Introduction: Folklore in Canada

Introduction:Folklore in Canada Pauline Greenhill (bio) and Peter Narváez (bio) In the introduction and afterword to this special issue of the Journal of American Folklore on Canada, we refer to several kinds of "stories we tell about ourselves" (see Geertz 1973:448). There are stories that Canadian folklorists have told about ourselves-and an indication of what new versions of those stories might look like. There are stories that American folkloristics has told about itself-and suggestions toward what a Canadian folkloristics might wish to say about those stories. And there are stories that American folkloristics has told about Canada-and establishing how those stories have changed. Because we cannot assume that all JAF readers are familiar with all of these stories, we will try to detail their basic structures as well as to critique them (or refer to locations where readers may learn for themselves). This is not, however, the history of Canadian folkloristics (for that see Carpenter 1979; Desdouits and Turgeon 1997; Pocius 2000), but only of the portion that relates directly to JAF. Of course, there is another series of stories here, told in the eight articles that appear in this special issue. Rather than expecting a coherent metanarrative that details how these individuals contribute to the parts of the whole, readers should seek in these works the theoretical and analytical touchstones of Canadian folkloristics that we point to in this introduction and reflect on in the afterword. This special issue is not a thematically linked collection of articles; it is, instead, a series of works that exemplify a national perspective on folklore as a subject of study and as a discipline. We will keep the descriptive metacommentary to a minimum, in order to allow each to tell its own story. But these are not the first Canadian stories told in JAF, so we begin with the following: Stories American Folkloristics Has Told about Canada: The First 100 Years of JAF When Pauline Greenhill's research assistant photocopied every entry relating to Canada in the first 100 years of JAF (see Jackson et al. 1988), the resulting pile of paper was over a foot deep.1 There is a wealth of material in this collection, deserving more than the cursory glance we can provide here. The first 75 years of JAF display a strong, pervasive Canadian influence, yet now the publication of an article by a Canadian [End Page 116] scholar or about a Canadian topic is rare in JAF. Similarly, Canadian involvement in the American Folklore Society is limited. The contents of these early years of Canadian scholarship are a revelation, largely because we (the authors) had hitherto assumed (quite mistakenly, as it turns out) that the current situation has a long history and had persisted throughout the journal's run. This special issue of JAF devoted to Canada has eight predecessors, published between 1916 and 1950 (see Carpenter 1979:197). Indeed, JAF's initial editorial statement mentioned specifically the collection of the "Lore of French Canada, Mexico, etc." (pp. 3-7) as part of the society's mandate. A survey of JAF's first 100 years indicates that, from the very beginning, the journal went well beyond this potentially restricted sphere of interest in publishing Canadian materials. Indeed, the documentation and scholarship on Canadian traditions comprised a significant portion of other aspects of the mandate, including presenting "Lore of the Indian Tribes of North America (Myths, Tales, etc.)" (1888). Not only First Nations and French,2 but also Anglo and various other immigrant traditions were noted, reported on, and, to some extent, theorized by JAF contributors, although these cultural groups were not originally deemed central to the journal's or the society's studies. Canadian content in topics is fairly easy to determine. It is more difficult to identify every contributor of material on Canada, but they appear to fall into four categories. One group includes Franz Boas and his students, reflecting his systematic project to record the traditions of the original peoples of North America. These contributors are mainly Americans and immigrants like Boas and Sapir, but a few are Canadians influenced by and/or working for Boas and his students and...

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