|
Because so much of his work and his life are conducted in French, English-speaking Islanders might not realize how prolific folklorist, historian, author, and broadcaster Georges Arsenault is. A new translation of his Acadian Legends, Folktales, and Songs from Prince Edward Island will introduce even the most unilingual of Islanders to his work as the Island’s premier collector of Acadian folklore.
Georges’s vocation for Acadian folklore and history is a gift of his personality as much as his environment. He grew up in an Abram’s Village where his mother and grandparents told wonderful stories and jokes “les ’tits contes,” as they called them. But he says it’s not because his family was special that he became interested in becoming a folklorist. Neither was he raised surrounded by the traditional folksongs it is now his passion to collect: “I was born in 1952. Radio was already out—always in English…Elvis is what I heard in the house.”
Georges’s impulsion towards history led him to university, where it came as a revelation to him that a number of the songs he had heard at house parties and bonfires existed in many versions, and that they had been transmitted orally over centuries. Soon, he began to collect songs from informants in his own community and discovered that many of his neighbours knew hundreds of songs. “It was like a treasure that was buried—a trunk that was dusty,” he says.
Georges speaks of each of his informants by name, communicating in his every word respect, admiration, and affection. He remembers, for instance, visiting Maggie Chaisson in St. Edward when he first began collecting folklore. She sat in the kitchen with a daughter and a niece and was initially suspicious. But when she got comfortable, Georges was overwhelmed by what he heard around that kitchen table: “Maggie Chaisson knew old songs. Probably most did not survive even in the Evangeline area. And here, this woman in a mostly assimilated community, who didn’t speak English, sang old medieval ballads, hundreds of years old…It was such a discovery.”
Georges’s experience as an interviewer led to his other current role, as a host of Société; Radio Canada’s morning radio show, “L’Acadie c’matin.” He had no special training for radio, but he knew how to coax people into being interviewed and how to put them at ease on the air.
When he began with SRC, there was a small listenership for French radio—and a small staff, too. In fact, Georges, started alone, with no reporter, and with the additional challenge of “doing the show in studio in Moncton, pretending to be on the Island!” To build an audience, he built on his contacts, hoping the families and friends of those he interviewed would tune in to hear. Contests, birthday wishes, and cross-promotions with La Voix Acadien all helped. Soon, his radio broadcast allowed him to showcase Acadian tradition, folklore, and living, contemporary culture to a much broader audience.
When Georges talks about the rewards of his work, he is visibly moved. He recalls in particular the comments of a dearly loved neighbours, a hard-worker and early riser who said to him, “I don’t know what’s most important in the morning—getting up to hear your show or saying my prayers. Sometimes, I have to hurry up saying my prayers so I don’t miss anything.”
Georges is also moved by the current flourishing of Acadian folk music. Performers such as Edith Butler, and local groups such as Barachois, and Vishten have used Georges’s folklore collection as source material. These artists, especially the local ones, “gave more meaning or value to the tradition,” says Georges. He delights in playing original source recordings back to back with contemporary arrangements, on the radio and for guests. “I’ll often mention and give credit to the composer or informant,” he notes with a smile. “A song comes from the person who remembered it. It’s important to give credit to these people.”