The Canadianization of Newfoundland folksong; or the Newfoundlandization of Canadian folksong

The idea that folk song is an important source of national identity has been a tenant of cultural politics in Newfoundland for a century. During the years prior to Confederation this idea led to the creation of a national folk song canon by Gerald S. Doyle and others. Following Confederation, central Canadian researchers, educators, and entertainers drew upon this canon in celebrating Newfoundland folk song as Canadian folk song. Subsequently, Newfoundlanders have responded in a variety of ways to these acts of incorporation.Depuis plus d'un siecle, la notion que la chanson folklorique contribue a la formation de l'identite nationale est theme central de la politique culturelle terreneuvienne. Avant la confederation en 1949, cette notion resultait en la creation d'un canon de la chanson traditionnelle terreneuvienne par Gerald S. Doyle et ses contemporains. Apres 1949, des chercheurs, enseignants, et chansonniers canadiens se sont servi de ce canon pour celebrer la chanson folklorique terreneuvienne comme chanson folklorique canadienne. Les reactions des Terreneuviens a cet acte d'appropriation est le sujet de cet article.It is fortunate for folklorists that Newfoundland finally joined Confederation, thus enabling us to claim its amazingly rich lore as Canadian." Edith Fowke, Canadian Folklore.(f.1)In 1949, Britain's oldest colony, Newfoundland, became Canada's newest province. At the official moment of Confederation in Ottawa, the music of Newfoundland folk songs, including "The Squid Jiggin' Ground," was played on the Parliament Buildings' Peace Tower carillon.(f.2) The confluence of political event and cultural symbol represented in that ritual is the topic of this paper.It was not by chance that folk music was chosen to stand for the identity of the new province. For half a century the intellectual elite of Newfoundland had identified folksong, along with other forms of folk expression and dialect, as a national resource emblematic of its culture. The collections made by Maud Karpeles of England and Elisabeth Greenleaf of the United States in rural Newfoundland during the late 1920s reinforced this idea. Although no Canadians interested in folk music came to Newfoundland for research until the late 1940s - a significant point to which I will return later - a wide variety of folksong publications had appeared in Newfoundland by the time of Confederation. Even J.R. Smallwood, the architect of confederation and Newfoundland's first provincial premier, had contributed a collection of folk poetry in his first Book of Newfoundland in 1937.(f.3)But the most influential local publication was the Gerald S. Doyle song book. Starting in 1927 Doyle, a St. John's businessman, used free copies of his "songsters," which he entitled Old - Time Songs and Poetry of Newfoundland, to promote cod liver oil, patent medicines, and related goods that he marketed in Newfoundland, while at the same time promoting his vision of Newfoundland's culture through song and poetry. Each edition of the songster differed in contents from the last, retaining the most popular songs from earlier editions and adding new songs. In these booklets songs and poems from and about the Newfoundland past, particularly in its relatively. poor and often politically disadvantaged out ports, were used to construct a vision of the nation that echoed contemporary political events. Elsewhere I have discussed in some detail how Doyle, an out port native who had become one of Newfoundland's most successful entrepreneurs, chose texts reflecting his vision.(f.4) For example, the second edition of 1940 contrasts with the first of 1927 in having fewer comic songs conveying broad stereotypes of Irish language and character that stood for class, regional, religious, and ethnic distinctions within the country. In their place was a larger number of serious songs about wrecks, disasters, and adversities. This was congruent with the Newfoundland experience of the 1930s, a time of national, political, and economic disaster that seems to have moved many Newfoundlanders to reflect about what they shared with their compatriots. …