voyageurs with a framework to understand windigos in French Canadian terms, and in the narratives about cannibal monsters, the motifs of windigo and werewolf mingled. These points of cultural conjunction became a form of métissage outside of the practice of marriage and the birth of métis generations. French Canadian voyageurs came from an oral world where systems of knowledge and meaning were shared through stories and songs. When French peasants crossed the Atlantic to settle in the St. Lawrence valley starting in the first quarter of the seve...

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Baptizing Novices: Ritual Moments among French Canadian Voyageurs in the Montreal Fur Trade, 1780-1821

Cited by 6 publications

References 36 publications

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing Identity and Houses in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing Identity and Houses in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

Réseaux sociaux catholiques et construction identitaire dans les Pays d’en haut : l’exemple du fort Michilimackinac (1741-1821)

Werewolves and Windigos: Narratives of Cannibal Monsters in French-Canadian Voyageur Oral Tradition

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