Le Musée de St. Boniface Museum

DISCOVERING LEGENDS – Exhi­bi­tion on dis­play from Jan­u­ary 18^th till March 18^th, 2012.

Explor­ing Fran­coph­one and Native oral tra­di­tions in North America

Dur­ing his field stud­ies through­out French-speaking North Amer­ica, Jean-Claude Dupont col­lected hun­dreds of leg­ends, record­ing them not only in com­pi­la­tions and other spe­cial­ized pub­li­ca­tions, but also in his naïve paint­ings. This exhi­bi­tion presents 100 leg­ends, part of Quebec’s her­itage, illus­trated with paint­ings, and repro­duc­tions. Vis­i­tors can share Mr. Dupont’s fas­ci­na­tion with Fran­coph­one and Native leg­ends and customs.

Long before tele­vi­sion and tex­ting, there were legends

There are var­i­ous sources of inspi­ra­tion for the leg­ends of French-speaking North Amer­ica. The French colonists who set­tled in New France brought their ances­tors’ tales with them, in addi­tion to dis­cov­er­ing the rich Native mytholo­gies already present here. Leg­ends per­sisted over the years because they answered a need, and long reflected people’s daily lives. While they had a basis in real­ity, they were embell­ished with fan­tas­tic details, and passed along for var­i­ous rea­sons. They reas­sured peo­ple by explain­ing extra­or­di­nary nat­ural phe­nom­ena, encour­aged every­one to stick to the straight and nar­row as dic­tated by the Church, strength­ened the com­mu­nity, and added some magic and humour to people’s often ardu­ous daily lives.

Nature often fea­tured promi­nently in leg­ends, along with reli­gion and the omnipres­ence of good and evil. This dual­ity was rep­re­sented by many dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters, some good and some less desir­able – includ­ing the indis­putable star of the show, the Devil. These myth­i­cal fig­ures turn up in the leg­ends illus­trated and recounted in the exhi­bi­tion, with dif­fer­ent arti­facts pro­vid­ing con­text. The exhi­bi­tion also exam­ines leg­ends inspired by actual his­toric events or other phe­nom­ena appeal­ing to people’s imag­i­na­tions. Lastly, it explores the leg­end of the fly­ing canoe, or chasse-galerie, look­ing at the many ver­sions and adap­ta­tions of this lit­er­ary clas­sic. This exhi­bi­tion is pro­duced in part­ner­ship with the Musée québé­cois de cul­ture pop­u­laire in Trois-Rivières and Pointe-à-Callière, Mon­tréal Museum of Archae­ol­ogy and History.