Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle - Memorial University of ...

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Material History Review FALL 1998 / Ai1TOMNE 1998

Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

MUSEE NATIONAL DES SCIENCES ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE

Ships, Seafaring and Small Craft Navires, culture des marins et embarcations

© National Museum of Science and Technology 1998 / Mus6e national des sciences et de la technologie 1998 M0915-7934117M.

M1

SCIENCE & SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGIE

Material History Review Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle

Editorial Board / Comite de redaction Guest Editor l Redacteur invite Garth Wilson

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY / MUS$E NATIONAL DES SCIENCES ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE

Managing Editor l Directeur administratif Geoffrey Rider

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY / MUS$E NATIONAL DES SCIENCES ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE

Associate Editor and French-Language Review Editor l R6dacteur adjoint et responsable des comptes rendus en franVais Laurier Turgeon

ISSN 1183-1073

The contents of contributions to Material History Review are solely the responsibility of the individual authors and are not to be attributed to Material History Review, its editors, production staff or Editorial Board, or the National Museum of Science and Technology. La teneur des articles de la Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle n'engage que les auteurs desdits articles . La responsabilite n'en saurait etre attribuee A la Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle, a ses r6dacteurs et reviseurs, a son personnel de production on a son comite de r6daction, ni au Musee national des sciences et de la technologie.

UNIVERSITt LAVAL

English Language Review Editor / Responsable des comptes rendus en anglais Garth Wilson Exhibit Review Editor / Responsable des comptes rendus d'expositions Chantal Fortier NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY / MUS$E NATIONAL DES SCIENCES ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE

Advisory Board / Comite consultatif Annmarie Adams

MCGILL UNIVERSITY / UNNERSITL` MCGILL

Christian Bromberger

LABORATOIRE D'ETHNOLOGIE M$DITERRAN$ENNE ET COMPARATIVE

Adrienne Hood

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Production Production Co-ordinator / Coordonnateur de ]a production

John Barton

English Editors / Reviseures de ]angue anglaise Lynn M. Wilson, Leanne Ridgeway French Editors /Reviseurs de langue frangaise Gisele Cyr, Madeleine Choquette, Stephane Brulotte Web site: http ://www.science-tech .nmstc .ca Site web : http ://www.sciences-tech.smnst .ca

Robin Inglis

NORTH VANCOUVER MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES

Richard MacKinnon

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF CAPE BRETON

Sandra Morton-Weizman GLENBOW MUSEUM

Sandra Niessen

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

Brian Osborne

Al] cover illustrations are taken from text inside ; clockwise from centre, see pages 132, 67, 91, 32 and 129. Les illustrations de la page couverture sont tirees du corps de l'ouvrage : dons le sens des aiguilles d'une montre, d partir du centre, voir pages 132, 67, 91, 32 et 129.

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY

Susan Pearce

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

Sharon Reilly

MANITOBA MUSEUM OF MAN AND NATURE

John Styles

VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

John Summers

INTERNATIONAL YACHT RESTORATION SCHOOL

Lynne Teather

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Barrie Trinder

IRONBRIDGE INSTITUTE

Dell Upton

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY

The Material History Review gratefully acknowledges the support of the Dean of Arts and the Department of Folklore, Memorial University of Newfoundland. La Revue d'histoire de ]a culture materielle est reconnaissante de 1'appui offert par le doyen des Arts ainsi que par le D6partement de folklore de la Memorial University of Newfoundland .

Material History Review 't1.iTI'On~rdi ~^998

Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle Table of Contents / Table des maiieres

, Editorial / Editorial. . . :. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . :. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .1 Small Craft / Embarcations

Articles "Probably the Most Beautiful Rowboat Afloat :" The Form and Meaning of the St Lawrence Skiff

JOHN SUIvIN1ERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

"The Featherweight and the Backwoods" and the Evolution of the Pack Canoe

HALLIE E . BOND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : . . . . . . . . .26

Research Report / Rapport de recherche Reassembly of a Sixteenth-Century Basque Chalupa

CHARLES D. MoORE . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . ..38 Ships and Shipbuilding / Navires et construction navale Articles Recent Advances in Ship History and Archaeology, 1450-1650 : Hull Design, Regional Typologies and Wood Studies

BRAD LOEWEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : . . : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

The Amsler Integrator and the Burden of Calculation

DAVID MCGEE . . . . . .. . . . :. . .. . . . . . .: . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :.. . . . . .57

Snagboats and "Dead-Heads" : Interpreting Maritime History Onboard the W. T. Preston

SCOTT MUIR STROH III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Research Report /Rapport de recherche Le Marco Polo, un navire canadien de renommee rnondiale au milieu du xrxe sibcle

DANIEL LA RocHE . . . . . .. . . . . . . .: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . ..82

,,

Coastal Communities / Communautes cotieres Articles Boat Models, Buoys and Board Games: Reflecting and Reliving Watermen's Work

PAULA J. JOHNSON . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .89 Culture mat6rielle et niveaux de richesse chez les pecheurs de Plaisance et de File Royale, 1700-1758

NICOLAS LANDRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101

Pictures and Portraits / Images et portraits

Articles Emotion as Document: Death and Dying in the Second World War Art of Jack Nichols

LAURA BRANDON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123

"You Paint Me a Ship as is Like a Ship": The Verkin Ship Portraits

PATRICIA BELLIS BIXEL . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. . . .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. . .131

Cultural Traditions / Traditions culturelles Articles Mi-marins, mi-mages : caract6res de 1'univers magico-religieux des pecheurs et des gens de mer du littoral tyrrh6nien

ALBERTO BALDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144

Les objets du rite : le bapteme de la Ligne

MAURICE DUVAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160

Voyagers in the Vault of Heaven : The Phenomenon of Ships in the Sky in Medieval Ireland and Beyond

MICHAEL MCCAUGHAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 70

Media Review / Compte rendu de media Recent Media Treatments of the Titanic Tragedy

JOHN WILSON FOSTER . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .182

Exhibit Review / Compte rendu d'exposition Edu-tainment and the Museum : A Cautionary Tale

ROBIN INGLIS .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192

ii

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus de livres Eileen Reid Marcil, Tall Ships and Tankers: The History of Davie Shipbuilders

JOHN G. ARRISOIV . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . .195 Jamie Benidickson, Idleness, Water and a Canoe: Reflections on Paddling for Pleasure

HALLIE E . BOND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196

Richard Hoffrnann, Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages

WENDY R. CHILDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198

John Szarkowski and Richard Benson, A Maritime Album: 100 Photographs and Their Stories

N . LYLES FORBES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200

Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston, From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver

ANNE GODLEwsKA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201 John E . Barnard, Building Britain's Wooden Walls : The Barnard Dynasty, 1697-1851 DANIEL G . HARRIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Peter E. Pope, The Many Landfalls of John Cabot

OLAF UWE JANZEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .206 Peter Watts and Tracy Marsh, W. Watts Fr Sons Boat Builders : Canadian Designs for Work and Pleasure, 1842-1946 STEVE KILLING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207

Wayne M. O'Leary, The Tancook Schooners: An Island and Its Boats

DAVID A. TAYLOR . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .209

Julian Mannering, ed . The Chatham Directory of Inshore Craft: Traditional Working Vessels of the British Isles DAvm A. WALKER . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .211 Contributors / Collaborateurs . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..213

ill

Editorial Editorial During the golden age of postwar prosperity in the West, maritime museums, together with the academic disciplines of underwater archaeology and maritime history, underwent a remarkable period of growth . Moreover, this was very much a mutually reinforcing expansion, with developments in one area lending strength to the other two . Beginning in the late 1950s, and gaining momentum throughout the 1960s and 1970s, public interest, scholarship and funding directed at maritime heritage increased across the board. Though some of this growth was rooted in existing institutions, the unprecedented nature of this expansion is reflected in the foundation of publications such as The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration (1972), academic enterprises such as the Atlantic Canada Shipping Project (1976) - which itself gave rise to important monographs and serials - as well as organizations such as the International Congress of Maritime Museums (1972), and the International Symposium of Boat and Ship Archaeology (1976), to mention only the best known. By all accounts, these decades were formative and hopeful times which, from the besieged perspective of the late 1990s, cannot but be remembered with a certain wistfulness and worry. Yet beyond such feelings, this legacy of rapid expansion provides an apt background against which to consider the social function of maritime material culture today. With institutional soul-searching, redefinition and reorganization currently such common elements in both the academic and museum world, it may well be worth considering the forces and circumstances that have shaped developments in this area. Writing as someone working within a museum, the emphasis here will be on the dynamics of collection development; yet as a curator, my underlying concern is essentially with the meaning and value of material culture . From this vantage point, three separate but related issues appear particularly relevant to this discussion and, by extension, to this special issue of MHR: (1) What is the social function of maritime museums in contemporary society? (2) What role should collections play in maritime

Durant la p6riode de prosp6rit6 d'aprbs-guerre qui, marqua Page d'or du monde occidental, les mus6es maritimes et les disciplines universitaires de 1'arch6ologie sous-marine et 1'histoire maritime connurent une expansion remarquable qui, en outre, se nourrissait d'elle-meme, les progr6s r6alis6s dans un domaine profitant aux deux autres . Vers la fin des ann6es 1950, le patrimoine maritime fut 1'objet d'un engouement et d'une plus grande aide financi6re, tendance qui s'accentua durant les ann6es 60 et 70 . Si cette expansion avait en partie sa source dans des institutions, son importance sans pr6c6dent fut confirm6e par la parution de publications comme The International Journal ofNautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration (1972), la mise sur pied de projets universitaires tel 1'Atlantic Canada Shipping Project (1976) - qui d6boucha lui-meme sur d'importantes monographies et s6ries -, sans oublier la naissance d'organisations comme 1'International Congress ofMaritime Museums (1972) et 1'International Symposium of Boat and Ship Archaeology (1976), pour ne citer que les plus connus . Quoi qu'il en soit, ces d6cennies furent terres de d6frichement et d'espoir, et on ne peut les 6voquer sans un brin de m6lancolie et d'inqui6tude en ces temps difficiles de la fm des ann6es 90 . Au-del6 de ces sentiments, les fruits de cette expansion acc6l6r6e cr6ent un riche substrat permettant de pr6ciser la fonction sociale de la culture mat6rielle maritime A notre 6poque . La quete des raisons profondes, la red6finition et la restructuration des institutions faisant maintenant partie de la vie quotidienne des universit6s et des mus6es, il vaut peut-etre la peine d'examiner les forces et les circonstances qui ont forg6 1'6volution de ce secteur. En tant qu'individu ceuvrant dans un mus6e, j'insisterai sur la dynamique du d6veloppement d'une collection ; cependant, A titre de conservateur, ma principale pr6occupation demeure le sens et 1'utilit6 de la culture mat6rielle . De ce point de vue privil6gi6, trois questions distinctes mais reli6es ont une pertinence particulibre dans le d6bat qui nous int6resse et, par cons6quent, dans ce num6ro sp6cial de la Revue : (1) Quelle est la fonction

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museums? (3) What sort of maritime artifacts require/deserve special attention today?

Maritime Museums and Contemporary Society

On the face of it, the defining characteristics of maritime museums are obvious enough . Maritime museums concern themselves, broadly speaking, with humanity's relationship with the marine environment. Their collections generally focus on the social, political, economic and, above all, technological aspects of living, working and playing on, or at the edge of, navigable waters. Many maritime museums have a regional focus, though some of the best known follow a national mandate and enjoy international stature. As a defining framework, this is as good and viable as any. Yet as with most museums dedicated to industrial or transportation history, there is often a strong inclination among maritime museums towards a whig view of progress, one in which technology, along with its makers and users, is portrayed as triumphant . There are, of course, some notable exceptions but they simply serve to prove a rule, the roots of which may be found in a natural desire to preserve and honour the remnants of past glory. Thus, writing with obvious concern about the prospects of provincial maritime museums in the UK, Stuart Davies observed that "the majority have been founded since 1960 as part of a broader preservation movement to save the historically important remains of the first Industrial Revolution and subsequent Victorian industrialization."' Similarly, one finds that the celebration of naval power past and present serves to sustain the numerous maritime museums and heritage sites established around preserved war ships. By contrast (and it is a contrast that is more striking with each passing day), postwar Western society has become increasingly removed from traditional sea-borne and coastal trades . The causes of this stem from mechanization, containerization, flags of convenience, the global transfer of heavy industry and, in the case of the fishery, serious stock depletion. Thus the immediate social relevance of maritime endeavour - and by extension the social function of maritime collections - has of late become obscured . The historical resonance remains intact, but the triumphant narrative line seems strangely unfinished . This is perhaps most evident in the nature and

sociale des mus6es maritiunes dans notre soci6t6 contemporaine? (2) Quel role devraient jouer les collections dans pareils mus6es? (3) A quel genre d'objets maritimes devrait-on porter attention de nos jours?

Les musees maritimes dans la societe contemporaine

D'embl6e, les 6l6ments qui d6finissent un mus6e maritime paraissent 6vidents . Au sens large, un mus6e maritime s'int6resse aux liens entre 1'humanit6 et la mer. Ses collections se concentrent gen6ralement sur les aspects sociaux, politiques, 6conomiques et surtout techniques de la vie, du travail et des loisirs dans les eaux navigables ou pr6s de celles-ci. Bon nombre de mus6es maritimes ont une vocation r6gionale, mais certains des plus connus se sont dot6s d'une mission nationale et jouissent d'une r6putation internationale . Ce cadre est aussi valable qu'un autre comme point de d6part . N6anmoins, A 1'instar de la majorit6 des mus6es consacr6s a 1'histoire de 1'industrie ou des transports, les mus6es maritimes c6dent souvent A la tentation de brosser un tableau s6cessionniste du progr6s, oiu la technologie et ceux et celles qui la forgent et 1'utilisent ont un aspect triomphateur. Bien si'ir, il existe des exceptions notables, mais elles ne font que confiuTner la r6gle, laquelle trouve ses origines dans le d6sir naturel de pr6server et d'honorer les vestiges d'un pass6 glorieux . Manifestement pr6occup6 par 1'avenir des mus6es maritimes provinciaux du Royaume-Uni, Stuart Davies ecrivait que la majorit6 d'entre eux avaient vu le jour apr6s 1960, dans la foul6e du vaste mouvement visant A sauvegarder les vestiges de la premi6re R6volution industrielle de 1'histoire et de la periode d'industrialisation victorienne qui 1'a suiviel. De mgme, c6l6brer la puissance navale d'hier et d'aujourd'hui nourrit les multiples mus6es maritimes et sites historiques dddi6s A la sauvegarde des navires de guerre . A 1'inverse (et le contraste s'accentue au fil des jours), la soci6t6 occidentale d'apr6s-guerre s'est graduellement 6loign6e des m6tiers traditionnels de la mer et des cotes. On le doit 6 la m6canisation, a 1'av6nement des conteneurs, A 1'usage de pavillons de complaisance, au transfert de 1'industrie lourde d'une r6gion du monde a une autre et, dans le cas des peches, A un grave appauvrissement des stocks . Dernibrement, les activit6s maritimes - et par extension le role social des collections maritimes - ont perdu de

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make-up of many maritime collections and their interpretation . Exhibits and discussions of contemporary maritime activity are all too rare and celebrations of past, particularly nineteenthcentury, greatness, are all too abundant. More often than not, an informed visitor will be struck by the silence concerning the very real, dramatic changes of recent years.2 Observing something similar, the editors of the literary magazine Granta offer some hint of the reasons behind this in their introduction to a special issue dedicated to "The Sea:" The sea can still make us scared and wistful - the 'Iitanic, Charles Trenet singing La Mer- but it also seems to have lost its power. The tide ofimages, metaphors and stories has been steadily retreating. There are some great and popular exceptions - the novels ofPatrick O'Brian, Hollywood's new 'ntanic - but even these see the sea as history, evocations of the way we were. Why should this be? One obvious answer is that as travellers we no longer need the sea . Another is that ships have deserted great cities and their shorelines . . . With the ships have gone the men who sailed them, their waterfront bars long closed, the old piers turned into museums or marinas .3

In view of this, maritime museums arguably face a problem of a greater magnitude than other general history or transportation museums. Moreover, the implications of this are worthy of serious consideration; for it places many maritime museums and their collections in the awkward position of being rooted in a meta-narrative that has been fractured by contemporary events and trends . Collections that once reflected active political, social and economic forces in Western society, now seem transformed into a kind of lesser collection of antiquities . This is not absolutely the case, of course. In some areas - the history of yachting comes to mind - the historical continuum still seems vibrant enough . Furthermore, historical collections will always retain significant didactic value. And yet the problem of fading social relevance remains and cannot be dismissed as merely an abstract matter of self-definition and interpretive direction (though for those within the profession these aspects may be real enough). Rather, the urgency of the matter rests with the very practical concern of trying to promote and develop maritime museums and collections at a time when public funding is being reduced, and the competition for admissions, attendance and private-sector support is growing?

leur pertinence pour la soci6t6. La r6sonance historique demeure, mais le r6cit aux accents triomphaux de nagubre semble d6sormais sonner curieusement creux. La nature et la composition de maintes collections maritimes et 1'interpr6tation de ces derni6res 1'illustrent bien. Rarement aborde-t-on les activit6s maritimes contemporaines dans les expositions et les conf6rences, tandis qu'abondent les hom6lies sur la grandeur des sibcles pass6s, en particulier le xW. Plus souvent qu'autrement, les visiteurs ferr6s dans le domaine sont frapp6s par le mutisme au sujet des changements bien r6els et draconiens de ces dernieres anneesz. Notant quelque chose de semblable, la r6daction du magazine litt6raire Granta donnait un aperru des raisons a 1'origine de cette situation dans 1'introduction d'un num6ro sp6cial sur la mer : La mer suscite encore la crainte et ]a m6lanco]ie-]e'IStanic, la chanson La Mer de Charles Trenet-, mais elle semb]e avoir perdu de so magie . La vague d'illustrations, de mEtaphores et d'histoires parait refluer constamment . Il y a des exceptions, t6moins d'une grande popularit6 - les romans de Patrick O'Brian, la nouvelle version ho]lywoodienne du 'I'itanic -, mais il s'agit ]n encore d'6vocations historiques d'une maniere de vivre aujourd'hui disparue . Pourquoi? La premiere reponse qui vient a 1'esprit est que, pour voyager, il nest plus besoin de naviguer. Une autre est que les bateaux ne font plus partie du paysage des grandes cit6s ni du rivage sur ]equel elles ant et6 erig6es. . . Avec ]es navires ant disparu les hommes qui les pi]otaient, les bars a marins ant depuis longtemps ferrn6 leurs portes et les quais se sont transformes en musees ou marinas3 . »

Face a cela, on pourrait dire que les mus6es maritimes se heurtent a un probleme plus 6pineux que les autres mus6es d'histoire gen6rale ou de transports . II convient en outre de se pencher s6rieusement sur les r6percussions d'une telle evolution, car maints mus6es maritimes et leurs collections se retrouvent dans une position d6licate, celle de voir leurs assises coulees dans une m6tanarration disloqu6e par des ev6nements et courants contemporains. Les collections, qui jadis refl6taient les tendances politiques, sociales et economiques vibrantes de la societ6 occidentale, paraissent s'etre mu6es en collections mineures d'antiquit6s . Ce n'est pas toujours le cas, bien sur. Dans certains domaines - le premier auquel on pense est 1'histoire de la navigation de plaisance -, le continuum historique semble garder tout son

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The Role of Collections in Maritime Museums

In addition to the challenge of a changing social context, maritime museums, in common with all museums, are under increasing pressure to offer visitors more than "just" traditional displays of artifacts, text panels and audio-visuals . There is today an increasing push for more active or activity-based interpretation, all of which tends to reduce the interpretive role and recognition given to collections . More to the point, with this role reduced, the costs of collecting and collections have generally been subjected to greater critical scrutiny; against which long-held arguments for the preservation of "study collections" often seem to pale . Fortunately, this scrutiny has only rarely developed into an open call for deaccessioning or an overt halt to collecting . Nevertheless, it remains true that whereas active collecting was once a very prominent aspect of museum work - and identity -this is no longer the case . Indeed, real acquisition accounts are now quite scarce. Curators are therefore increasingly reliant on donations and gifts which, though welcome, are subject to that selfperpetuating dynamic wherein what we collect and display influences the potential donor's sense of what is valuable and hence what is donated. Beyond reduced budgets, the role and value of collections has been affected by a greater division of labour and with it a further division of limited resources. As part of changing professional trends and in the face of greater competition, many museums have hired full or part-time fund-raisers or promotions experts . in addition, resources have been devoted to expensive new interpretive, often interactive, technologies aimed at augmenting or enhancing visitor experience .5 Higher standards of conservation and collection management have also been introduced and although these have certainly helped consolidate artifact holdings while improving access, higher standards have also brought higher costs. And none of this, it must be stressed, is necessarily a bad thing, though it has generally put further pressure on collection development and management . On the other side of the equation, there is still much to be said for artifacts as unique, authentic, even numinous documents of our past.s The arguments have been made often before, but bear repeating in this context (it might even be said they very much need repeating) . Collections of artifacts constitute the traditional heart

dynamisme. D'autre part, les collections historiques poss6deront toujours une grande valeur didactique . N6anmoins, le probl6me d'une pertinence sociale insuffisante persiste, et on ne peut simplement 1'6carter con-me s'il s'agissait d'une question abstraite de d6finition ou de sens de 1'interpr6tation (meme si ces aspects demeurent bien r6els pour les membres de la profession) . En fait, le noeud du probli'me r6side dans la pr6occupation trbs pragmatique de promouvoir et d'agrandir les mus6es maritimes et leurs collections A une 6poque oiu les fonds publics s'amenuisent et oiu la concurrence ne fait que s'intensifier pour les visites, l'auditoire et 1'aide du secteur priv6'.

Le r61e des collections dans les musees maritimes

En plus de lutter pour demeurer pertinents dans une soci6t6 en 6volution, les mus6es maritimes, comme les autres mus6es, subissent des pressions croissantes afin de proposer aux visiteurs autre chose que les pr6sentations classiques d'objets, de panneaux explicatifs et de mat6riel audio-visuel . Aujourd'hui, la mode favorise une interpr6tation dynamique ou fond6e sur 1'interaction, ce qui tend A att6nuer le r61e interpr6tatif des collections et 1'int6ret qu'on leur porte. D'ailleurs, ce r61e ayant perdu de 1'importance, on s'est pench6 d'un coil bien plus s6v6re sur les collections et le cout de leur constitution, et les arguments en faveur du maintien de « collections d'6tude » semblent souvent palir devant pareil examen . Heureusement, il en a rarement d6coul6 un appel A 1'alienation des collections ou un arret de leur d6veloppement. ll Wen demeure pas moins que monter une collection West plus cet aspect crucial du travail d'un mus6e, de son identit6 . De fait, les comptes d'acquisition r6els sont plut6t rares de nos jours. Les conservateurs tablent donc davantage sur les dons qui, quoique bienvenus, sont sujets a la perp6tuelle dynamique voulant que ce que 1'on collectionne et expose a une influence sur ce que les donateurs en puissance estiment avoir de la valeur et offrent. Outre 1'6rosion des budgets, le r61e et la valeur des collections ont W affect6s par une plus grande r6partition de la main-d'ceuvre, assortie d'une fragmentation des ressources d6ja limit6es . Vu 1'6volution de la profession et la concurrence plus vive, de nombreux mus6es ont embauch6 A temps plein ou partiel des experts en collecte de fonds ou en promotion. On a aussi investi dans de nouvelles technolo-

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and still lingering soul of museums; they are the defining institutional characteristic . In fact, as Dr David Wilson, former director of the British Museum, once noted, "a museum that does not collect is a dead museum."' Speaking in support of the study of material culture, Henry Glassie has argued that "the artifact is as direct an expression, as true to the mind, as dear to the soul, as language, and, what is more, it bodes forth feelings, thoughts, and experiences elusive to language . 118 Perhaps more importantly, however, for the visiting and tax-paying public, there remains an enduring association between the idea of the museum and collections ; the former are still viewed as custodians of public heritage and the latter as the physical embodiment of a common culture and history. Yet these are issues and values common to all collections. If there is a characteristic that sets maritime collections apart, it may perhaps be found in the odd marriage of triumphant progress - so often reflected in the artifacts of maritime technology - with social separation - manifest in the cultural remnants of the mariner. This, again, is a generalization . Nevertheless, viewed in the context of the whiggish origins of so many maritime collections - evident in the over-representation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - the awkwardness of this particular mixture of forward-looking technological determinism and backward-looking social anthropology becomes apparent . On the one hand, any survey of maritime museums reveals a striking degree of similarity and repetition (not to say redundancy) in the substance and spirit of the technology preserved. These artifacts tend to follow a narrative of Western progress and triumph, ideas that are particularly evident in the areas of shipbuilding, navigation, shipping and naval warfare . On the other hand, the life and work of the mariner are represented by artifacts that tend to represent an unusual sub-culture, distinct and separate from the main current of Western society. Whatever the actual extent of this separation, it may fairly be said to be the pre-eminent theme of the cultural collections, for it is the distinct nature of the mariner's life and work (now scarcely visible in contemporary Western society) that we seem most anxious to preserve . These two themes - triumphant technology and lost subculture - thus share a common, if largely unreconciled, co-existence in maritime museums ; so common in fact that it is seldom, if ever, the subject of formal comment. In light of this, the continued development of collections in maritime museums today

gies d'interpr6tation couteuses, souvent interactives, afin d'enrichir 1'exp6rience des visiteurs5 . Des normes de conservation et gestion des collections plus s6v6res ont aussi vu le jour et, si elles ont concouru A r6am6nager les r6serves d'objets tout en en favorisant 1'acc6s, elles ont aussi signifi6 des cofits plus 6lev6s . Rien de cela, soulignons-le, n'est mauvais, mais les pressions sur le d6veloppement et la gestion des collections s'en sont trouv6es accrues. Par ailleurs, on pourrait encore en dire long sur les pi6ces de collection en tant que documents uniques, authentiques, voire mystiques de notre pass6s . Les arguments ne datent pas d'hier, mais il convient de les rappeler (en fait, on pourrait dire qu'il faut les r6p6ter) . Batir une collection demeure la vocation, 1'ame du mus6e; c'est ]a d6finition meme de 1'institution. Ainsi que David Wilson, ancien directeur du British Museum, le notait : « un mus6e qui ne constitue pas de collections n'est pas un mus6e' » . Wendant 1'6tude de la culture mat6rielle, Henry Glassie soutenait que « Fobjet fagonn6 est une expression aussi directe, aussi proche de 1'esprit, aussi ch6re au coeur que le langage, mais plus encore, il s'accompagne de sentiments, de pens6es et d'exp6riences que ne peut v6hiculer le langage8 ». Toutefois, ce qui importe peut-etre le plus pour les visiteurs et contribuables, c'est que le lien entre les concepts de mus6e et de collection perdure; le premier est toujours pergu comme un sanctuaire du patrimoine public et la seconde, comme la mat6rialisation d'une culture et d'une histoire communes . Ces questions et valeurs s'appliquent A toutes les collections . ST existe une caract6ristique qui place les collections maritimes A part, peut-etre se trouve-t-elle dans le mariage insolite du progrbs triomphateur - comme le refl6tent si souvent les artefacts de la technologie maritime et de la s6gr6gation sociale - manifeste dans les vestiges culturels des marins . Il s'agit encore d'une g6n6ralisation. Quoi qu'il en soit, 6tant donn6 les origines s6cessionnistes de maintes collections maritimes, visibles dans la place excessive consacr6e aux xvme et xixe sibcles, on se rend compte de 1'incongruit6 d'un amalgame aussi particulier de d6terminisme technique ax6 vers 1'avenir et d'anthropologie sociale fig6e dans le pass6. N'importe quelle enquete sur les mus6es maritimes r6v6lera un 6tonnant degr6 de similitude et de r6p6tition (pour ne pas dire redondance) dans la nature et 1'esprit de la technologie pr6serv6e. Les objets ont tendance A narrer les progr6s et triomphes de la soci6t6 occidentale, manifestes dans les

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represents a particular challenge for the curatorial imagination. How are collections that generally combine a once triumphant technology with the artifacts of a virtually extinct Western sub-culture (the tribe of the mariner), to be justified, developed and interpreted in a meaningful way without surrendering entirely to the notion of "the sea as history"? Contemporary Collecting and Contexts Whether discussing the difficulties arising from the contemporary context, the combined effects of budget cuts and new interpretive approaches, or the particular character of maritime collections, it is the problem of social relevance that remains the constant . To pursue this is not to suggest that historical collections are less important or meaningful than artifacts that are more readily recognized by current generations . Obviously to do so would be to negate the existence of some of the most significant and fascinating museum and scientific collections known. It would also be to deny the very real importance of history in the identity and self-understanding of any society, something which, like personal memory, is an essential source of orientation and coherence (notwithstanding the current weakness of history as a subject in some school curricula) . Rather the issue of social relevance speaks to the need for all concerned with maritime history and heritage to complement the historical by addressing the contemporary situation .9 This may be done by finding new subjects, or equally, by recontextualizing and thereby developing contemporary perspectives on the old and established. Maritime collections must reflect what our relationship with the sea and waterways once was, but they should also serve to extend their narratives, both descriptive and analytical, into the present and thereby provide points of departure from which contemporary viewers can reflect on their ongoing relationship with the marine environment. Perhaps the single best example of a largescale institutional effort to re-orient the thematic basis of maritime collections, and thereby reinvigorate the narrative line, can be found at the Maritiem Museum "Prins Hendrik" in Rotterdam. Using the construct of a vade mecum, the Museum divided the history of shipping into four principle parts including: the purpose of shipping (of which six purposes where selected); nine necessary conditions for the function of each stated "purpose"; the assertion of shipping as a cultural phenomenon fully integrated with the surrounding culture; and

domaines de la construction navale, la navigation, la marine marchande et la guerre . La vie et le travail des marins, en revanche, sont representes par des objets qui semblent illustrer 1'existence d'une sous-culture 6trange, distincte du courant principal de la soci6t6 occidentale. Quelle que soit son importance v6ritable, on peut dire que cette s6paration reste le thCme principal des collections culturelles, car nous semblons fort d6sireux de sauvegarder la nature particuliere de la vie et du travail de marin (A peine visible dans la soci6t6 occidentale actuelle). Ces deux thbmes, le triomphe de la technologie et une sous-culture disparue, coexistent donc dans les mus6es maritimes, meme si on les concilie peu; pareille coexistence est si commune qu'on la mentionne rarement, sinon jamais . A la lueur de ce qui pr6c6de, poursuivre 1'expansion d'une collection dans les mus6es maritimes existants pose un d6fi certain A 1'imagination des conservateurs. En effet, comment justifier une collection qui, d'une maniCre g6n6rale, allie une technologie jadis triomphante aux vestiges d'une sous-culture occidentale virtuellement disparue (la tribu des marins)? Comment peut-on d6velopper une telle collection et 1'interpr6ter utilement sans totalement c6der a la notion que la mer fait d6sormais partie de 1'histoire?

Les collections contemporaines et leur contexte

Qu'on parle des dif$cult6s issues du cadre contemporain, des effets combin6s des coupures budg6taires et des nouvelles m6thodes d'interpr6tation ou de la nature particuli6re des collections maritimes, la constante demeure le probl6me de la pertinence sociale. Y revenir ne signifie pas qu'une collection historique pr6sente moins de valeur ou d'int6ret que les temoins ais6ment identifi6s par les g6n6rations actuelles, sinon on nierait 1'existence de certaines collections mus6ales et scientifiques qui figurent parmi les plus significatives et fascinantes que 1'on connaisse. Cela reviendrait aussi A nier 1'importance tr6s r6elle de 1'histoire dans 1'identification et 1'introspection d'une soci6t6, qui, a 1'image de la m6moire individuelle, est a la source de 1'orientation et la coh6rence (sans compter la place insuffisante de 1'histoire dans le programme de certaines ecoles) . Le problCme de la pertinence sociale r6v6le plutot la n6cessit6, pour qui s'int6resse a 1'histoire et au patrimoine maritimes, de compl6ter les notions historiques en abordant la

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sources, wherein the museum explores its own historical means and methods.l° Admittedly, this construct is abstract and the result, for some, too coldly analytical to inspire imitation. Nor did it always readily capture the hearts and minds of the traditional maritime museum constituency. It was also a transformation born out of the infrequent opportunity inherent in building a new institution around an established collection. Even so, by departing from the established chronological, triumpant approach to maritime history, the Maritiem Museum "Prins Hendrik" greatly facilitated the inclusion of contemporary issues . Indeed, one might even argue that this new approach made contemporary concerns an imperative . In addition, perhaps more than any other maritime museum, it encouraged visitors to rethink the meaning of the objects on display. While such a radical redevelopment may be impossible or undesirable for many maritime museums, the ideas inherent in the "Prins Hendrik" model can be adopted into both the collection policies and the exhibit programs of existing museums and heritage sites. Indeed, material culture research, with its emphasis on context as a key to understanding meaning, provides a natural and obvious formula for arriving at this end. And while this is generally true, certain subject areas seem particularly worthy of greater consideration. One such area is small craft. Though traditionally a stalwart part of maritime museums, the potential inherent in small craft collections is seldom fully realized and boats are usually relegated to a supporting role (relative to the place of prominence usually assigned to ships and shipping) ." In fact, small craft can serve both as a microcosm of maritime technology and culture, and as an effective medium by which museums can appeal to immediate contemporary experience ; for today most people's experience on the water occurs in boats. 12 Boat liveries, boat-building programs and the expanding practice of experimental archaeology all offer interesting active ways of increasing the interpretive benefit and appeal of small craft collections . Different intellectual approaches are also important. A'greater emphasis on the social context of technology may also serve to keep the human dimension of the maritime endeavour front and centre. Similarly, greater attention to process, rather than just the end products, may also enhance our selection and understanding of maritime technology. Finally, there is also rich potential in the realm of cultural studies, developing themes in

r6alit6 contemporaine9 . Ceci peut tout aussi bien se faire en trouvant de nouveaux sujets qu'en replagant ce qui est 6tabli dans un contexte contemporain Les collections maritimes doivent refl6ter les liens que nous entretenions avec la mer et 1'eau, mais aussi s'ouvrir sur une description et une analyse du present, proposant aux visiteurs contemporains des pistes de reflexion sur leurs relations actuelles avec 1'environnement marin. Le meilleur exemple d'un vaste effort d6ploy6 par une institution pour r6orienter la base th6matique de ses collections maritimes, rafraichir sa ligne narrative, est sans doute celui du Maritiem Museum « Prins Hendrik », a Rotterdam. Imitant dans sa structure un vademecum, ce mus6e a divis6 1'histoire de la marine marchande en quatre grandes parties : les buts de ce commerce (on en a retenu six), les neuf conditions essentielles A la r6alisation de chaque « but » enonc6, 1'affirmation de la marine marchande en tant que ph6nom6ne culturel totalement int6gr6 a la culture environnante et les sources en vertu desquelles le mus6e explore ses propres moyens et m6thodes historiqueslo . Pareille structure est indubitablement abstraite et certains en trouvent le r6sultat trop froid, trop analytique pour qu'on veuille 1'imiter. Elle n'a pas non plus toujours r6ussi a gagner le cceur et 1'ame de la collectivit6 des mus6es classiques de la mer. La transformation du mus6e est aussi n6e de la possibilit6 de le faire, chose assez peu courante mais inh6rente A la cr6ation d'un nouveau mus6e autour d'une collection existante. Ceci dit, en s'6loignant de 1'approche chronologique classique de 1'histoire maritime, articul6e sur le triomphe, le Maritiem Museum « Prins Hendrik» a consid6rablement facilit6 1'inclusion des aspects contemporains. De fait, on pourrait aller jusqu'a soutenir que cette approche innovatrice a rendu imp6rieuses les pr6occupations contemporaines . Enfin, vraisemblablement plus que tout autre mus6e maritime, le mus6e n6erlandais a incite les visiteurs a repenser le sens des objets pr6sent6s. Si une r6organisation aussi radicale parait irrealisable ou indesirable a bon nombre de mus6es maritunes, les idees a la base du modele « Prins Hendrik » peuvent trouver application dans les politiques relatives aux collections et les programmes d'expositions des mus6es et sites historiques . Par son insistance sur le contexte en tant que cl6 du savoir, la recherche sur la culture mat6rielle constitue un moyen naturel et 6vident d'y parvenir. Si cette remarque a une application g6nerale, certains domaines semblent notamment m6riter un

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the world of ships, seafaring and small craft that resonate in the human imagination and are thereby transformed into objects and images. This, of course, includes the traditional maritime fine arts - paintings, figurehead carvings, scrimshaw, models - though here too new interpretive concerns will inevitably reveal new meanings . One very good example of this was an exhibit undertaken by the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg, which examined the documentary aspects of the ship portrait. 13 Yet, just as important, cultural studies ought also to extend to the world of popular culture and kitsch . In view of the absence of contemporary attachments to, and associations with, the sea, it is surely worth considering areas where historical experience has been vividly transformed into popular, even clich6, images and ideas .14 In keeping with the above, the papers presented in this special issue of MFIR represent, each in its own way and with its own emphasis, subjects and approaches that should encourage further consideration of what maritime museums collect and why. The volume has been organized into five themes : Small Craft, Ships and Shipbuilding, Coastal Communities, Pictures and Portraits; and Cultural Traditions . Under "Small Craft," John Summers reflects on the creation and perception of object meanings and then examines these issues in the context of one well-known North American boat type : the St Lawrence skiff. Hallie Bond focuses her attention on the evolution of the "Pack Canoe," a boat closely associated with the Adirondack region of New York State. Her paper reveals how technology, patterns of consumption and fashion influenced its particular development. Both papers reinforce the importance and potential of studying inland marine traditions . The section concludes with a research report by Charles Moore chronicling the interpretive reconstruction of one of the oldest European boats in North America: the Basque whaling Chalupa. Turning to "Ships and Shipbuilding," special attention is here given to the process of ship design . Brad Loewen combines the study of Renaissance shipbuilding texts with knowledge gleaned from shipwreck archaeology to shed new light on hull design, ship typology and the important role of wood analysis in our understanding of early modern shipbuilding. David McGee examines an overlooked artifact in the history of naval architecture, the Amsler integrator, and finds in its use a better understanding of the progress of science in the history

examen plus pouss6 . L'un d'eux est celui des embarcations . Bien qu'ayant toujours occup6 une bonne place dans les mus6es maritimes, les collections d'embarcations rec6lent un potentiel qu'on a rarement exploit6 au maximum et les embarcations sont souvent rel6gu6es A un role de figurantes (par rapport A la place pro6minente habituellement r6serv6e aux navires et A la marine marchande)1' . En r6alit6, les embarcations peuvent constituer A la fois un microcosme de la technologie et la culture maritimes et un bon moyen pour les mus6es d'6voquer 1'exp6rience contemporaine, car aujourd'hui, c'est la plupart du temps dans ces embarcations que les gens vont sur 1'eau'z. Les soci6t6s louant des bateaux, les cours de construction d'embarcations et 1'engouement pour 1'arch6ologie d'amateur offrent autant de manicres dynamiques et int6ressantes d'accroitre les possibilit6s d'interpr6tation et 1'attrait des collections d'embarcations . II importe de varier les approches intellectuelles. On pourrait aussi maintenir la dimension humaine des activit6s maritimes a 1'avant-plan en insistant davantage sur la trame sociale de la technologie. De meme, en portant plus attention au processus, plutot qu'aux seuls r6sultats, peutetre am6liorerait-on le choix et la compr6hension de la technologie maritime . Enfin, les 6tudes culturelles aussi cachent un 6norme potentiel, ne serait-ce que par le d6veloppement de th6mes sur le monde des navires, les voyages en mer et les petits batiments, susceptibles de trouver dcho dans 1'imagination des gens, donc de se m6tamorphoser en objets et en images . Dans cela, bien sur, se retrouvent les beaux-arts maritimes classiques - peintures, sculptures de figures de proue, de coquillages et d'ivoire, mod6les r6duits - meme si de nouvelles pr6occupations d'interpr6tation feront aussi ressortir de nouvelles significations . Il suffit de penser a une des expositions organisdes par 1'Altonaer Museum de Hambourg sur les aspects documentaires des portraits de navires'3. Mais il est aussi important que les 6tudes culturelles s'6tendent au monde de la culture populaire et du kitsch. Vu le peu d'associations entre le monde contemporain et la mer, il vaut surement la peine d'envisager des domaines oil 1'exp6rience historique a donn6 naissance A des images et A des id6es populaires, pour ne pas parler de lieux communs14. Dans la lignee de ce qui pr6cede, les articles publi6s dans ce num6ro sp6cial pr6sentent, chacun a leur mani6re et avec leur propre emphase, des sujets et approches qui devraient susciter un examen de ce que les mus6es

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of shipbuilding . Scott Stroh, on the other hand, concerns himself with museum practice and the question of how best to interpret the ship as artifact . He chronicles the experience gained and approaches used in the case of a West Coast, steam-powered snag boat. Daniel LaRoche's account of recent archaeological investigations of the wrecks of the famous Canadian ship Marco Polo, rounds out the second section. Section three, "Coastal Communities," is concerned with aspects of the material culture of coastal fishing communities. Paula Johnson examines the contemporary folklore of the watermen of Maryland . Here she finds objects and activities that are both a response to, and cultural reservoir of, a fading way of life . Nicolas Landry's study, however, is more overtly historical in focus. His article documents the relative wealth among fishermen of eighteenthcentury Plaisance and Ile Royale, as reflected in post-mortem inventories of their material possessions . The two papers presented in the section "Pictures and Portraits" are, as the title suggests, dedicated to maritime imagery; albeit of widely differing form and content. Laura Brandon's examination of the naval war art of the Canadian painter Jack Nichols reveals the artist's profound concern for the stark experience of war, notably death and its emotional entourage. In contrast, Patricia Bixel's contribution looks at photographic ship portraiture through the lens of one family studio and within the broad context formed by the centuries-old traditions of marine painting . The final section, loosely defined as "Cultural Traditions" contains three diverse studies of humanity's complex mytho-poetic relationship with the sea. Alberto Baldi presents a study of the magical-religious traditions and practices manifest in the vessels and equipment used by the fisherman of Italy's Tyrrhenian coast; traditions of ancient origin that nonetheless persist into the present day. Maurice Duval offers an ethnological analysis of the ceremonial practice of crossing the equator, wherin he reflects on the meaning of the ritual and the role of the artifacts employed in its execution. Finally, in what is arguably the most eclectic of the papers contained in this issue, Michael McCaughan looks not out to sea, but rather skyward, to trace one intriguing aspect of the multifaceted allegorical power of the ship in Western civilization. Part of what is most refreshing in an age of increasing specialization is the multidisciplinary nature of the field of material culture studies. Indeed, this quality may well serve

maritimes recueillent et des raisons pour lesquelles ils le font. Ce num6ro s'articule sur cinq themes : les embarcations, les navires et la construction navale, les communaut6s cotieres, les tableaux et portraits, les traditions culturelles . Dans la partie consacree aux embarcations, John Summers s'interroge sur la genbse et la perception du sens des objets avant d'examiner ces aspects en fonction d'une embarcation nord-americaine bien connue : la yole du Saint-Laurent. Hallie Bond s'int6resse au « pack canoe », une embarcation propre A la r6gion des Adirondacks dans 1'Etat de New-York. Son article illustre comment la technologie, les habitudes de consommation et la mode en ont influenc6 1'evolution . Ces deux articles soulignent 1'importance et le potentiel de 1'6tude des coutumes li6es A la navigation dans les eaux int6rieures . Cette partie se ten-nine par un rapport de recherche de Charles Moore, v6ritable chronique de la reconstruction interpr6tative d'une des plus vieilles embarcations europeennes en Amerique du Nord, la chalupa basque servant A la chasse A la baleine. Dans la partie sur les navires et la construction navale, on s'int6resse surtout a la conception des batiments. Brad Loewen associe 1'etude des textes sur la construction navale durant la Renaissance aux d6couvertes arch6ologiques sur les lieux de naufrages, afin de jeter un eclairage neuf sur la conception de la coque, la typologie des vaisseaux et le role crucial de 1'analyse du bois dans ce que 1'on sait des d6buts de la construction navale moderne. David McGee se penche sur un objet n6glig6 dans 1'histoire de 1'architecture navale, l'int6grateur d'Amsler. Il a d6couvert dans son usage une meilleure compr6hension des progres scientifiques dans 1'histoire de la construction navale . Par ailleurs, Scott Stroh s'int6resse aux pratiques des musees et se demande quelle est la meilleure fagon d'interpreter 1'embarcation en tant qu'artefact. Il d6crit 1'experience acquise et les approches retenues dans le cas d'un vapeur d6blayeur de la cote Ouest. Daniel La Roche termine cette partie en relatant les r6centes recherches arch6ologiques sur le naufrage du c6lebre vaisseau canadien Marco Polo . La troisieme partie traite des communaut6s cotieres . Elle s'int6resse aux diverses facettes de la culture mat6rielle dans ces communaut6s qui vivent de la peche. Ainsi, Paula Johnson 6tudie le folklore contemporain des marins du Maryland . Elle a retrouvd a cet endroit des objets et des activit6s t6moignant d'un mode de vie en voie de disparition et en constituant le r6servoir culturel. L'article de Nicolas Landry a

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as a useful tonic against those forces which, tied too closely to short-term commercial and quantitative measures, threaten to reduce what we preserve, study and interpret, to merely what is tried and true. In other words, to the limited perspective and context of what we know, or think we know, already. These papers, together with an assortment of related reviews and review essays, constitute a modest effort to expand our contextual horizons by both combining (in a single volume) and contrasting (by juxtaposition) the wide variety of topics, issues and approaches that concern the material culture of "Ships, Seafaring and Small Craft." To the extent that this special issue has achieved its goals, the credit is due to the many contributors and to the editorial board of AM, whose service and vision have made this issue possible . The National Museum of Science and Technology is, as always, the founder of the multi-disciplinary feast that is the Material History Review. In this instance, however, that generous support has been further augmented by the allowance of additional dedicated staff time. In particular, a very great debt of thanks is due to Ms Danielle Naoufal, assistant to the curatorial division of NMST, without whose kind and dedicated assistance this project and its guest editor may well, on more than one occasion, have been "caught off a lee shore and run aground." Garth Wilson Curator, Marine and Forestry National Museum of Science and Technology.

NoTEs 1.

2.

3.

4.

Stuart Davies, " 'There May be Trouble Ahead' : Maritime Museums in an Uncertain World," Proceedings of the IX International Congress of Maritime Museums (Greenwich: National Maritime Museum and National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 1995), 14. As just one example of this tendency, the recently published book Elements ofNavigation in the Collection of the Mariners' Museum by Willem F. J. Morzer Bruyns (Newport News : The Mariners' Museum, 1996) ends its coverage at 1914 . As the author notes in his introduction, "Although the Mariners' Museum has more recent navigating instruments, the period between 1700 and World War I is best represented," 8. "Introduction," Granta, no. 61 (London: Spring, 1998).

Anyone doubting the urgency referred to here need only consider the bottom-line thinking that has fostered the recent spate of exhibits concerning the 7ltanic and "pirates ." The effort devoted to

une port6e nettement plus historique.11 d6peint la fortune relative des pecheurs de Plaisance et de Pile Royale au xvllte si6cle, selon un inventaire post mortem de leurs biens mat6riels. Les deux articles de la partie « Images et portraits » portent sur 1'imagerie maritime, ainsi que le titre le sugg6re, mais diff6rent considerablement par la forme et le contenu. Se penchant sur la guerre en mer telle que peinte par le Canadien Jack Nichols, Laura Brandon d6voile combien 1'exp6rience traumatisante de la guerre pr6occupait 1'artiste, en particulier la mort et les sentiments qui s'y rattachent. Patricia Bixel, en revanche, passe en revue les photos de navires prises par un studio familial et les replace dans le cadre g6n6ral cr66 par des sibcles de traditions en peinture navale . La derni6re partie rassemble sous le titre « aaditions culturelles » trois 6tudes disparates sur la complexe relation mythopo6tique que 1'humanit6 entretient avec la mer. Alberto Baldi examine les coutumes et les pratiques magiques et religieuses transparaissant dans les vaisseaux et le mat6riel utilis6es par les pecheurs italiens de la cote tyrrh6nienne, traditions tres anciennes qui perdurent n6anmoins. Maurice Duval propose une analyse ethnologique de la c6r6monie du passage de 1'6quateur, se penchant sur le sens des objets qui jouent un role dims sa tenue. Enfin, dans Particle peut-etre le plus 6clectique de ce num6ro, Michael McCaughan tourne son regard non pas vers la mer, mais vers le firmament, afin de retracer un aspect curieux de la puissance d'6vocation all6gorique multiforme d'un bateau dans la civilisation occidentale . t1 une 6poque ou la sp6cialisation ne cesse de s'accroitre, 1'aspect multidisciplinaire des 6tudes sur la culture mat6rielle est fort rafraichissant . Cet 6tat de fait pourrait bien constituer un vigoureux tonique contre les forces trop dtroitement li6es a des vis6es commerciales et quantitatives a court terme qui menacent ce que nous essayons de pr6server, d'6tudier et d'interpr6ter en le ramenant A ce qui a 06 6prouv6. En d'autres termes, A la perspective et au cadre restreints de ce qu'on sait ou croit d6jA savoir. Avec un ensemble d'analyses et d'essais connexes, les articles qui composent ce num6ro constituent un modeste effort d'elargir nos horizons contextuels par la reunion (dans le meme volume) et la comparaison (par juxtaposition) d'une foule de sujets, de questions et d'approches se rapportant a la culture mat6rielle des navires, de la vie en mer et des embarcations .


10

such popular topics, whatever else it may indicate, reflects an attempt to maximize public interest in our maritime past by an appeal to the dramatic impulse, whereby history is, above all, entertainment (a similar impulse gives rise to the abundance of military stories on the television history, channels) .

A very similar point was made by Michael Ames in his discussion of museum authenticity, wherein he describes an "implied shift of power and status away from curator, registrar, and conservator towards those more directly involved in public programming, performance, promotion, marketing, other public services, and revenue generation." Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992), 159. 6. Authenticity within museums has become contentious, as Michael Ames has also noted, with the authenticity of visitor experience being touted above the authenticity of the object. Ibid, 158. 7. David M. Wilson, "National Museums" in Manual of Curatorship: A Guide to Museum Practice, 2nd ed . (London: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1992), 84. 8. Henry Glassie "Studying Material Culture Today," Living in a Material World: Canadian and American Approaches to Material Culture (St John's : Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1991), 255. 9. One good example of an attempt to address the issue is : B. A. G. Fuller, "Towards a Maritime Interpretive Model," MSCA Transactions 1 (1993/94): 19 . 10 . Leo Akveld, "The Maritiem Museum `Prins Hendrik' and the Analytical Approach to Maritime History" Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Maritime Museums (Amsterdam : ICMM, 1989), 27-28. 11 . John Summers, "In Small Things Remembered: Historic Watercraft and Canada's Maritime Heritage," The Northern Mariner 2, no . 1 (1992) :15-23 . 5.

12. 13.

14.

This argument has been particularly well articulated by Ben Fuller : "Towards a Maritime Interpretive Model," 17-24 .

Das Schiffsportrat: Dekoration oder Dokument? Altonaer Museum in Hamburg/Norddeutsches Landesmuseum (September 26, 1989 to February 4, 1990). Alan Gowans "The Case for Kitsch : Popular/Commercial Arts as a Reservoir of 'IYaditional Culture and Human Values," Living in a Material World: Canadian and American Approaches to Material Culture (St John's: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1991), 127-143.

Si ce num6ro special atteint son but, on le devra a tous ceux qui y ont contribue ainsi qu'a la r6daction de la Revue, dont les efforts et la vision en ont rendu la realisation possible . Le Musee national des sciences et de la technologie reste le maitre d'oeuvre du festin multidisciplinaire qu'est la Revue dhistoire de la culture materielle . Dans le cas pr6sent cependant, a son aide g6nereuse s'est ajout6 le temps consacre par un personnel d6tach6 pour la cause. Il convient notamment de remercier Danielle Naoufal, adjointe a la Division de la conservation du MNST, sans 1'aide soutenue et devou6e de laquelle ce num6ro et son r6dacteur en chef invit6 auraient bien pu, a plus d'une reprise, etre dross6s sur le rivage par un vent contraire. Garth Wilson Conservateur, Transports maritimes et Forets Mus6e national des sciences et de la technologie

1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

,

NoTEs

Stuart Davies, « 'There May be Trouble Ahead' : Maritime Museums in an Uncertain World », Proceedings of the IX International Congress of Maritime Museums (Greenwich : National Maritime Museum and National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 1995), p. 14 .

A titre d'exemple, le r6cent Elements of Navigation in the Collection of the Mariners' Museum de Willem F. J. Morzerm Bruyns (Newport News : The Mariners' Museum,1996) ne va pas au-delA de 1914 . Ainsi que 1'auteur le souligne dans son introduction, « bien que le Mariners' Museum dispose d'instruments de navigation plus r6cents, la p6riode la mieux repr6sent6e demeure celle allant de 1700 6 la Premiiire Guerre mondiale » (p . 8) .

« Introduction », Granta n° 61 (Londres, printemps 1998). Ceux qui douteraient de 1'urgence 6voqu6e ici n'ont qu'A s'interroger sur les raisons imm6diates derricre 1'avalanche d'expositions sur le Titanic et les (< pirates ». Les efforts consacr6s A 1'exploitation de tels sujets populaires, outre tout autre sens qu'ils pourraient avoir, illustrent la tentative de maximiser 1'intt;ret du public pour notre pass6 maritime en faisant vibrer la corde dramatique, en vertu de laquelle 1'histoire est d'abord divertissement (la meme impulsion explique le foisonnement des histoires de guerre sur les chaines de t6ldvision consacr6es i31'histoire) .

Michael Ames va dans ce sens dans son analyse sur 1'authenticit6 des mus6es . Il parle du d6placement sous-jacent du pouvoir des conservateurs, registraires et directeurs de mus6es vers ceux qui s'occupent davantage de programmes publics, de rendement, de promotion, de marketing, d'autres services publics et de production de recettes . Can-


11

6.

7.

8.

9.

10 .

11 .

12 .

13 .

14 .

nibal Tours and Glass Boxes : The Anthropology of Museums (Vancouver : UBC Press, 1992), p. 159 . L'authenticit6 dans les musdes, ainsi que Michael Ames 1'a 6galement remarqu6, se heurte g celle de 1'exp6rience des visiteurs, qui a d6sormais plus d'importance que 1'authenticit6 de 1'objet . Ibid, p. 158. David M. Wilson, « National Museums », dans Manual of Curntorship : A Guide to Museum Practice. 2e 6d . (Londres : Butterworth-Heinemann, 1992), p. 84 .

Henry Glassie, ((Studying Material Culture Today)), Living in a Material World : Canadian and American Approaches to Material Culture (St John's : Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1991), p. 255 .

On trouvera un bon exemple de tentative en vue de r6soudre le problbme dans B.A .G. Fuller, o Towards a Maritime Interpretive Model », MSCA 7lnnsactions n° 1 (1993, n° 94), p. 19 . Leo Akveld, ((The Maritiem Museum `Prins Hendrik' and the Analytical Approach to Maritime History », Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Maritime Museums (Amsterdam : ICMM, 1989) p. 27-28. John Summers, ((In Small Things Remembered : Historic Watercraft and Canada's Maritime Heritage », The Northern Mariner, vol. 2, n° 1 (1992), p. 15-23. Le meme argument a tri's bien 60 repris dans Ben Fuller, ((Towards a Maritime Interpretive Model)), p. 17-24. DasScluffspomnt:DekonmtionoderDokument?Altonaer Museum in Hamburg, Norddeutsches Landesmuseum (du 26 septembre 1989 au 4 f6vrier 1990). Alan Gowans, ((The Case for Kitsch : Popular/Commercial Arts as a Reservoir of Traditional Culture and Human Values », Living in a Material World : Canadian and American Approaches to Material Culture (St John's : Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1991), p. 127-143 .


12

Small Craft

Embarcations

"Probably the Most Beautiful Rowboat Afloat" : The Form and Meaning of the St Lawrence Skiff JOHN SUMM4ERS Resume

Abstract

La yole du Saint-Laurent est parvenue au faite de sa popularite en tant qu'embarcation regionale vers la deuxieme moitie du me siecle. La yole etait construite et utilisee des cotes americain et canadien du fleuve, dans la region des Mille-Iles. Si les yoles americaines et canadiennes partageaient la plupart des caracteristiques de base qui demarquaient cette embarcation de toutes les autres, les yoles construites de part et d'autre du fleuve presentent des differences . Cet article examine la forme et la raison de la yole, tant d titre d'embarcation que comme objet de la culture materielle . En passant en revue les notions actuelles relatives a la maniere dont on cree, pergoit et illustre le sens d'un objet fagonne, 1'auteur ouvre le debat sur les nombreuses significations de la yole et leur contexte . L'analyse des differents sens de la yole montre comment cette derniere a evolue pour passer d'un outil au depart cree localement selon un procede propre aux embarcations, par ses utilisateurs et pour ceuxci, d un veritable bien de consommation et embleme de 1 identite regionale. L'article se termine en montrant comment on peut redonner aux objets conserves dans les musees leur sens inherent et replacer celui-ci dons les cultures contemporaines .

The St Lawrence skiff came to prominence as a regional watercraft type in the latter halfofthe nineteenth century. Skiffs were constructed and used on the American and Canadian sides of the St Lawrence River in the Thousand Islands region . While both American and Canadian skiffs shared most of the defining characteristics that made St Lawrence skiffs a recognizable watercraft type, there were also differences between skiffs built on either side of the river. This paper will consider the form and meaning of the skiff as both a watercraft type and a material culture object. A review of current notions of the ways in which artifact meaning is created, perceived and displayed sets up a discussion of the slag's multiple meanings and the contexts in which they occur. An analysis of the skiff'' categories of meaning shows how it evolved from a tool originally made locally by and for its users in a small-scale craft process to a fullyrealized consumer object and an icon of regional identity. The article concludes by considering how the meanings inherent in museum artifacts can be rehabilitated and relocated in living cultures.

Reading Things : Object Meaning and Its Perception

In order to begin a discussion about the material nature of historic watercraft, it is necessary to generally consider how we derive meaning from things . It is a fundamental premise of material culture studies that artifacts have meanings, and this is no less true of small craft than of any other class of objects . There is less of a consensus, however, about the ways in which

we derive that meaning as we consume and study artifacts. Before discussing the particular meanings that have been ascribed to the St Lawrence skiff during its history, I would like to consider in a general sense several questions of how artifact meaning is understood, since the methodological discussion that follows will be applied specifically to small craft, but also has wider implications .


13

In a provocative recent article about using a material culture approach to environmental history, Christopher Clarke-Hazlett offers a widely accepted metaphor for the way in which objects reveal meanings : "we believe," he says, "that objects tell stories, or rather, that objects can be made to reveal stories."' Upon examination, it is evident that these two phrases are not as directly equivalent as he proposes : the first suggests that it is the recipient of the story that is passive, simply listening to the artifact tell its tale, and the second that the object itself plays a less-active role as the story is forcibly drawn from it. Neither iteration truly captures the nature of our transactions with the things around us . A more accurate metaphor is to say that artifacts can indeed reveal meaning, but that the meaning must first be read from them. The framework for the transaction is therefore textual, and not oral, with all that implies about the necessity for a grammar, a syntax and membership in a community of discourse as preconditions for reading. As a written language is meaningless to one who is unable to read it, so too are the various meanings of, say, a sword, to one without the relevant formal, material and symbolic grammars necessary to read it as a thing . The most basic identification and naming of the object as a sword is common across many if not all cultures, much as we can identify a book written in a foreign language as a book. Beyond that, however, the sword will not reveal much until it is approached with the appropriate background . The linguistic metaphor has been widely applied as a critical tool in the last twenty-five years, and it can also offer insights for material culture study.2 The most thorough critique to date of the real nature of artifact meaning and the viability of the linguistic metaphor has been offered by Grant McCracken. His ground-breaking work "Culture and Consumption" analyses whether or not items of material culture, and for him most notably clothing, really do convey meaning in a linguistic way.' He too, along with Clarke-Hazlett, acknowledges the explanatory promise of the language metaphor.4 In the end, though, he concludes that artifacts fail to function as a true language, largely because their vocabulary is limited and they have no discernable syntax. For him, the linguistic code that artifacts embody contains no demonstrable rules of combination, and combination therefore does not constitute a crucial part of the creation of their messages (in this specific instance, the messages carried by items of dress) .5

McCracken is able to demonstrate the shortcomings of the linguistic metaphor as a means to describe material culture's expressiveness, particularly as regards factual, denotative communication. But in the connotative, affective realm, the expressive power of items of material culture is far greater. The linguistic (and, by association, reading and text-based) metaphor may therefore break down at the level of the individual speech act, but in a more general sense it is nonetheless very useful for capturing the degree to which the audience of a material culture object is crucial to the perception and actualization of its meaning. He does acknowledge, in the end, that material culture can function effectively as a communicative medium, and that "it allows a culture to insinuate its beliefs and assumptions into the very fabric of daily life . "6 Yet McCracken, while confirming the expressive power of things, fails to specify a crucial component of the transfer of artifact meaning: how do we perceive the meanings that inhere in items of material culture? We may yet be unclear on exactly how the meaning of artifacts is constituted, though we have a general sense that it is at least language-like, if not explicitly linguistic . Yet there can be little doubt, as both Clarke-Hazlett and McC.racken acknowledge, that we read these meanings from artifacts, and that they have in some measure a message that we perceive .

Putting It Out : Public Display and Material Culture Analysis

When artifacts are displayed in the context of a public institution, their messages become inescapably commingled with that of the institution itself . The kind of valorized, highly concentrated showing practised by museums, reinforced by strong visual cues given with lighting and display techniques, almost invariably equates display with possession, not only of the physical thing but also of its meaning. Clarke-Hazlett discusses a recent trend in museum work to try and break down the museum's authoritative interpretive voice, and replace it with the creation of a space in which a number of (sometimes conflicting) interpretations can be sustained, of which the institution's own is but one. In this way, some of what the audience brings to the experience can be incorporated into the cultural narrative that is created out of the museum/visitor transaction . However, he says, "the notion that this type of reciprocity is possible rests on the belief


14

that object meanings are not fixed, but instead change as society changes. "7 In order to examine more closely the action of material culture meaning, it is useful to turn again to language and specifically to literary theory. It is now a commonplace in literary studies to acknowledge that the author of a text has a less-direct relationship with the work's readers than was previously supposed . For example, we read a work by Dickens (established as a historical fact of authorship), but we do not read Dickens's work (insofar as we are not him, and engage the text as a reader, not a writer). Recent analysis of literary works has moved away from a project that was essentially archaeological - recovering the author's meaning from the text, founded on the assumption that there was a single, privileged meaning, much as if we were mining for precious metal to one that is fundamentally artistic and psychological - exploring how we as readers actualize the text in a discrete and unique way each time it is read, erecting a universe of individual readings that in their totality, along with the author's own, make up the work. Authors write for themselves a text that readers then create anew. Without such a universe of potential meanings, there would be no criticism, no interpretive flux and certainly no enduring texts, for their meanings would have long ago been utterly fixed and their appeal greatly diminished . The reader, therefore, is as important a part of the literary transaction as the author. It is not difficult to see the relevance of this transaction between author and reader, mediated by the text, to the transaction between museum and visitor, mediated by the artifact . When an artifact is displayed in a museum another voice is added to the discourse. To each artifact's "author," its original maker, is added the much stronger message of the museum as its current "author." The visual and symbolic power of the museum context often eclipses the artifact's maker so that for visitors, it is the museum that speaks about the things on display, conflating a meta-narrative from the artifact's original and sometimes hidden stories. It is very easy for the museum's voice to become not another but rather the voice of the artifact . To return to Clarke-Hazlett's comment about changing artifact meanings, it is important to understand exactly how artifact meanings change . It is not a case of discrete seriality, since artifact meanings change much more quickly than whole societies. An artifact's meanings are plural, nearly inexhaustible and

unforseeable, and no given time, place or culture can ever entirely circumscribe them, just as no museum's interpretation of a thing can ever completely anticipate the latent range of meanings a visitor brings to it . There is a combinatory logic of exponential proportions at work here : a large number of variables are ceaselessly re-combined to create new meanings when an object is displayed for visitors . These meanings are all immanent and potential within and without the objects themselves, and, needless to say, none are "right" and none are "wrong," though there is a range of relevant meanings outside of which it would be hard to have a discussion as opposed to a purely personal opinion. A particular museum visitor's reading of a thing against the palimpsest of their own life will actualize for them a particular combination of meanings in a unique and ephemeral transaction . Artifacts don't speak and visitors don't listen, but viewers do read meanings from artifacts as they perceive them, and it is their active participation that actualizes artifact meanings . It is for this reason that there will always be a uniquely personal space around the museum visitor, even in the most public of institutions . The factuality of a thing - its material, construction, function and provenance - forms a framework and a text that is read anew and differently by each of those who comes in contact with it and ultimately creates its social and economic value. The circumstances and meanings of its original creation and creator will be to some measure residual, but this authorial intention cannot be recovered intact, for we lack the grammar and the syntax to read those meanings - those unique circumstances perished with the maker. The originating meanings ascribed to and in the artifact by its creator take their place within the range of potential meanings of the thing, and become present to greater and lesser extents for subsequent viewers . They are always latent, and shimmer rather than appear directly, because we know they are there but cannot hold them . The knowledge that these original intentions lie within things accounts in part for the power of artifacts to move us, but we can erect at best an understanding parallel to that of the maker's. Depending upon the exegetical skill of the perceiver, and the sensitivity of the reading, proportionately more of the originating meaning may be recovered . Experimental archaeologists, for instance, by controlling for variables and scrupulously monitoring their tools, materials and techniques, are able to

Material Flistory Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (automne 1998)

15

generate use-experiences out of artifacts, though these are of necessity still perceived through modern eyes and hands. But in the end what is recovered, however scrupulous the experiment, will always be a version. What therefore is the role of material culture analysis within this universe of potential meanings? It is critical, in the best sense of the word. Material culture analysis should elucidate through scholarship the fundamental constituents of an artifact's existence - its material, function, construction end provenance, and then use these to iterate a value, always with the recognition that a given value will be situational, contingent and singular, and should not be presented in such a way as to exclude others, particularly when presented in an institutional context. Such an artifact reading should endeavour to the fullest extent possible to make plain what has grounded and informed it so that its profound particularity is not inadvertently transformed by imposing display into a universal truth. By using the material culture method to make it clear that we all must of necessity read things to constitute our lives, museums and other cultural institutions can engage their visitors in the process by which they come to know, as well as showing the end products of this knowing that they have more traditionally displayed. To those preferring a more straightforward ascription of meaning, this might seem to be simply a descent into relativism and a retreat from the truth. It is more profitable, however, to view this stance as a candid recognition of the infinite complexity of the material world, and a means by which those of us who work in institutions can specify the meanings and values that things hold for us without presuming to have told all of the stories that lie within them . Once the imperialist (and futile) urge to closure of signification is forsaken, we can see items of material culture for what they truly are: artifacts on which and through which we write our lives in a wide variety of ways . In a previous article, I outlined some of the ways in which material culture methodology could be applied to historic watercraft, and some of the insights that it could yield.8 That research explored the techniques used to build canoes, and showed how changes in their construction technology were driven by conditions of use, economics and the social dimensions of the sport. Watercraft meet all of the criteria for material culture objects, being fashioned in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes . They are richly meaningful cultural objects that can

shed light on the lives, ways, and values of their users. When it comes to historic small craft, the issues raised in the earlier part of the article about how artifact meaning is understood and interpreted ere particularly pertinent. In this study, I would like to shift attention from the creation of watercraft, which I considered earlier, to explore what happened to them after they left the builder's shop . To do so, I will examine in detail a particular watercraft form : the St Lawrence skiff, which flourished in the Thousand Islands region of the St Lawrence River primarily from the 1860s to the early years of the twentieth century. This study will draw out some of the skiff's many meanings and relate them to its producers and consumers to outline the ways that the boats function within a culture.

Origins and Construction : The Creation of the St Lawrence Skiff

If there is one thing that discussions of the origins of the St Lawrence skiff make clear, it is that there was no single, originating moment, no "invention ." It is wise to be suspicious of all such claims, dates ascribed by the patent by the patent office notwithstanding, for the creation of a technological artifact is invariably a coming-together of many influences .' Some theories of origin can be readily discounted. Andrew Steever, for instance, traces the skiff's form to aboriginal bark canoes .'° To see a bark canoe in the skiff is to be seduced by the sharp-sterned shape to the exclusion of all other considerations ." Structurally, the skiff bears no resemblance whatsoever to any of the indigenous North American watercraft forms: the dugout, the bark canoe and the kayak. 12 The dugout was created by a wasting process from a single monolithic construction material ; the bark canoe is a skin-first construction ; and the kayak is a skin-on-frame construction . The skiff, by comparison, is profoundly northern European in its building techniques, and its lapstrake planking, clench nails, rivets and sharp-forefooted shape have more to do with Viking vessels than North American aboriginal watercraft, a fact that Steever acknowledges when discussing the shape of the keel ." This is not to suggest for a moment that the skiffs builders had Viking vessels in mind, or that the type entered the country at L'Anse aux Meadows, but simply that the skiff is not rooted in a North American tradition. A particular watercraft form is always an amalgam of several strains of influence, includ-


16

ing, at a minimum, the origin of its builder (region, nation, training, tradition) ; the conditions of its use (prevailing winds, waves, currents, shorelines, cargoes) ; and locally available materials (species, condition, size, price, seasonality) . The distillation of these influences into a watercraft design is situational and affected by evolutionary forces ." Vary one set of conditions, and an entirely different design may result . Vary another, and two similar designs with a family resemblance may evolve without necessarily being connected by a direct influence or route of transmission . For instance, similar conditions of available natural materials, geography and national origin of builders existed in the Adirondack region of upstate New York. One key use factor was different, however, for the Adirondack guideboat had to be capable of being portaged along chains of lakes and rivers, unlike the St Lawrence skiff. The two traditions therefore produced boats with many similarities and one essential difference, as the need for light weight and portability drove all of the guideboat's design considerations before it ." For the St Lawrence skiff, one of the most important determinants of its design was the St Lawrence River itself. It is a substantial body of water, very different from the inland lakes and rivers of the Adirondacks or from the saltwater coasts. A boat to be used on it had to be seaworthy, at least insofar as any small open boat can be so considered .'6 In the region where the skiff was created, the river is filled with islands that played their part in its form, for it is a boat for local use, between islands and the mainland . Unlike other watercraft forms shaped by use on rivers, such as the batteau and the Durham boat, which carried freight and passengers on long journeys, the skiff evolved for

short trips and for passengers, not primarily for freight. By the early 1780s, United Empire Loyalists had arrived in the Great Lakes region in significant numbers, and they had brought with them, if not the St Lawrence skiff in its final form, at least the boats that would later be refined into it . A contemporary watercolour of a loyalist encampment shows small, lapstrake boats with two rowing thwarts. By the 1820s, diarists and writers were referring to rowing skiffs being used for pleasure and fishing trips. By this time, the design appears to have become fixed in its basic features . 17

The term "skiff" conceals more than it reveals . Nearly every watercraft-using region in North America has a local boat type called a skiff. These vary tremendously in size, shape, use and sophistication . The adjective "St Lawrence" may originally have meant the area where a relatively common form of skiff was used, but by the middle of the nineteenth century it referred to a specific set of design characteristics . The salient features of the St Lawrence skiff can all be clearly seen in a boat built circa 1890 by the shop of Moses Sauve Jr in Brockville, Ontario (Fig. 1) .18

As with any watercraft type, there were many small variations of construction and material among the work of individual builders . Differences also existed between boats from the U.S . and Canadian sides of the river. The following description focuses on the features most characteristic of the type, those that would have caused a contemporary observer to identify the boat as a St Lawrence skiff.'9 This is not intended to be a conclusive discussion of the St Lawrence skiff in all of its aspects. Indeed, that study, which might parallel Durant's seminal work on the Adirondack guideboat,

Fig . 1 Sauv6 skiff as restored. 1994


17

remains to be written.z° There will invariably be exceptions found to almost every one of the points made below, but it is nonetheless important for our purposes here to draw out the basic features of the boat.

The St Lawrence skiff is relatively long and narrow, with a length to beam ratio typically in the range of 5 or 6 :1 for 18" to 20'(5 .5 m to 6 m) boats and 4 .5 to 4 .8 :1 for 15" to 16" (4 .6 m to 4 .9 m) examples . The ratio for the Sauve skiff in Figure 1 is 5 .5 :1 .

The boat is sharp-sterned, and the body aft is typically finer and less buoyant than forward . Skiffs were most often planked with six to seven strakes of eastern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis). The wide plank keel was typically hardwood, most often white oak (Quercus alba). Planking could be either conventional lapstrake or a smooth-skin construction made by bevelling both upper and lower plank laps . The degree of exterior smoothness depended on how much the laps were bevelled, and some American skiffs were smooth below the waterline and had protruding laps above. The boats had steam-bent white oak or rock elm (Ulmus thomasii) frames of rectangular, trapezoidal or rounded section, typically on 5" to 6" (13 cm to 15 cm) centres. Gunwales were finished with inwales and outwales (known locally as the "banding" and the "binding," respectively) and could incorporate narrow side decks. Floorboards were invariably fitted, and could extend all the way up to the gunwales . In this case they were known locally as the "lining." Long bow and stern decks of mahogany (any number of species of the genus Swietana), Spanish cedar (Cedrela mexicana) or butternut (Juglans cinerea) and occasionally sycamore (Platamus occidentalis), with a strongly curved inner edge covered either end of the boat and were jointed into the gunwale structure. These typically had bent coamings around the curved inner edges, which also ran into the gunwales, and were supported on two deckbeams. A thin deck cap, sometimes in contrasting wood, covered the centreline seam on the decks. The inner deckbeams at either end of the boat could be decoratively sawn on their lower edges, and the curves picked up by the beams below the fan-shaped seats at the bow and stern. Canadian builders were more likely to use this kind of scrollwork . The St Lawrence skiff was primarily constructed for recreational fishing and guiding, and its interior arrangements reflect those uses . Skiffs had two wide thwarts, also known on the

river as "seats," and fan-shaped seats assembled from narrow longitudinal boards in the bow and stern. A visitor to the region would most often experience the boat in the company of a guide. The oarsman sat forward of midships, and the paying passenger, known locally as the "sport," far aft in the stern. The passenger would be accommodated in a "skiff chair," a cane-backed and seated chair whose arms and back were supported by turned spindles . This would be placed in the stern, facing forward. Larger skiffs could carry a second skiff chair on the aft rowing thwart, facing aft. When the boat was rowed solo, it could be turned end for end and rowed stern first, with the oarsman taking the other thwart, but using the same set of oarlocks, which were located roughly equidistant between the two seats. Some boats utilized a removable filler piece of the same stock as the thwart, inserted for solo rowing, which allowed better positioning. Forward of the sport's seat in the stern could be holders for two fishing rods, which were held over opposite sides at right angles to the boat . An opening spring clip on the gunwale held the rod itself, while the butt was set into a wooden plate screwed to the ribs on the opposite side, occasionally ornamented with a thin metal horseshoe or shield. One or both rowing thwarts could also have a fish box, typically a tin bottom wrapped around wooden sides, which matched the shape of the boat's interior and slid under the thwart on the floorboards . Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the skiff, also derived from its use for recreational fishing, was its non-feathering oars . The boat's relatively narrow beam meant that the oars typically overlapped at the centreline by the width of their handles. This necessitated a crosshanded rowing style. The tholepins on which the oars pivoted were formed from metal pins set in wooden blocks screwed to the gunwales, their tops protected against chafe by leather pads. The gunwale fitting could also be a metal casting, in which case only the oars were leathered. A variety of fixed and folding metal outriggers were also used, which extended the span and permitted longer oars to be used. The characteristic skiff oars were square in section from the end of the handles to just outside the gunwales, and oval from there to the blade. A hole drilled in the square section of the loom was mortised back at a forty-five degree angle top and bottom, and fitted with leathers . The non-feathering oars were an advantage for fishermen, allowing the oarsman to look after his catch by dropping them in a hurry to


18

boat a fish without fear of losing them overboard. The square section of the loom also acted as a counterbalance to the outboard weight of the oar, and made for a very light touch on the handles. Professional guides rowed with a light, quick stroke, their backs almost straight and this meant that they could efficiently cover long distances day after day.

Enthusiasts and Advertisers: The Con-

sumption of the St Lawrence Skiff Over a period of fifty to sixty years, the St Lawrence skiff evolved from a tool to a product that was consumed in both image and actuality. These patterns of consumption generated a range of secondary and tertiary meanings as the skiff was gradually commodified. An analysis of only some of the large number of images of the St Lawrence skiff suggests that its meanings can be grouped into at least six categories : Artifactual, Genealogical, Social, Commercial, Competitive and Interpretive . An original set of users' requirements and natural conditions gave rise to the St Lawrence skiff as a distinct watercraft form . These artifactual meanings are carried by the physical presence of the thing itself as shown in Fig. 1. The graphical representation of the skiff in its lines plan and the accompanying numerical reduction of those lines into a table of offsets capture the essence of the design : its threedimensional shape. The further detailing and arrangement of this shape can be captured through photography and through the measurement and documentation of the materials and construction of extant examples ." Along with a knowledge of tools, materials and processes appropriate to the time and place, this

information is sufficient to reproduce the thing. Assuming that the work is well-carried out, a boat so produced would be recognized by a contemporary user of the original artifact as embodying a unique set of characteristics that in their totality enable its identification as a St Lawrence skiff. Running parallel to this artifactual meaning is a genealogical one. Although the St Lawrence skiff's type may be a unique response to a particular set of conditions, the essence of its construction methods was evolved thousands of miles and years away, and it is part of a long tradition of watercraft development and use. On a regional level, there is the family of the skiff itself. During the period when the skiff was flourishing, detailed lines and construction plans such as we now know were virtually unknown, particularly for the scale of shop and kind of builder where skiffs were most often produced . Nineteenth-century small craft were frequently "modelled" by the carving of a halfmodel from a solid block of wood . For an experienced builder, such a model, combined with his customary construction practices, carried all the information that was needed to produce another boat . From the half-model, or measurements taken from an existing boat, the builder would produce a set of moulds .22 Set up on a strongback composed of two parallel timbers on edge, they required the addition of a keel, stem and sternpost to form the skeleton of a new boat. A customer who desired a longer or shorter boat could be accommodated by moving the moulds in or out along the strongback . The builder could also make a six-plank skiff instead of a seven-plank one, or the lower edge of the mould could be added to in order to produce a deeper boat . The humble appearance of these moulds

Fig. 2 Cananoque-area St Lawrence skiffs, early to mid twentieth century


19

and of their builder's day job as a farmer belies their importance - they were the carriers of the essence of the skiff, and their generative capacity ensured its survival from builder to user to builder to user. The design repertoire from which a skiff builder drew was composed of knowledge of other boats in the area, such as the skiffs shown in Figure 2, leavened by the builder's own sensibilities and preferences . Within a particular town or region, an individual's boats would be well-known . Each builder had hallmarks in the shape of a hull, the curve of a stem or the treatment of a particular detail . In their aggregate, these differentiated expressions of the same basic requirements represented a tremendous reservoir of knowledge. A builder who had grown up in that area would have absorbed, both consciously and unconsciously, this "family tree ." It would be next to impossible for some of this knowledge not to be represented in the boats they constructed . Watercraft evolution was, from time immemorial until recreational boats became fully subsumed into consumer culture in the early twentieth century (whereupon evolution became driven by advertising, and not by the user's needs), an essentially conservative process. Once the skiff left the builder's shop and went into use, additional meanings took hold . In fact, they were operative before the skiff was constructed, for it was in the social realm that demand for the boat was created. Within two

decades of the skiff's solidification as a distinct regional watercraft type, a further set of requirements and conditions came into play, which caused this locally developed watercraft form to attain a much wider significance : the rise of the vacation ." The construction of railways, which provided access into hitherto remote areas, was combined with increasing concern about the unhealthiness of city life and a growing literature about the salubrious effects of a stay in the wilderness . Through the vacation, and in particular the fishing trip, the skiff achieved national and international recognition . For many of the hundreds of thousands who visited the Thousand Islands region in the mid and late nineteenth

Fig. 3 The skiff as the embodi ment of arcadian sentimentality: a late nineteenth-century colour postcard (collection of the author)

pues nus rraae as a "spoil" looks on in ad ration . (Frank H. Tayh °Muskie Fishing on th St Lawrence," 1880. C lection of the Antique Boat Museum, Claytaa New York, accession a Rq nw; 1

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (autornne 1998) 20

THE ST . LAWRENCE RIVER SKIFF . FROM

" GLILfPyi! OF ST . LAWRRNCR SUMIARR LIVE ."

FRANK H. TAYLOR .

s

Fig . 5 The steadfast guide and his faithful skiff (St Lawrence River Skiff, Canoe and Steam Launch Company, 1893 catalogue. Reprinted by the Antique Boat Museum, Clayton, New York .)

VERY visitor to the T hotlsand Islands, who is at all au fait in the matter of sailing, must admire the grace, speed and capabilities of the St . Lawrence River Skiff, and no less the skill and daring with which it is bandied upon the breezy

century, their experience took place in a highly structured world quite removed from the "nature" to which they were supposedly being introduced : they arrived on a train, stayed in a hotel with electric lights and running water and were shepherded on the water by a professional guide whose duties ranged from rowing the boat to baiting the hook to cooking lunch. It was nonetheless nature that they were pursuing, and the skiff was their vehicle. The wide distribution of images such as the colour postcard in Figure 3 played upon key late nineteenth century themes to create a demand for the skiff and the experience of the Thousand Islands. The scene evokes both pastorality and filial piety, for not only is the woman in the skiff chair able to recline amid healthful and beautiful natural surroundings, and literally stop and smell the flowers, but she is carried there by her young son in a powerful image of idealized family life . A less-recumbent but equally compelling image is made by Philadelphia artist Frank H. Taylor's 1880 painting "Muskie Fishing on the St Lawrence" (Fig. 4) . This shows the skiff in its natural habitat - in pursuit of the legendary muskellunge (Esox masquinongy), revered among sport anglers for its craftiness and vigour. The setting is the same kind of sylvan inlet as in the postcard, but here the climactic moment approaches as the guide reaches out with a gaff to boat the fish . The guide and the skiff were inseparable parts of the Thousand Island experience. As St Lawrence skiffs became renowned for their good qualities, so did their guides . An 1889 advertisement for the Hubbard House

Hotel in Clayton, New York, promised "Experienced and trusty oarsmen, with the best of boats and tackle, always in readiness for fishing and pleasure parties . "24 Taylor, a frequent observer of the Thousand Islands scene and a summer resident at his cottage on Round Island, described the guides as : "good fellows, being temperate, honest, and capable, full of dry wit, and having a rich fund of experience worth the hearing. They think for themselves, and cling to the traditions of their toilsome calling with tenacity. There is nothing of the hackman about them . They can give their patrons far more than their money's worth upon any summer day. "15 The skiff was apostrophized in equally positive terms: "All of the boats in these waters are excellent. Such a thing as a snub-nosed, cranky, or gayly painted but disreputable and unsafe punt is unknown here, and any amphibious native who should dare to show one around the wharves of Clayton or "the Bay" would lose all claims to the respect of his neighbours . "26 Henry Eckford was similarly struck by the boat's good qualities: "At the Thousand Islands there is an indigenous boat for fishing and rowing, remarkable for the methods by which it is managed under sail .. . Holding five or six persons easily, it is of strong, yet light build, and in its lines probably the most beautiful rowboat afloat . "27 These widely distributed images and written descriptions created a considerable demand for both the skiff itself and the experiences that it represented . The skiff's transformation from a tool into a commodity placed additional commercial meanings onto the boat . While many skiffs were constructed in relatively small-scale shops, larger enterprises were also created. The most widely known was the St Lawrence River Skiff, Canoe and Steam Launch Company of Clayton, New York . It began when a dentist named Bain, a summer visitor to the area, persuaded other wealthy visitors to invest and form a company around Xavier Colon, an established local builder. They capitalized A. Bain and Company, expanded Colon's shop and equipment, and turned him from a proprietor into an employee and in their turn eventually became the St Lawrence River Skiff, Canoe and Steam Launch Company.z8 They placed great stock in their skiffs origins in Colon's earlier designs, and their advertising seldom failed to make the debatable claim that they were selling "The Famous St Lawrence Skiffs, of which we are the original designers and builders . "29 The company's production soon rose dramatically as the establishment expanded . And

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de ]a culture materielle 48 (automne 1998)

21

who was buying all of these skiffs? It was not the professional guides, for they often built their own boats, and in any case did not buy a new boat for each season . A whole new market had been created. It was at visitors to the area that the company's marketing efforts were now directed, for they were increasingly rowing and owning their own skiffs . The St Lawrence skiff was acquiring all of the trappings of a commodity in a consumer society, including paid advertising, published catalogues, booths at trade fairs and breathless testimonial letters. The experience of being in a skiff, and to an even greater extent the purchase of one, had become the means to a whole new end. As Grant McCracken says, "objects tell us not who we are, but who we wish we were" and "consumer goods were fascinating for consumers of the nineteenth century because they were increasingly the residence of social meaning and new opportunities for defining self and the world. "3o The experience of a boat that had once required personal interaction with a local boatbuilder could now be had by mail order, from a printed catalogue that listed the current year's models . By 1890, skiffs were being shipped from the St Lawrence area as far away as Galveston, Texas. This trend perhaps reached its apotheosis when the St Lawrence River Skiff, Canoe and Steam Launch Company built Genie in 1890 . Described at the time by a boosterish local paper as "the finest skiff ever built," she was ordered by R. M. Jones of Penn's Charter School in Philadelphia . When completed, she was placed on exhibition in John Wanamaker's department store in the same city." The transformation from the workboat of guides and farmers to commodified consumer good was complete - skiffs could now be found out just in the Thousand Islands but down aisle three, across from the vacuum cleaners .32 In 1886, a correspondent from The American Canoeist, the house organ of the American Canoe Association (A .C.A .), paid a visit to the Brockville establishment of the Sauve brothers . He found a busy shop, although it is likely hyperbole to say, as he did, that one might see upwards of five hundred skiffs on the water off Brockville of a summer's evening. 13 The skiffs he describes differ somewhat from those with which the fishing guides made their living . These Brockville boats were mainly smooth skinned. They had spoon-bladed feathering oars, replacing the earlier square-loomed ones that used gunwale-mounted thole pins . They were without fish boxes, but were fitted

with rudders and two-masted canoe sailing rigs . Something had clearly caused these St Lawrence skiffs to evolve into a variant of the original type . The difference may be accounted for in part by the distance between the American and Canadian sides of the river, where the boats had always varied slightly in form and characteristics. But a much stronger force was also at work, for the Sauv6 shop was best known for its racing skiffs . Sitting astride the artifactual, genealogical, social and commercial meanings already explored is competition. When competition appears it at once subsumes and changes the other meanings, for when technologies and artifacts are used in competition, it quickly. becomes the driving force in their development . Design changes induced by competition then eventually filter back to the mainstream, often in a denatured or de-tuned version that retains the outward characteristics of the highperformance model. Such was the case for the Sauve shop, where two competitive influences were driving the evolution of their skiff designs . The first was the local success of Yukwa, Freyjo, Choctaw and other of their racing sailing skiffs.34 The second was the appropriation of the racing sailing skiff by canoeists from the American Canoe Association, which had been holding its annual meet in the area for some time . These canoeists came to the skiff with a strong competitive background. Many had been and were racing yachtsmen of some repute . The A.C .A.'s hotly-contested races and trophies encouraged rapid design and rig development within general rules governing length and beam. When these canoeists saw the skiff they were undoubtedly attracted by both its sharp-sterned shape and the challenge of sailing it, a challenge not unlike that of keeping their own racing canoes, typically 16' (4 .9 m) in length and but 30" (76 cm) in beam, upright and going fast .31 To the skiff's slim hull they added phenomenally large rigs, sometimes carrying as much as 650 ftz (60 mz) of sail in two masts on a skiff with a waterline of 24' (7 .3 m), as was the case with Leprechaun, owned by F X. Laque and skippered by William O. Shea, which sailed out of Gananoque with a crew of five or six in 1893 .36 These racing skiffs were unquestionably pushing the limits of sailing performance with the available technology. After noting pointedly that "A high rate of speed is essential to modern civilization," Vaux said, "There is a class of boats on the St Lawrence River called skiffs which carry more sail in proportion to their displacement than any other boats in the


22

world ...and which can outsail not only all other boats of their size, but very much larger craft as well ."" The skiff's fortunes rose dramatically as the Thousand Islands became a tourist destination in the later nineteenth century, and fell just as dramatically in the early twentieth. That is not to suggest that small boats were no longer used on the river, or that skiffs died out entirely. A new motive power was replacing the sturdy guide of the earlier years as various kinds of motors began to democritize boating. Beginning with the naphtha launch, which did not require a licensed engineer like earlier steam powerplants, and moving to inboard and eventually outboard motors, the recreational boating experience became much more widely available . No longer did prospective fishermen have to hire a guide to take them out, or even know how to row. As Vaux's late nineteenth century comment so accurately presaged, life was beginning to speed up, even on vacation. These technological changes caused hull forms to evolve . For instance, the outboard motor required a very different boat than the rowing guide . The weight of the motor demanded more buoyancy in the aft sections to support it, and the transom had to be relatively broad to enable the boat to use the outboard's greater power and get up on a plane. The river hadn't changed, and neither had the fish, but the expectations and technologies of the users had. The rowing skiff began to pass from prominence, and the boat shops began to produce motorized craft. This was a gradual process, and social changes also affected the skiff, as bicycles and automobiles began to compete for peoples' leisure time . Such rowing skiffs as were in existence were preserved, and some new ones were built, but not in anything like the numbers they once had been. Except for those who lived in the immediate region, the skiff then passed into the realm of memory and recollection . Once out of widespread and regular use, the skiffs became artifacts. Some have been preserved to this day, often within the same family for generations . Others were left for lost in fields and along the shore, and gradually returned their constituent materials to the water and soil . Still others were acquired for public collections, and so a whole layer of interpretive meaning was added to the skiff's signification as they were displayed in a museum setting. The largest collection of skiffs on public display is at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York. The display is very spare, and for the

most part, the boats are just set out on the floor of the building . Labelling is sparse and erratic, and some boats are not identified at all. Some bear worn, original finishes . Others are suspiciously shiny, and may look better than they ever did when in use on the river. It is a striking experience to see a whole building full of these boats, not unlike reading about the vast flocks of passenger pigeons that once darkened North America's skies but now are seen no more . It is as if a large wave had crested down the river, picked the boats up bodily and deposited them in the museum, leaving few or none behind on the river itself. But they once were outside the museum's walls, as ubiquitous on the river as fibreglass runabouts are today. The Brockville Museum has a single Sauv6 skiff in its collection . Displayed on a low cradle in front of a photomural showing a river scene, the skiff could embody an entire era, when Brockville boats were once the talk of the river, and the Sauve shop bustled with new orders . The museum's files have information about the Sauve family and its history, provided by a granddaughter of one of the boatbuilders' sisters, but none of it is used to interpret the boat. It sits serenely in the gallery, its smooth curves and high craftsmanship only hinting at the skill and culture that gave rise to it. For all of the skiffs on display on both sides of the river, potential meanings abound . For those with first-hand experience, they can spark recollections of boy and girlhoods on the water, of bright summer days and long rows in the twilight. But if the display consists only of boats shown as boats and largely uninterpreted, these images will work only for those visitors with personal experience . For them, the boats will trigger memories . Is there a way that they could also again create memories? What of all the other visitors, who come from somewhere else to the Thousand Islands to learn where they are, and what the place is and has been? Can that story really be told without including the skiff, and would it not be ever so much richer for it? It is possible to tap the pent-up experiences, the knowledge and the meanings of these artifacts, and re-integrate them into the context from which they came? These small craft on display inside buildings demonstrate clearly the inherent contradictions of preserving boats in museums. Through saving a tangible, concrete object, we seek to preserve intangible experiences . Through static display, we seek to evoke life and motion. Through display of an end product, we seek to interpret a process. To capture the experience


23

of a thing born, and borne, on the water, we hold it on land . To understand the life lived, we look at the mortal remains. The real challenge for the material culture of watercraft lies not in how we carry out scholarship and research, and in what meanings we uncover. It lies rather in how we hold those meanings in relation, and what interpretive structures we devise to carry them to the public through exhibitions, the logical end result of material culture research . The display of these skiffs provides a case in point. Yes, we all have the artifacts in our collections . But have we truly worked with them to rehabilitate their full range of meanings? I have shown how watercraft can be reservoirs of meaning, and the starting point for any number of personal experiences. Unless we devote ourselves to creating a space in which this can happen, however, they will remain mute and cryptic things, objects to be wondered at but not understood . What would a watercrafl exhibit look like that would truly fulfill the objectives of material culture research? A good start has been made with an exhibit at the Adirondack Museum, which holds one of the richest small craft collections in North America. Called

"Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks," it is complemented by a comprehensive catalogue of the same name . It replaced a long-standing exhibit that treated the boats much like insects in the old entomology displays, sorting them by shape and colour and setting them out in pleasing patterns but not really interpreting them. This new exhibit builds a context around the boats, showing how they were built, and used, and what they meant to the economic and social life of the region. Personalities are also introduced, and linked with particular boats. This exhibit points the way, but much more could be done, particularly with a boat as rich in social history as the St Lawrence skiff. The tools and techniques of its builders, the voices and recollections of its users, the boats themselves and the whole phenomenon of the tourist industry in the Thousand Islands region could all be brought together in an interpretive framework that would fully interpret the artifacts using the tools of material culture analysis . In this way, some of the depth and range of meanings present in these deceptively simple artifacts could be brought to life for museum visitors, and their experience of them greatly enriched .

NOTEs 1.

2.

3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

Christopher Clarke-Hazlett, "Interpreting Environmental History Through Material Culture," Material History Review 46 (Fall 1997): 6.

In earlier works on design, such as Owen Jones's A Grammar of Ornament; in architecture, such as Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language; and most notably in anthropological and literary structuralism. With the exception of Jones's nineteenth century work, these approaches are almost invariably based on the work Swiss linguist and pioneering structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure .

Grant McCracken, Culture and Consumption (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988).

Ibid., 67 . Ibid., 66 . [bid., 68 .

Clarke-Hazlett, "Interpreting Environmental History," 7. John Summers, "Toward a Material History of Watercraft," Material History Review 40 (Autumn 1994): 6-18 . John Keats, The Skiff and the River (Nantucket, Mass. : The Herrick Collection, 1988), 10 . Even so pivotal and often-studied a technology as the steamship is surrounded by disagreement about its true inventor. See for instance Thomas James Flexner, Steamboats Come True (New York: The Viking Press, 1944 ; reprint Boston, Toronto: Little Brown and Company, 1978).

10.

Andrew Steever, "Native to the Thousand Islands," parts one and two, WoodenBoat 20 (January/February 1978): 48-51 ; WoodenBoat 21 (March/April 1978): 26-29. 11 . The term "sharp-sterned" is preferred over the more commonly used "double-ended," as strictly speaking a double-ended boat is symmetrical fore and aft, and most skiffs are not. John Gardner, "The Saint Lawrence River Skiff," Building Classic Small Craft 2: 156-157. 12 . "There is nothing about the Indian Canoe in the structure of the skiff," Keats, SUffand the River, 10. 13 . Steever, "Native to the Thousand Islands," part two, 26. 14 . Speaking of small craft on Chesapeake Bay, Reuel B . Parker explains the Darwinian model thus : "Builders became known for their styles - subtle design and construction improvements through trial and error. Inferior boats vanished ; successful boats improved." "On the T~ail of a Unicorn: Reviving the Extinct Eastern Shore Stick-up," WoodenBoat 140 (January/February, 1998): 37 . 15 . Keats, Skiffand the River, 10 . 16 . Ibid ., 7-8 ; Gardner, Building Classic Small Cmft, 156. 17 . The fullest treatment of the origins and evolution of the rowing skiff can be found in Phillip Gillesse, "Developments of the Rowing Skiff," Museum Small Craft Association Transactions 2 (1995) : 83-84.

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture matdrielle 48 (automne 1998)

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18 . Dating is attributed on the basis of the skiff's construction, its similarity to examples of Sauv6 boats in public collections and known dates of operation for the Sauv6 establishment . This boat was purchased in 1979 in near-derelict condition and subsequently restored to the state shown in Fig. 1 .

19 . The largest institutional collection of St Lawrence skiffs is held at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York. There are several at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, and in private collections in the Thousand Islands region . Both the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, and the Brockville Museum in Brockville, Ontario, have Sauv6 skiffs . The following general description of the St Lawrence skiff at the height of its popularity is drawn from an examination of boats in these collections and selected references, including: Keats; Gardner; and the 1893 catalogue of the St Lawrence River Skiff, Canoe and Steam Launch Company of Clayton, New York {reprinted 1983 by the Antique Boat Museum). 20. Kenneth and Helen Durant, The Adirondack GuideBoat (Blue Mountain Lake, New York . Adirondack Museum, 1980). 21 . See for example the techniques outlined in Paul Lipke, Peter Spectre, Benjamin A. G. Fuller, eds., Boats: A Manual for Their Documentation (Nashville : American Association for State and Local History and the Museum Small Craft Association, 1993). 22 . Nathan Cranker began building boats with his father George when he was still in school, working in a loft over the pig shed on the family farm. Though a farmer by trade in later life, he continued to build boats. The family was of United Empire Loyalist stock, and so his skiffs were in some manner in a line of descent from those depicted in the watercolour of the first Loyalist encampments in the early 1780s. (See note 17). R. H. MacGregor, communication with the author, September 1997 . 23 . Adrian G. Ten Cate, ed., Pictorial History of the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence River (Brockville, Ont. : Besancourt Publishers, 1982), 119,122-123,142.

24 . American Canoe Association Yearbook, 1889, p. xxv. The cover of the 1893 edition of Estes Standard Guide to the Thousand Islands featured a Frank H. Taylor sketch of a lean and rustic guide with smoking pipe looking astern at his corpulent citified passenger as their St Lawrence skiff rested on shore. 25 . Frank H. Taylor, "Grindstone Island and Its Surroundings," Outing 4, no . 1 (April 1884): 31 .

26.

27 .

28 . 29 . 30 . 31 . 32 .

33 . 34 . 35 .

36 . 37 .

Taylor, "Grindstone Island," 30 .

Henry Eckford, "Camp Grindstone," The Century Magazine : Midsummer Holiday Number (August 1885), cited in Gardner, Building Classic Small Craft, 151 . Keats, Skiff and the River, 71-75. St Lawrence River Skiff, Canoe and Steam Launch Co. 1893 catalogue, p. 4. McCracken, Culture, 24, 117. "St Lawrence Skiff Co . Report," in On the St. Lawrence, Clayton, New York, 21 March 189o . McCracken, Culture, 25, identifies the fundamental importance of the emergence of the department store for the creation of modern consumer culture. The skiff Genie is in the collection of the Antique Boat Museum (accession # 77.033). Anon, "The Brockville (St Lawrence) Racing Skiff," The American Canoeist 5, no. 5, (May 1886): 66-68. "Brockville Boats to the Fore," The Brockville Recorder, 8 September 1890, n.p . C. Bowyer Vaux, a leading canoeist of the day, put it bluntly: "The racing skiff of 1891 is exactly like a canoe - is, in fact, a big canoe." "The St Lawrence Skiff," Outing: An Illustrated MonthlyMagazine 20 (April-September 1892): 326. And further, "A sailing skiff is a canoe in every sense of the word, and the racing skiffs on the St Lawrence have adopted all the canoeing devices," C. B. Vaux, Canoeing, Spalding's Athletic Library (New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1894), 30 . A.CA. Yearbook, 1894, p. 57 . Vaux, "Skiff Racing on the St Lawrence," Harper's Weekly (18 September 1899): 713.

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"The Featherweight and the Backwoods" and The Evolution of the Pack Canoe HAl_.>>, une recherche de Norman Anick sur la carribre du navire produite pour la Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada . Voir Historic Sites end Monuments Board of Canada, Agenda Papers, 1990, p. 855-887.

5.

A ce point les informations contenues dans Mike K Stammers, op. cit., sont les meilleures, mais les sources documentaires ne sont pas cit6es . Esther Clark Wright, op. cit., p . 82-83 .

7.

Esther Clark Wright, op. cit., p . 80-81 .

6.

8.

meme titre que le Bluenose ou la plate-forme petroliere Hibernia.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, « The Wreck of the Marco Polo », Montreal Witness, 1891 . Eric W. Sager et Gerald E. Panting, Maritime Capital : The Shipping Industry in Atlantic Canada

9. 10 . 11 .

12 . 13 . 14 .

15 . 16 . 17 .

18 . 19 . 20 . 21 . 22 . 23 .

24 .

25 . 26 . 27 . 28 .

29 .

30 .

1820-1914 (Montreal et Kingston : McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), p. 61 .

Ibid. Esther Clark Wright, op. cit., p . 117 ; voir aussi plus loin dans le texte la discussion sur la construction du navire. Esther Clark Wright, op. cit., p . 61 .

Esther Clark Wright, op . cit., p. 79-87; David MacGregor, Merchant Sailing Ships 1850-1875, p. 47 . David MacGregor, op. cit., p. 210; Michael K. Stammers, op . cit., p. 370. Stammers d6crit sans doute les lignes du navire telles qu'elles sont publiees dans son livre en page 370; voir aussi le texte p. 367-368.

Howard Chapelle, The Search for Speed under Sail (Londres : Conway, 1983) . Michael K. Stammers, op . cit., p. 368. Esther Clark Wright, op . cit., p. 117.

David MacGregor, Merchant Sailing Ships, p . 47. Wallace Frederick William, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, p . 57. Esther Clark Wright, op . cit., p . 84 . David MacGregor, Merchant Sailing Ships, p. 47 . Michael K . Stammers, op. cit., p . 94 . Eric Sager et Gerald E . Panting, op. cit., p . 60 .

Garth Wilson, A History of Shipbuilding and Naval Architecture in Canada (Ottawa : Mus6e national des sciences et de la technologie, 1994), p. 26-27. Basil Lubbock, The Colonial Clippers (Boston : Charles Lauriat Co.), Glasgow, 1924 . Michael K. Stammers, op . cit., p. 374-378. Jane D. Lyon, Clipper Ships and Captains (New York : Meredith Press, 1962), p. 99 . Wallace Frederick William, Wooden Ships and Iron Men (Boston : Charles E. Lauriat Co ., 1937), p. 49 . Michael K. Stammers, op . cit., p. 378.

Daniel La Roche, The Marco Polo from Legend to Realty : Archaeological Evaluation of the Wreck of the Marco Polo (rapport in6dit, 1996) .

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Coastal Communities Communautes cotieres Boat Models, Buoys and Board Games: Reflecting and Reliving Watermen's Work PAULA J. JOHNSON Resume

Abstract

Des generations de marins de Smith Island, au Maryland, ant passe leur vie d pecher crabes, huitres et poissons dans la baie de Chesapeake, de saison en saison . Coupes de la terre ferme par un bras de mer de douze milles de largeur, les habitants de 1'ile ant engendre un repertoire d'expressions orales et une culture materielle qui leursont propres. L'article qui suit examine un aspect de la culture materielle maritime de 1'ile, en 1'occurrence les objets fagonnes par les marins, surtout ceux qui ant cesse depuis peu de travailler d temps plein dons la baie . Crees dons divers buts artistiques et sociaux, ces objets faits a la main comprennent des modeles reduits, un jeu de societe, des figurines peintes et des bouees de cages a crabes sculptees. Tous evoquent les liens etroits de leurs createurs avec leur patrie,l'ile, et avec leur metier. L'article replace ces objets dons la trame historique de Pile et de sa culture materielle, s'efforgant den saisir le role et ]importance au sein de la communaute.

Generations of watermen from Smith Island, Maryland, have spent their lives harvesting the seasonal round of crabs, oysters, and fish from the Chesapeake Bay. Separated from the mainland by twelve miles of open water, islanders traditionally have created their own variety of verbal and material cultural expressions . This paper explores one aspect of the island's maritime material culture - objects created by watermen, particularly those who have recently retired from full-time work on the bay. Created for various artistic and social purposes, these handmade objects, including boat models, a board game, painted figures, and reconfigured crab pot buoys, reflect their makers' strong bonds with their island home and its main occupation . The following presents these items within the context of the island's history and material culture, seeking to understand their role and significance within the community.

This paper concerns a variety of artistic objects created by watermen at Smith Island, Maryland. From boat models to a board game, from painted figures to reconfigured crab pot buoys, all of these handmade objects reflect their makers' strong bonds with their island home and its main occupation - the commercial harvest of seafood from the Chesapeake Bay. The following presents these items within the context of the island's maritime material culture, seeking to understand their role and significance . Using an approach familiar to folklorists and anthropologists, the objects are examined from the esoteric, or insider's, perspective, and are discussed in terms of their construction, use, and

meaning within the community, rather than according to external criteria, such as the aesthetic sensibilities of outsiders or the objects' desirability in the marketplace . As folklorist Michael Owen Jones has argued, such an ethnographic approach, which considers the "immediate circumstances in which the [objects are] conceptualized, built, sold, responded to, and used" can reveal a great deal about their cultural significance.' Smith Island and the Water Business Smith Island is a ragged patchwork of land and marsh, lying 19 kilometres off Maryland's lower


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Eastern Shore, in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. It is the state's only inhabited offshore island. Since English colonists first settled there in the late seventeenth century, this low-lying, windswept landscape has been home to generations of their descendants. For most of their history, islanders lived by farming and fishing. By the late nineteenth century, however, much of the island's acreage, including its most fertile soil, had eroded into the bay. As a result, islanders abandoned agriculture altogether and turned their full attention to the commercial harvest of oysters, crabs, fish, and other seasonal delicacies from the Chesapeake . In 1910, the population of Smith Island hovered around 800; today there are only about 400 people who live in the island's three villages of Ewell, Rhodes Point, and Tylerton .z With the seafood business at the centre of life at Smith Island, it is not surprising that the community boasts some of the bay's most proficient watermen . The majority of island men are independent watermen who own their workboats and sell their catch to an array of seafood buyers . Despite a sea of regulations about where, when, how, and how much they can fish, watermen still perceive themselves as independent operators, free to work as much or as little as they please and to press the limits of the laws governing any fishery. A highly competitive group, they also place great value on the mastery of occupational skills acquired over time . Besides being exceptional watermen, Smith Islanders also are known for their distinctive dialect and use of speech . In the 1960s, folklorist George Carey documented the lively verbal traditions among island watermen, who habitually gather in local general stores or in crab shanties to swap complaints, stories, and humour. These verbal forms invariably reflect their personal experiences on the water or the exploits of figures from the community's maritime past. As Carey observed, "With the water consuming almost the entire working force of these small towns, it is not surprising that the general bent of conversation turns on the occupation. 113 As in virtually all North American fisheries, troubles have been brewing in the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry. Due to a combination of factors including over harvesting, pollution, oyster diseases, and destruction of habitat, it is becoming more difficult for watermen to make a living . Bay-wide, the number of full-time watermen has decreased since the 1980s. Smith Island has been affected by these downward trends as well . As watermen find it harder to

support their families, some have quit the business entirely and moved to the mainland to work for wages. Those that remain, however, still comprise, with their families, a unique, single-occupation, maritime community.

Maritime Landscape and Material Culture

The cultural landscape of Smith Island is complex and dynamic. A researcher knowledgeable of maritime material culture in other regions of North America would find many familiar though not identical - forms at Smith Island, where nature and culture collide and cohabit at every compass point. Submerged skiffs sprout marsh grasses; high tides lap at shanty doors ; sunburned watermen scoop up soft crabs from the shallows ; narrow skiffs shoot through narrow guts . Not surprisingly, workboats dominate the Smith Island landscape. They rim the harbours and are the most important category of material culture in the water business . The fleet, consisting of about three hundred craft, includes traditional boat types of the Chesapeake Bay vessels developed over time to suit the region's particular environmental conditions and working purposes . The most distinctive of these are crab-scraping boats - beamy, shallow draft, low freeboard craft used for harvesting peelers and soft crabs in the grassy shallows surrounding the island . Other types include deadrise workboats, the generic term for Vbottom craft used for oystering, crab potting, or cl _a_rnm;n_g. Most numerous among working craft are flat-bottom skiffs, which islanders use for netting crabs, hook-and-line fishing, basic transportation, and sport. The fleet comprises a significant maritime resource in terms of number, variety, and age of the workboats in a single community.' In addition to workboats, distinctive vernacular buildings also populate the Smith Island landscape . Plywood crab-shedding shanties built on pilings ramble along the shore; adjacent piers, criss-crossed with PvC pipes, carry bay water to interior shedding floats . A shanty is a crabber's domain, for it is where he docks his boat and deposits his peeler crabs in tanks until they shed their shells, becoming valuable soft crabs. The waterman's shanty, as well as his outhouse (the term for any outbuilding, usually located in one's backyard), serve as storage for gear and spare parts. They are also where watermen repair equipment, construct crab pots, and, basically, tinker with


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Fig. 1

sented and reflected their makers' lifelong occupation and island community.

Ed Jones discusses his skipjack models and his career as a skipjack captain with folklorist Elaine Eff in his backyard shop, 1991 .

Models from Memory

stuff. Larger equipment is piled outside before crab season opens in April, mountains of wire crab pots tower beside shanties and fill small backyards . Rusty oyster patent tongs, hand dredges, culling boards, and old engines also occupy the spaces between buildings and boats . With limited land on an island, watermen make every square foot count. In the same spirit, they recycle and re-use parts, and are reluctant to discard anything that may yield spare parts in the future . The material world of Smith Island, especially along the shore, clearly reflects a working landscape, a place devoted to extracting seafood from the Chesapeake . As George Carey noted, "There is little to suggest a profession other than following the water. 115

In the course of a project to document traditional workboats at Smith Island, I found it impossible to ignore the preponderance of other expressive cultural forms, from yard art to grave markers to foodways, which were connected, in one way or another, to the island's occupation . Images of workboats appeared on house signs and tombstones ; families decorated their yards with crab shedding floats, skiffs, oyster tongs, and channel markers; crab cakes, clam fritters, or fried oysters were a fixture at any number of church or community events . When my research (which took place mostly at the local marine railway, along the shore, or on the water) brought me indoors to interview watermen and boatbuilders, I found still other types of maritime material culture . Interior spaces in shanties, outbuildings, and homes contained objects conceived of and made by watermen for artistic, entertainment, commemorative, and social purposes . Like the stories told in local stores, these objects, discussed below, repre-

As in maritime communities elsewhere, Smith island has its share of model boat builders . The miniature boats built by both retired and active watermen reflect the region's distinctive workboat types - sailing schooners, bugeyes, skipjacks, and crabbing skiffs, as well as power craft, such as oyster buyboats, scraping boats, and deadrise workboats. The models fall into two basic groups: boats personally known to the builder and made for himself, his family, or other members of the community; and models of regional types, especially sailing workboats of the past, made for outsiders. On one of my first visits to Smith Island in 1990, I met Ben Evans and Ed Jones, two retired watermen in their late seventies, who were building boat models in their tiny backyard outbuildings (Fig. 1) . Evans had built a handful of models, including some bay schooners, which were for sale in the local general store. Jones, a retired skipjack captain, was producing a variety of boat models but was concentrating his efforts on building model skipjacks for the developing tourist trade. Both Evans and Jones built their models based on memories of boats they had once seen or worked aboard . Neither used model-building plans, nor did they build the miniature boats to any measured scale or standard of precision. Rather, Evans and Jones built the models according to basic proportions they remembered from their intimate knowledge of and lifelong experiences with full-sized craft. In these respects, their approach was similar to many folk model builders, including those at Harker's Island, North Carolina, discussed by folklorist Charles Zug.s While model makers are surely motivated by a variety of factors,7both Evans and Jones were motivated by an impulse shared by many retirees : having been active watermen all their lives, neither could stand being idle in retirement. According to Jennings Evans, who was related to both men, neither of the men could have concentrated on model building while they were still working on the water. They wouldn't have had the time or patience . Yet when they retired, neither could keep still . And, unlike most watermen who have, as Jennings said, "clumsy hands or arthritis," Evans and Jones were able to manipulate materials to produce miniature craft." Building model boats


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was a way for both men to utilize their knowledge of local watercraft and to express their continuing identification as members of their occupational group. Elmer "Junior" Evans is another local model builder, who estimates he has built about twenty-five boat models since 1980, when he took up the hobby. Evans is an active waterman who is a generation younger than Ed Jones and Ben Evans. One of the first models he built was to commemorate his first workboat, a roundstern deadrise named for his wife, Mary Ruth. The original Mary Ruth had been built by a local boat builder in 1961, when Evans was just starting out on his own. Years later, he sold his round-stern workboat and bought himself a new fibreglass model. Yet he still harboured affection for the Mary Ruth, and set about recreating her in miniature, plank by plank. More than a decade later, the little round-stern holds a prominent place in Evans's home and is clearly meant as a keepsake and an object of memory, not simply a decoration .9 More recently, Evans has built models of local deadrise workboats and scraping boats at the request of their owners . At the same time, he has reached further into his own working history and begun building model skipjacks. (As a young man, he crewed aboard his father's skipjack, Somerset, before striking out on his own.) Evans builds his models largely from memory, without the assistance of scaled drawings . He begins with the basic dimensions of the actual vessel, then makes wooden patterns for guides . Because he believes that "most skipjacks aren't very pretty, they're rough looking, you know, they don't have good lines," he takes certain liberties in making his patterns . Preferring the look of the bowsprit gently following the rise of the sheer line, he has incorporated this look into one of his patterns, unconcerned about changing the accuracy of a particular vessel's lines. In this respect, he approaches elements of design in the same way as traditional builders of full-sized workboats in the region. Such boatbuilders typically develop certain design features to suit their own sense of aesthetics .l° Likewise, Evans crossplanks the hulls of his models in the manner of V-bottom construction favored by local boatbuilders . While Evans will sell his skipjack models to anyone who wants them, on or off the island, he refuses to advertise or market his craft. "I don't even try [to market the models]. If I ever got orders, it would take the fun out of it ."" In general, the men at Smith Island who build boat models never built full-sized craft.

One exception is Haynie Marshall, who, in his seventy-some years has built twenty-four flatbottomed skiffs . Recently, Marshall has slowed down, retiring from oystering altogether and not planning to build any more skiffs . Instead, he has begun building models of his basic 18-foot (5 .5-metre) flat-bottomed skiff, painted the same brownish green he uses on his fullsized skiffs . He also builds models of gunning skiffs formerly used by market gunners on the bay. These models include a scale version of the massive, deadly "punt gun," which is mounted amidships and extends well over the bow stem . How long have watermen been building boat models at Smith Island? Over a seven-year period of visiting the island regularly, I found little physical evidence of boat models that were more than about twenty years old. Of course, this observation is not conclusive ; by no means did I inspect the contents of every outbuilding and home . However, the island's humid environment is hardly conducive to long-term preservation of small wooden objects and it is likely that any older boat models would have deteriorated and been discarded. Yet of the dozens of people I interviewed, no one could remember anyone of an older generation (people born before the turn of the twentieth century) making anything but "crude toys" for children. Such toy boats were nailed together in haste out of wood scraps for children to play with at the shore. But as far as making miniature boats to represent actual vessels known to members of the community, there was no memory of such activity before the early 1970s. Were people too preoccupied with survival, as one islander suggested? Perhaps, but that notion does not account for the substantial periods of time watermen spent "yarning" in the local stores . The expressive verbal traditions noted above occupied a considerable amount of time on a regular basis, filling a social need on an island where options for entertainment were limited. The local store continues to serve this social function, but now some watermen also spend time crafting materials on their own, in addition to swapping stories with each other. Their interest in making miniatures of bay workboats may have much to do with the particular context of the current fishing industry. As the seafood business declines, there is a gradual decline in the number and variety of vernacular working craft at Smith Island and elsewhere around the bay. Perhaps the impulse to historicize these vessels, whose days are surely numbered, is stronger now then in the past.

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Fig. 2 Painted ctnb netter by Waverly Evans in the collections of the National Museum of American History (Courtesy Richard Strauss, courtesy of 7lunsportation ( ;ulloctions, N.VAH tiniithsoninrn liistitution)

Buoys into Men

Another type of expressive material culture comes from the hands of Waverly Evans, a lifelong waterman, who was born in Tylerton in 1926 . Like many islanders, he patent tonged for oysters in winter and fished crab pots in summer. A few years ago, when the winters got to be too rough and his old round-stern deadrise became too much to maintain, he gave up winter work on the water. He now fishes a modest one hundred crab pots in summer out of a large open skiff. With time on his hands during the long winter, he spends it in and around his crab shanty making things - artistic objects that reflect his life as a waterman . Shortly after what he calls his "semiretirement," Evans went to work on his crab shanty, painting it in a style unlike any other. Most Smith Island shanties are weathered to a soft grey ; some are painted white or red and one in Ewell inexplicably sported a coat of neon green for a few years. Using paint he had on hand to maintain his workboat, Evans painted his shanty white with a wide band of sea-mist green (a favourite shade for workboat trim) at eye level. He proceeded to paint scenes within the band of green - men in skiffs, crabs, fish, channel markers, workboats - motifs from everyday life at Smith Island . Evans's creativity did not end with the shanty. In 1996 he began making objects that appear to have no precedence on the island, or elsewhere in the region, for that matter. He began making flat, painted figures, measuring roughly twelve to eighteen inches in length, out of scraps of wood . The figures (Evans does not have a name for these objects, but tends to refer to them as his "crab netters") are profile views, almost caricatures, of watermen aboard skiffs (Fig . 2) .

Evans has made dozens of these figures in a variety of postures and pursuits, capturing the body language of watermen netting crabs, landing a fish, or planing a skiff with a dog in the bow. There is one constant in all the figures: each skiff is powered by Evans's preferred motor - a Mercury outboard . According to Evans, his first effort - a waterman standing on the bow of a skiff with a crab net held aloft shows a netter who has scooped up a "doubler," a pair of mating crabs, which islanders also refer to as "a husband and wife ." With a flick of the wrist, the netter flips the pair into the air to separate them. If the manoeuvre were brought to its conclusion, the netter would twist the long handle of the net to catch the female, the more valuable of the pair because she will soon be a soft crab . The "jimmie" (the local term for a male crab) would be left to find himself another "wife ." These deft motions - second nature to islanders - are what Waverly Evans has captured in his simple wooden figures. Evans begins by drawing the figure on a piece of 1" x 6" (2 .5 cm x 15 cm) pine, then cuts it out with a skill saw. He paints each piece, using the same colors he used for his shanty sea mist green for water, white for the boat, a black line to mark the sheer, and red to resemble anti-fouling bottom paint on the skiff. The finished pieces are meant to stand on their own or be hung on a wall .

In the same manner that watermen recycle equipment, Evans combs the recesses of his shanty and the shore for materials to use in constructing his figures. He makes the long handle of the net out of heavy gauge wire . For the netting, his wife suggested he use pieces of a synthetic "cleansing puff' they had received as a free trial offer from a beauty soap manufacturer. The mesh of the cleansing puff is nearly


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the correct scale and has just the right look when attached to the wire rim. The final touch is a tiny crab shell, to scale, which is glued inside the net. Evans has no ready explanation for how he came to populate his crab shanty with wooden watermen . When pressed, he says, simply, the idea "just popped up" and "I've always enjoyed making things ." The inspiration for the original design, which he named "01' Dub" (for "doubler" crab), came from memories of late-summer crabbing. He recalled, "when I was a kid we used to net around a lot. We don't do it much anymore. 1112 Making the figures started out as a hobby ; it was something to do with the leisure time he suddenly had after retiring from oystering . Evans did not intend to sell the figures, but his neighbors and the occasional tourist saw them, liked them, and were willing to pay a modest price. Those he has given away or sold on the island decorate both public and private spaces, such as the exterior of an outbuilding or the bedroom of a child. Evans expanded his creative endeavours when he began making "cork people," or images of watermen out of used Styrofoam crab pot floats (Fig . 3) . Using what he calls "bullet corks" (because of their shape) for the body, he places a smaller round float on top of it for the head . Evans makes baseball caps (the preferred head gear for watermen) out of the end of yet another cork and arms out of thin pieces of wood. The arms are nailed to the bullet cork and support tiny crab nets or fishing rods . Evans gives each "buoy man" a colorful outfit and facial expression . While they seem to resemble watermen in the community, Evans does not admit to fashioning them after individuals . Like the corks that mark the location of submerged crab pots, those transformed by Evans are complete with sticks protruding from their bases. The sticks, which the crabber grabs when throwing the pot line around a mechanical hauler, provide the means for displaying Evans's creations shoved in the ground, the buoy men become yard decorations . After making a few dozen cork watermen, Evans tried his hand at capturing the image of the island's female crab pickers (Fig. 4) . He gave his first female figure, also made from recycled crab-pot buoys, to the women who had organized the Smith Island Crab Meat Coop in Tylerton .'3 This figure, complete with table, knife, crab shell, crabmeat container, and refuse can, sits atop the desk in the co-op office . With its requisite apron and hairnet (mandatory attire, according to Maryland Health Depart-

ment regulations), the figure commemorates recent efforts by community women to "go legal" with their crabmeat picking operations . In a moment of whimsy, Evans added some fancy finishing touches to the crab pickers: glitter outlines the apron and the pickers wear jewellery made of tiny shark's teeth. Like the used buoys and crab carapaces he. uses to make th( cork caricatures . Evans finds fossil sIr,irk ta1l

The Crab-Pot Game

Each October, at the beginning of oyster season, Smith Islanders engage in a ritual that harkens back to the days of oystering under sail . Then, captains and crews would depart for ports to the north ( "up the bay") to harvest oysters aboard sailing dredge boats. For the past twenty-odd years, many of the community's watermen take their deadrise power boats to distant towns to work during the week, returning home on weekends . 14 The men stay aboard their boats, forming a floating dockside community in various ports around the bay. After a day's work, they typically have a meal at local restaurants and read,

Waterial History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (auton

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Fig. 3 (above) Waverly Evans in, crab-shanty/works with .ticvrral of his watcrrnnu, 1997 Fig . 4 (left)

A crabmeat-picker mad by Waverly Evans out o] crab-pot corks and othe, materials found along the shore, 1997 (Courtes Carl Fleischhauer)

play cards, or talk with each other in the snug workboat cabins before retiring . It was during one such winter of oystering more than twenty years ago that Ewell waterman Jennings Evans started thinking about the coming crabbing season and came up with an idea. "I was a-thinking one time, I said, 'Gee, wouldn't it be nice to simulate crabbing without having to go out and face the high seas and the hot weather and all?' "'s From that idle thought Evans developed a board game that re-creates the experience of crabbing for a living (Fig . 5) . Similar to Monopoly, the game involves four players, each manning a small workboat as it moves around the game board. One trip around equals a day of crabbing ; a game usually consists of six times around the board, or a week's worth of work during crab season (islanders, staunch Methodists, observe Sunday as a day of rest) . Evans is another example of the watermanrecycler. To make the game, he papered over an old game board and drew the cartoon illustrations for each space himself. He fashioned the workboats out of Winston cigarette hard-packs (shirt pins serve as radio antennae), and made the barrels and baskets out of cardboard. At the beginning of each game, one player turns a spinner on a card to set the basic framework for the game - the market price for crabs, and the costs for bait and fuel . As in real life, these factors are beyond the control of watermen, yet they have tremendous significance . Players roll dice to move their boats around the game board. The lucky crabber lands on spaces that allow him to bring aboard one, two, three, or four baskets of crabs. However, as in the real world, there are all sorts of unanticipated problems .

Fig. 5 Jennings Evans with the crab-pot game he made to re-create the experience of crabbing for a living, 1997

"Well, when you're out on a boat and you get stung in the eye, sometimes the sting is so heavy and the pain's so dense that your eyes begin, you know, water begins pouring from 'em and you have to go in . You can't see your pots or anything . Now, not in all cases. Sometimes you get a little bit in the corner of your eye. You can endure that . But when it gets right in the eye, that means you're done for the day . . it's very painful. And although this is a joke, it's very true ." Other spaces marked "Long arm of the law," involve getting cited h~~ the state marine police for familiar infracticms : "You have been caught in possession of 10 small crabs in one basket. $30." "Your wake damaged the harbor shoreline. Pay $100 . Slow down ." "You forget your licence. Marine police tow you to jail . Go directly to jail ." Since no one can make money in jail, Evans created the "Sharky Fin Loan Company," whose motto is "If you're in a financial bind, then come on in, the water's fine." Players may borrow money for bail, on the understanding that they have to pay it back the next time around the board. When players do not catch enough crabs to meet expenses, they also have to borrow money from the loan company. All is not toil and trouble in the crab pot game, however. Landing on certain spaces entitles the player to draw from the "Helper Card" pile or the stack marked "Big Deal Bonus Card ." Here is where wonderful, unexpected things can happen . For example:

For example, a player landing on a trouble spot draws a card that reads : "Lost in fog this morning . You need new compass . Buy compass in port . $100 cash ." Another may say: "Coast Guard Inspection . You need new life jackets, fire extinguishers, a bell, a horn, and a wishel [mimicking the accent of one of the inspectors .] . Get new equipment in port . Cost $150 ." Another card reads : "Crab pot on your wheel [pot line on your propeller] . Go directly to railway. Bill for hauling $30 . First put out your catch ." Another : "Sea nettle in your eye . OUCH! You're KILLED . Quit fishing, and go home for rest of the day. Put out your catch in port ."

In discussing the background of this particular problem, Evans explained,


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"You shedded [moulted] 20 dozen soft crabs this week and sold them for $10 per dozen. Collect $200 ." "Towed small craft into port . Collect $40 cash."

"Rescued 3 girls in over-turned boat.. . didn't receive any money but sure had a lot of fun. p.s. don't tell wifey."

"Man in small boat bought two baskets of Jimmie [large males] crabs. You charged him $90, you chisler!" (This card shows the waterman selling crabs to a recreational boater, someone who doesn't know the current market. Sizing up the situation, the waterman takes advantage and charges what seems to be an exorbitant price.) Evans explained how the game reflects the experience of crabbing : "One day might be a disaster for you, but the next day, you know, might be good for you. It's the way crabbing is . I know it's hard to pay these penalties on the board, but when you're crabbing, you have to pay those penalties every day. That's the hazards that await everybody. Hopefully, they don't happen, you know, every day, but the odds are you're going to experience one of these things that's in these cards at least once every two or three weeks, something, you know, needs repairing or something is going to break down or you'll find your engine broke down at times." He continued: "Of course, in real life, you depend on, you know, your neighbour coming by or your fellow crabber. Most of the time they've got a keen sense when somebody's in trouble out on the water here . You've all got radios now, and you just relay the message that you've broken down and the closest one to you a lot of times will come pick you up .. .They won't let you lay there, you know, if it starts to breeze up or anything . So there's some of the hazards that you face in real life, and I've tried to simulate them on this game, you see. I think it would help children, you know, to realize what a waterman has to go through without actually having to go through all the rough weather and the freezing weather and the hot weather, and it would give them an idea of just what the water business is all about, without the pain ." While educating children may have been in the back of his mind as he developed the game, Evans and his cohorts have been the major players. Recalling the players' reactions to the game after they played it for the first time, he said : "At the end of the game, we all decided it was similar to the real thing. One of `em said,

`It proves one thing. If you don't get the market, you're not gonna make any money.' That was what I wanted to hear, you know, for the first game . It was similar to the real life thing, although it was just a game ." Over the years, Evans played the crab pot game with other watermen aboard his boat when working away from home, mostly near the end of oystering season, in late February and March, "when the skim was gone" and they were "just dipping."ifi At that time of the season the tongers would be anticipating the crabbing season ahead. Now that he's retired, Evans plays the game occasionally with friends who stop by his outhouse . For them, the game is pure entertainment, which doesn't mean they don't grumble and complain about how hard it is to make a living . But at this point in their lives, it's only a game .

Meanings in Process and Products

The folk art objects described above have a great deal in common . Each was conceived of and created by Smith Island watermen using knowledge, skills, and, for the most part, materials at hand . None of these craftsmen consulted ship plans or how-to books before beginning, and in only rudimentary ways did they seek the assistance of others . Unlike the majority of traditional artists and craftspeople who serve an apprenticeship at the elbow of an elder, none of these men traced their interest or skill to the influence of any particular individual . Instead, their instruction came, as did inspiration, from a lifetime spent in a small, closely-knit community of watermen intensely devoted to the harvest of seafood resources from the Chesapeake Bay. The particular skills involved in making the objects had little to do with perfecting certain artistic techniques, but had everything to do with such esoteric abilities as instinctively knowing the lines of bay boats, or the silhouette made by a crab netter balanced on the bow of a skiff, or the complex set of circumstances a crabber encounters when trying to make ends meet. Opportunity also played an important role in the creation of these objects. For Jennings Evans, it was the long winters away from home that provided the extended time needed for developing, constructing, and, later, for playing, the crab pot game . For most of the others, it was a matter of having increased idle time after slowing down or retiring from the water business . The relationship between retirement and the desire to engage in creative activity has


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been noted by, among others, Simon Bronner, in his study of traditional chain carvers, and Charles Zug, in his work about model boat builders in North Carolina .l7 From the Chesapeake region, George Carey noted that one of the best raconteurs of Maryland's Lower Eastern Shore, Alex Kellam, began painting at the end of his life. While Kellam was widely known for his verbal wit and remarkable repertory of stories, in retirement he turned to a more solitary creative endeavour - painting pictures of the skipjacks he had worked aboard in his youth."' While retirement provides opportunity in the form of free time, it can also present something of a crisis, for it "entails a shift in status with respect to society."" Within the Smith Island community, the attitude of "once a waterman, always a waterman" prevails . Retired watermen are widely respected and continue to be consulted about the ways of oysters and crabs, boats and gear. Still, some watermen find it troubling to stay ashore after having spent so many years aboard a boat . The artistic objects, informed as they are by their makers' intimate knowledge of occupationally-related details, provide a means by which a retired waterman can maintain a connection to the occupation and its current practitioners . Similarly, because the retired watermen craft the objects in the same physical spaces they used during their working lives, they are still a physical presence among the community's active watermen . Smith Islanders have ordered their limited space according to function, an arrangement that reflects work practices as well as established and conventional notions of gender roles. In every case, the objects were made in male-dominated spaces - crab shanties, outhouses, aboard a workboat . As Charles Zug observed with model makers in North Carolina, the process of making these objects continues "patterns of male independence so important during working life . "z° Retired watermen generally don't sit around the house all day; if they're able, they go down to the water to do minor jobs in their shanties, socialize with each other, and continue the familiar occupational banter. Messing around in these occupationally significant spaces communicates their continued identification with the water business, despite their reduced role . Continuing to be productive in these spaces by making objects which express the knowledge, skills, and values associated with their lifelong occupation reinforces their status as engaged members of their communities .zl

Of the three groups of objects discussed, the boat models are the most widely known examples of maritime folk art. The practice of sailors and fishermen crafting miniature reproductions of vessels is so widespread, it would have been unusual had I found no model builders at Smith Island . Susan Stewart has written extensively on the phenomenon of miniatures, observing that objects (like boat models), are often imbued with nostalgia and that the desire to make such objects in miniature (as well as their wide appeal) springs from an urge to capture a vanished era.22 In many respects, this applies to model boats made by Smith Island watermen . The model of a particular vessel, like "Junior" Evans's roundstern Mary Ruth, was created out of a desire to make something tangible to commemorate a period in the past that had special meaning. Likewise, viewing the completed miniature a small version of his first workboat, one named for his wife - provokes a nostalgic response that may involve a longing for the time when he was embarking on what has become a satisfying working life . Islanders' skipjack models, even those built for outsiders, also carry this evocative power. Skipjacks - the sloop-rigged, sail-powered vessels that comprise the last commercial fishing fleet in North America - have become virtual icons of Chesapeake Bay history. Smith Island's present landscape carries few clues about the importance of these vessels, called "oyster drudgers," to the community's past . But, thanks to Jennings Evans and others, the relationship between islanders and dredge boats is revealed . Evans has compiled a list of all the skipjacks known to have been captained, at one time or another, by Smith Islanders. Seventy-nine vessels are on the list (out of a documented 536 skipjacks), which provides only a hint of the number of islanders who worked aboard dredge boats in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries . z3 Scores of islanders also worked as crew, hauling dredges, culling oysters, running the push boat, and tending sails . The community's last skipjack, the venerable Ruby G. Ford, was sold off the island in 1972 . In the years immediately following, some of the island's young men continued to crew on vessels owned by captains elsewhere in the bay. With the precipitous decline in the bay's oyster populations since the early 1980s, however, young men no longer work aboard the handful of skipjacks that remain in the Maryland fleet. For the older generation of Smith Island watermen, including Ben Evans and Ed Jones,

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who passed away in 1992 and 1995, respectively, the waning and ultimate demise of the skipjack fleet - first at the island and later throughout the state - is an event of profound significance . They were the last generation of island captains, the last in a long line of Smith Island Evanses, Tylers, Joneses, and Bradshaws to steer a sailing dredger over the bay's oyster beds . Ed Jones, who captained both the Howard and Lola, was doing more than building models of skipjacks, he was giving form to a time and place, the demise of which he had witnessed himself. Researchers for the Grand Generation exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution noted this relationship between certain builders of model sneakboxes and garveys in New Jersey. These men represented "a cohort that [saw] itself as the last generation to freely hunt and trap the disappearing coastal marshes, and as such [they saw themselves as] cowitnesses and curators of a vanishing way of life and the places in which it was staged. 1124 Even "Junior" Evans, who never captained a skipjack but who crewed aboard the Somerset for fifteen years, perceives himself as part of this fading era. "It's a part of the past," he said, "it's authentic and unique. 1125 There was a social dimension to the model skipjacks built by men like Ed Jones, as well . The models provided him an opportunity to engage in conversation with neighbours, as well as visitors to the community, on a subject a waterman never tires of - the water business. In a sense, the models drew people in and served as props for Evans to share his knowledge with outsiders, an activity that put him in the role of waterman/expert . Because of the public's fascination with skipjacks, Jones was rarely without an audience during the summer tourist season . As noted by others, the "miniatures are not only lures for memories, they are lures for drawing the world in. '126 In a similar vein, Charles Zug found that models of regional boat types in North Carolina became "catalysts for a history of the region" as natives used them to educate outsiders about the region's maritime past .21 In contrast to the widespread practice among sailors and fishermen to craft models of vessels from their own experience, Waverly Evans's creations are without discernable precedence on the island, or elsewhere in the region. Evans's figures and crab=pot cork creations are more innovative than traditional and represent a more personal response to circumstances his own semi-retirement, his desire to continue to keep busy by making things, and his highly

developed skill for finding, adapting, and re-using materials. Like the watermen who scrounge rusty engine blocks to use as anchors, or who use old beer kegs for fuel tanks aboard their scraping boats, Waverly Evans searches the shore for used crab pot corks brought in on the tide . Many Smith Islanders are "proggers," people who roam the edges of the marsh, looking for interesting things of nature and culture to collect .211 Evans, the progger, is also something of a bricoleur, a craftsman who can see the potential in debris, who can envision a creative mix of shark's teeth, crab shells, bottle tops, and scraps of wire .z9 Viewed another way, Evans is merely continuing a long-established pattern of a waterman's work-gathering whatever can be wrested from the waters of the Chesapeake, whether it be crabs, oysters, or interesting flotsam. Personality also plays a role in expressive culture and, indeed, Waverly Evans's impish personal style is reflected in the things he makes. When asked about the inspiration for his cork caricatures, Evans could only reply, "I guess I still got some kid in me! "3o While the process of crafting the cork people provides enjoyment for Evans, his finished products have provoked amusement among his neighbours, who are used to poking fun at themselves ." The shape of the "bullet corks" suggests all too well the physique of many island men. When Evans delivered his cork crab-picker to the Tylerton crab-meat co-op, Janice Marshall reported that she "got to laughing so hard," because he had captured the "look of us ladies, sitting there with our aprons and hairnets, pickin' away."3z An outgoing personality, a talent with words, and Jennings Evans's experience on the water underlie the creation of the crab pot game, which combines entertainment and narrative. Watermen who play it can only laugh at the true-to-life, bad-luck scenarios that befall the beleaguered waterman with the roll of dice . In a sense, the game is a physical manifestation of the island's narrative tradition. The circumstances spring from the experiences of Evans and other members of the community and are the stuff of which the yarning tradition is made : troubles with the law; equipment breakdowns ; a day's work that barely covers expenses ; unexpected good fortune. Like the narrative tradition, where stories both entertain and reinforce occupational values, the game conveys certain messages relevant to commercial fishing: watch out for the marine police, keepyour boat in good repair, and be prepared to laugh and take


98

tors in this business beyond your control. The particular circumstances selected by Evans index some of the more significant aspects of watermen's work. These are the things that resonate among watermen, that need no explanation in the local context. Evans, however, mused about a particular group of outsiders playing the game . "I'd like the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] to play this game," he said . "Maybe then they'd know what we're up against!" In the case of Waverly Evans's "Ol' Dub" figure, there is entertainment value, to be sure, and to outsiders, the figures represent nothing more than a cartoon or caricature of watermen. However, when the insider's view is considered, another level of meaning is revealed . Like the skipjack models, which represent a vanishing time and place, the lone crab netter represents a set of skills and depth of experience that older Smith Islanders possess in abundance. To what extent those skills will continue to flourish is open to debate, as the population of the island continues to decrease . Evans's neighbour and cohort, Julian "Juke" Bradshaw, remarked : "Well, it's a lost art, dip netting is . Now, there's a time, from August until the end of the season, there's a time when you can do good dip netting ...It's fun, really it is . It's hard work, too, but it's a lost art. I don't know if one of these days there won't be many of us left that will even know how to net .. .The main thing is to know what you're doing, because a lot of times crabs will be buried [but] you can find them . There's a way to catch them if you know how. A lot of people would shove right over them . But most the time in that part of the season, they're right out open . They're not hard to see, and it really is fun sometimes to catch them . 1133 Writer Tom Horton, who lived in Tylerton for several years, reported that

way they know to catch a crab 1134 For older residents especially, "01' Dub" evokes a place, season, artistry, and a community of netters that others can only try to imagine (Fig . 6) . Evans's measure of success is the reaction he gets from members of the community. The display of "Ol' Dub" in a child's room, like the prominent placement of the cork crab-pickers on the co-op desk, indicates he got it right with the people who matter most . There are multiple layers of meaning surrounding these few examples of expressive material culture from a single maritime community. Made for purposes of commemoration, entertainment, artistic expression, or for maintaining social connections, they all reflect their makers' strong occupational and community identity. Some of the objects provoke a nostalgic response, evoking a set of associations about a vanishing past . They also serve a social function, drawing people in for further interaction and, possibly, education. The forms vary in terms of traditionality and innovation, with some, like the boat models, being highly derivative, while others, like the buoy watermen, express the particular talents, personality, and creativity of an individual . Most of these forms are ephemeral ; they may or may not last for the benefit of future generations of Smith Islanders. Yet, for most of the makers, the process of creating the objects was more important than was the final product. The range of objects also reflects life in the community at a particular moment in time . Smith Island is, if anything, a place in transition, where the population continues to decrease as the fisheries continue to decline. Other artistic forms are certain to emerge as more islanders begin reflecting on the history and traditions of their maritime communitv.

Fig. 6 The inspiration for Waverly Evans's crabber shown in Fig. 2 : watermen netting crabs in the shallows around Smith Island (Courtesy by Elaine EM


99

NoTEs

1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10 . 11 . 12 . 13 .

14 .

15 .

I wish to thank David A. Taylor, Melissa McLoud, Leslie Prosterman, and Elaine Eff, who provided insightful commentary on earlier versions of this paper. Michael Owen Jones, "Why Take a Behavioral Approach to Folk Objects?" in History from Things : Essays on Material Culture, ed. Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 193.

16 . This means when easily-caught oysters were gone and they were "just dipping" their hydraulic tongs overboard, without catching many oysters . 17 . Simon Bronner, Chain Carvers: Old Men Crafting Meaning (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1985) ; Zug, Little Boats . 18 . 19 .

For an overview of the history of Smith Island, see Frances W. Dize, Smith Island, Chesapeake Bay (Centreville, MD : Tidewater Publishers, 1990) .

George Carey, A Faraway Time and Place: Lore of the Eastern Shore (Washington and New York : Robert B. Luce, Inc., 1971), 22 . See also Tom Horton, An Island Out of Time (New York: W. W. Norton & Co ., 1996), 237-256, for a discussion of the islanders and the "yarnin"' tradition .

See Paula J . Johnson, The Workboats of Smith Island (Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) for a full discussion of the island's working watercraft. Carey, A Faraway 7lme and Place, 19. Charles G . Zug, III, Little Boats: Making Ship Models on the North Carolina Coast (Beaufort & Boone, NC : North Carolina Maritime Museum and the North Carolina Folklore Society, 1991), 16 .

Kathleen Condon discussed the motivations of ship model makers in New York, including identity, memory, skill, market, and imagination, in an exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum . See Kathleen Condon, "Twelve Ties to Tradition: Model Making in New York City," New York Folklore Newsletter 14, no . 4 (Winter 1993): 6-7. Jennings Evans, interview with author, 5 December 1997 . Author's field notes, 7 October 1993 . Paula J. Johnson, The Workboats of Smith Island, 21-22. Elmer "Junior" Evans, interview with author, 17 January 1998 . Waverly Evans, interview with author, 5 December 1997 . In 1992 the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene cracked down on unlicensed crabpicking operations at Smith Island . Many of the island's women had been picking crabs in their homes, in defiance of state standards for seafood processing . A group of women in Tylerton, headed by Janice Marshall, organized a co-op and raised funds to build an approved crabmeat picking facility, which opened in 1997 . Prior to 1971, Maryland watermen were required to work in waters adjacent to the county of their residence. After the Bruce decision, watermen were permitted to work anywhere in the state. Thus, Smith Islanders travel as a tonging fleet to areas of the state where oysters are more abundant. Bruce vs. Director, Department of Chesapeake Bay Affairs, 261 Md 585 (1971) .

20 . 21 .

22 .

23 .

24 .

25 . 26 . 27 . 28 .

29 .

30 . 31 .

32 . 33 . 34 .

George Carey, letter to author, 14 December 1997 . Mary Hufford, Marjorie Hunt, and Steven Zeitlin, The Grand Generation : Memory, Mastery, Legacy (Washington : Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Office of Folklife Programs, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1987), 47.

Zug, Little Boats, 29 . The best analysis of the relationships among artifacts, space, and context in a maritime community is Gerald L. Pocius, A Place to Belong: Community Order and Everyday Space in Calvert, Newfoundland (Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1991).

Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham and London : Duke University Press, 1993), 68. The list compiled by Jennings Evans is available at the Smith Island Visitor's Center. The total number of skipjacks is from Pat Vojtech, Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks (Centreville, MD : Tidewater Publishers, 1993),128-140 .

Hufford, et. al ., The Grand Generation, 54 .

Interview with Elmer "Junior" Evans, 17 January, 1998 . Hufford, et. al ., The Grand Generation, 64 . Zug, Little Boats, 39. The Oxford English Dictionary cites an early seventeenth-century meaning of the word "prog" as "to poke about for anything that may be picked up or laid hold of." Tom Horton devotes a chapter of his memoir on living at Smith Island to proggers . See Horton, An Island Out of Time, 67-76. Claude Levi-Strauss identifies the bricoleur as an artisan who collects elements "on the principle that `they may always come in handy' ." The Savage Mind (Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 18 . Waverly Evans, interview with author, 5 December 1997. In another example of expressive culture at Smith Island, islanders perform occupationally-based songs at watermen's banquets and community events . Organizer Janice Marshall said, "I write songs for shows and we sing and dance and do comedy shows. We make fun of ourselves, we make fun of what we do, it's just a little humour that we have." Interview with author, 6 October 1996 . Author's field notes, 5 December 1997 . Julian "Juke" Bradshaw, interview with author, 27 March 1992 . . Horton, An Island Out of 7lme, 26 .

Jennings Evans, interview with author, 25 March 1992 . All quotations concerning the crab pot game are from this tape-recorded interview.

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Culture materielle et niveaux de richesse chez les pecheurs de Plaisance et de Mile Royale, 1700-1758' NICOLAs LANDRY

Abstract

Resume

While the historiography of colonial Canada devoted considerable space to the study of French strand fisheries in eighteenth century America, little emphasis was placed on the social classes offishers, theirjqnancial resources and their daily lives. How can their level of material comfort be measured and compared and how can their socio-economic status be determined?

L'historiographie coloniale canadienne a consacre de louables efforts d 1'etude de la peche sedentaire frangaise en Amerique au xxvmesiecle. II n'en demeure pas moins que 1'on a mis peu d'emphase sur la determination des categories sociales de pecheurs et, parle faitmeme, de leurs niveaux de richesse et leur univers materiel . Mais comment arriver d evaluer le niveau d'aisance de ces pecheurs et, qui plus est, a les comparer et d formuler un classement socio-economique provisoire ?

According to the author, post-mortem inventories of Plaisance and 1'Ile royale (1700-1758) are vezy promising sources . Although there was more than one social class among the fishers in the two colonies, the analysis is limited to the two groups at the bottom ofthe hierarchy-resident fishers and hired fishers. This window on their world describes the tools of their trade and the implements of daily life : eating and household utensils, furnishings and clothing.

Objectifs et corpus

De nombreux travaux relatant les activites de peche s6dentaire de 1'Amerique franQaise offrent des descriptions detaillees des techniques, des equipements et des outils de peche. Dans certains cas, comme dans les recherches de Mario Mimeault et de B. A. Balcom2, les inventaires apres deces et les greffes de notaires font 1'objet d'une utilisation judicieuse. C'est dans un continuum de ces travaux que nous proposons un projet qui se veut une compilation et une description des informations retirees d'un echantillon de 54 inventaires apres deces d'habitants-pecheurs et de pecheurs-engages

D'apres 1'auteur, 1'exploitation des inventaires apres deces de Plaisance et de 1 ile Roya]e (1700-1758) s'avere fort prometteuse pour la demarche d'etude. (Zuoiqu'il existe plus d'une classe sociale chez les gens de peche de ces deux colonies, le corpus d'analyse se limite aux deux groupes d la base de la hierarchie, les habitants-pecheurs et les pecheurs-engagds . Cette fenetre sur 1'univers materiel des gens de peche laisse voir d la fois les volets des ustensiles et de 1'equipement de peche et ceux de 1'alimentation, de 1'ameublement, du vetement et des interieurs domestiques.

des deux colonies de peche qu'6taient Plaisance et Pile Royale . 11 est a noter que chez les premiers, quelques-uns reussissent a diversifier leurs activites economiques, tout en maintenant des etablissements de peche. Les travaux de Christopher Moore illustrent bien ce phenomene3 . Comparativement a certains travaux sur la colonie du Canada, il s'agit d'un corpus relativement reduit. Nous sommes limite par des contraintes de sources puisqu'il n'existe que 197 inventaires pour toutes les categories socioprofessionnelles des deux colonies, dont 54 sont assurement des inventaires de pecheurs-


101

engag6s et d'habitants-pecheurs, du moins si on se limite aux indications de 1'inventaire documentaire des s6ries G2 et G3 . II est cependant possible qu'un d6pouillement exhaustif 6ventuel r6vble d'autres inventaires cachant des activit6s de peche. Le corpus repr6sente donc 27,4 % des inventaires des deux colonies . A d6faut de faire une analyse exhaustive, la d6marche ouvre une fenetre sur un champ d'6tude encore n6glig6 de 1'histoire mat6rielle coloniale en Atlantique . Bien que ce travail puisse int6resser les historiens de la vie sociale, il vise d'abord a tracer une tentative de canevas des possessions mat6rielles et de leur utilisation chez cette population maritime sous le r6gime fran~ais . Comme beaucoup d'autres historiens Pont deja soulign6, 1'inventaire apr6s d6c6s est une composante fondamentale de la coutume de Paris, qui impose a la famille le principe de la communaut6 de biens. Elle est transplantee en Nouvelle-France a compter de 1664 et ajustee aux sp6cificit6s du contexte colonial . Jacques Mathieu estime qu'elle « favorise la hierarchisation sociale en France » alors qu'en Nouvelle-France, « elle est source d'6galitarisme »4 . L'inventaire se fait aussi vite que possible apres la mort, meme parfois avant 1'enlevement du corps de la maison . Des le d6c6s, il y a apposition des scell6s au domicile du d6funt et une ordonnance qui permet 1'inventaire . Les h6ritiers de droit, s'ils peuvent r6clamer le b6n6fice de la succession seulement apr6s 1'inventaire, peuvent aussi en demander la jouissance directe et la lev6e des scelless . Comme le pr6cise Dominique Bouchard, 1'inventaire pose des problc?mes m6thodologiques . Entre autres 6cueils, il ne semble pas exister d'approche uniforme permettant de traiter 1'information contenue dans les inventaires et les nombreux travaux men6s jusqu'ici demeurent difficiles a int6grer. Mais ces difficult6s bien connues ne diminuent en rien la valeur des archives notariales frano;aises pour 1'histoire maritime . Comme le souligne JeanFrangois Briere dans un r6cent article, « Notarial records are a reflection of society at the microscopic level of the individual . The information they convey may be likened to pieces of puzzle that are mixed with pieces from other puzzles »6 . Est-il utile de rappeler que 1'inventaire est un relev6 complet des composantes du patrimoine mobilier et immobilier d'une maisonnee ou d'un m6nage, incluant toutes les propriet6s situ6es ou non sur le meme terrain. Par exemple, dans le cas des habitants-pecheurs de Plaisance

et de 1'ile Royale, la premi6re section de 1'inventaire comporte une liste des objets de 1'habitation familiale - ustensiles de cuisine, ameublement des diffirentes pi6ces, vetements, literie et objets de valeur. Viennent ensuite des descriptions soign6es du contenu des autres 6difices que sont les magasins de sel, d'apparaux et d'agrbs de peche et aussi de victuailles . Finalement, on recense les articles contenus dans les cabanes des pecheurs-engag6s . En dernier lieu, vient la liste des infrastructures de peche que sont les chafauds (structures de bois ou abordent les chaloupes pour d6charger leurs prises de morue et qui comportent habituellement une cabane servant a abriter les hommes travaillant au nettoyage et a 1'appretage de la morue, avant qu'elle soit dispos6e sur les vigneaux pour le sechage), les vigneaux, les chaloupes, les charrois ou autres types d'embarcations tels les canots, les pirogues ou les goelettes. La aussi, comme en France et au Canada, la deuxic?me partie de 1'inventaire se compose des papiers laiss6s par le d6funt ou la defunte7 . Le plus souvent, ils sont denature fiscale et permettent de tracer un bilan financier sommaire des op6rations8. Cependant, ces informations demeurent plut6t exceptionnelles. A titre d'exemple, a Pile Royale, 1'inventaire de 1'habitant-pecheur the Tesson Lafloury compte une importante liasse de papiers repr6sentant 22 procedures diff6rentes9 . En principe, c'est un notaire assist6 d'arbitres ou encore d'evaluateurs, devant des t6moins choisis par la famille, qui dresse 1'inventaire en vertu d'exigences pr6cisesl° . On y d6note plusieurs problemes, entre autres, l'6valuation des biens immeubles est irr6gulic?re et la description fait souvent d6faut . On le rappelle, les inventaires, comme les droits a la succession, les contrats de mariage et d'autres aspects l6gaux font tous partie de la coutume de Paris, le code civil en vigueur au Canada, & Plaisance, A 1'ile Royale et en Acadie . Selon Brenda Dunn, on ignore si les Acadiens faisaient souvent appel aux inventaires puisque les notaires n'habitaient que les plus grands villages, comme Port Royal et Grand-Pre. Ce type de document est donc fort rare pour 1'Acadie ; tr6s peu de documents portent sur la culture mat6rielle et la propri6t6 privee des Acadiens'i . Les observations de Dunn nous am6nent A pr6ciser davantage les objectifs de notre recherche. Nous croyons qu'en utilisant les inventaires de Plaisance et de Pile Royale, nous serons en mesure de mieux connaitre certains aspects de 1'histoire mat6rielle et sociale des habitants-pecheurs et des pecheurs-engag6s .

Material 1-listory Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (automne 1998)

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Tableau 1

Repartition occupationnelle dans les inventaires apres deces de Vile Royale, 1714-1758 Non s ecifie

41

Pecheurs (habitants et en a es)

36

Artisans

21

N6ociants-marchands

35

Fonctionnaires/militaires

26

Auber istes

9

Gouverneurs

2

Journalier

1

6

Ca itaines de navire Missionnaire

1 1

Matelot

179

Total

Source : Archives de la France outre-mer, S6rie G3 .

Qui plus est, notre demarche est encouragee par la suggestion de Laurier Turgeon voulant que « seule la lecture des minutes notariales et judiciaires pourrait nous faire apprehender le comportement du pecheur et nous reveler les permanences et les transformations de la peche A 1'aube des temps12. » Les contraintes de sources mentionnees plus haut nous obligent donc a une d6marche se limitant a presenter 1'6tat des biens materiels et leur valeur de 27 habitants-pecheurs et de 27 pecheursengages. Dans quelques cas, egalement, la documentation permet de tracer des bilans financiers modestes mais revelateurs . La demarche doit permettre, entre autres, « d'apprecier les conditions de vie et du bien-etre materiel dont jouissaient les [deux] groupes sociaux »13. Chez les habitants-pecheurs,13 sont de Plaisance et 14 de Pile Royale alors que, chez les pecheurs-eqages, 5 sont de Plaisance et 22 de File Royale . Etant donne que le minutier de Plaisance ne contient que 18 inventaires,

ils ont tous ete consultes. En ce qui concerne File Royale, on a consulte environ 20 % du total des inventaires disponibles pour cette colonie. Par contre, on constate une assez grande diversite d'occupations socio-professionnelles selon la liste des inventaires compilee a la forteresse de Louisbourg . Ceci, surtout au niveau des combinaisons d'occupations telles que marchand-navigateur, pecheur-aubergiste ou encore, sergent-tailleur de pierres. Afm d'6viter un eventail trop disparate d'occupations, nous les avons regroupees sous de grandes categories predominantes (voir le tableau 1) . Cette situation West pas sans interet car elle reflete un phenomene d6ja observe par 1'historiographie, soit la pratique de plus d'une occupation socioprofessionnelle qui, dans certains cas, permet a de simples habitants-pecheurs d'atteindre un rang social et economique important dans ces colonies de pechel'. Si 1'on observe la distribution des inventaires dans le temps, on arrive aux resultats du

Tableau 2 Distribution des inventaires de Plaisance et de File Royale dans le temps, 1700-1758 Plaisance

1700-1705

Ile Royale

1711-1714

1

1706-1710 7

1714-1720

1721-1730

1731-1740

1741-1750

8

9

58

41

10

1751-1758

61


103

tableau 2, qui demontre la grande effervescence de la p6riode 1711-1714 pour Plaisance et de celle de 1731-1758 pour File Royale . Dans les deux cas, ces colonies en sont alors a un sommet dans leur d6veloppement et 1'activite notariale en fait foi, surtout a Vile Royale, qui beneficie de longues periodes de paix de 1713 a 1744 et de 1748 a 1758 . Le tableau 1 fait ressortir la necessite d'une d6marche ulterieure visant a departager les habitants-pecheurs ne s'adonnant qu'a la peche de ceux qui exercent au moins une autre activite economique ou ben6ficient des retombees prestigieuses associees au cumul de postes administratifs dans la colonie. Cette cat6gorie d'habitents-pecheurs, ou plus precis6ment de marchands-pecheurs, est integree a 1'elite sociale de la colonie et laisse supposer un niveau de richesse materielle plus eleve'5. Ainsi, la liste du tableau 1 pout etre trompeuse puisqu'un bon nombre de negociants, marchands ou aubergistes avaient souvent des etablissements de peche. Soul le depouillement eventuel de chaque inventaire permettra de confirmer cette hypothese . Notre recherche s'attarde tout de meme a 1'analyse de quelques inventaires decrivant les biens d'habitants-pecheurs pratiquant au moins une autre activite economique et que 1'on aurait pu d6crire comme negociantspecheurs, par exemple. II n'entre pas dens le cadre de cette recherche de presenter une description de la d6marche notariale permettant de compiler les informations composant 1'inventaire . Dans cette premiere section, nous visons plutot a pr6senter un portrait approximatif de 1'alimentation et des interieurs des gens de peche . Nous optons pour une synthese des principaux elements qui entourent la vie quotidienne des habitants, soit 1'alimentation, les agres de peche, la cuisine avec ses ustensiles, les meubles, la chambre a coucher, les vetements et les rares objets de valeur.

Les habitants-pecheurs L'alimentation L'approvisionnement alimentaire des engages est habituellement assume en entier ou en partie par 1'habitant-pecheur qui les embauche. Les engages s'endettent souvent aupr6s de lour employeur, qui lour alloue des avances sur leurs gages. C'est pourquoi Frangois Blondel, habitant-pecheur de File Royale, conserve des denr6es pour fournir les engages . Ainsi, en 1731, nous savons qu'il accorde quotidiennement a ses engages au moins 91 livres de

pain, deux pots de melasse, un quart et demi de pois, un quart de farine, un demi-quart de bceuf et de lard". Sa maison semble comprendre son magasin de denr6es, quoiqu'elle soit « separee de ladite salle d'une cloison de planches » . Un bon nombre d'articles y sont entreposes dans une « soute » contenant des pois, de la farine, du lard, du bceuf et du beurre. On signale A peu pr6s les memes objets A 1'6tablissement de peche de Pierre Bonnain dit La Chaume, egalement aubergiste, situe au havre du Saint-Esprit de 1'ile Royale . Quelques prix sont aussi indiqu6s : neuf quarts de farine se detaillent a 10 livres le quintal, deux quarts de pois coutent 12 livres, une barrique de vin de Tursan, 100 livres, une demi-barrique de vin de Saintonge, 401ivres et un quart de beurre, 40 livres". L'un des inventaires les plus d6taill6s de Plaisance est possiblement celui de la d6funte veuve LeRoy, Bernardine Paquiau, habitantepecheuse a Petit Plaisance. Dans un document date de decembre 1709, Durand Lagarenne, subdelegue de 1'intendant du Canada, se charge d'6tablir « un econome pour la r6gie des vivres pour distribution a 1'6quipage et les faire travailler ». C'est ainsi qu'il d6signe Jules Blandit, gargon de grave et Pierre Lequivier, maitre de grave, respectivement responsables de livrer les vivres aux equipages et de diriger lesdits engag6sl8. Des responsabilit6s sont aussi attribu6es a Alain Vignau, habitant de Plaisance et commandant des 6quipages, qui conserve 1'autorit6 de les faire travailler et de g6rer les vivres . Dans les magasins de la veuve LeRoy, on retrouve la aussi une grande variete de vivres destin6s aux equipages dont certaines denrees alimentaires largement utilisees a 1'epoque : pain, biscuits, pois, beurre, bceuf, lard. Chaque jour, ses equipages consomment 1'6quivalent de 240 livres de pain, une barrique de vin, un tiers de quart de pois, 10 livres de beurre et 60 livres de bceuf et de lard . On trouve aussi d'autres denrees qui ne sont pas necessairement destinees aux pecheurs-engag6s mais peut-etre a la vente dans la colonie. On pense entre autres a 1'huile d'olive (1201ivres ), a la farine du Canada (huit quarts), au ble d'Inde (une denii-barrique) et au tabac en feuilles (75 livres ). Chez le d6funt LaHongrie Lucas, decede en 1713, on retrouve de la melasse (deux barriques et demie), du th6 (une pinte), de la biere (une chaudibre) et de 1'eau de vie (deux tiers de barrique)'9 . Dans la cave du defunt Louis-Joseph La Chapelle, on trouve des paquets de 12 flacons d'alcool d'une valeur de 441ivres2° . De meme, dans la cave du suppos6


104

deserteur Gabriel Barnetche de Plaisance, on note une barrique de Nantes contenant du vin blanc et deux barils a cidre en partie videszl . Charles Mahier, pour sa part, garde de bonnes quantit6s de rhum . Joseph Lafard, lui, semble a meme de fournir de la viande de cerf, de perdrix et d'outarde. L'inventaire indique des ventes se chiffrant a un poids d'au moins 2891ivres de viande de cerflz . Comme on peut s'y attendre, il circule une certaine quantite de poisson pour la consommation locale dans les deux colonies . Par exemple, chez la veuve LeRoy, on signale une barrique de harengs sales et deux quintaux et demi de morues fraiches . Chez Barnetche, se trouvent du saumon boucane et des morues vertes dans 1'eau saumuree . Enfin, la cabane des gens de la veuve Dastarit, de File Royale, contient de la « morue seche et de la morue de refraction et goberge »23. Les agres et apparaux de peche Au magasin des denrees alimentaires s'ajoute celui consacr6 a 1'entreposage du sel pour la morue. Dans la majorite des cas, on y entasse aussi des agres de peche. Dans le magasin de la veuve LeRoy, on note 150 barriques de sel, deux barriques de goudron, six grappins de chaloupe, six gouvernails de chaloupe et un aviron . Uarsenal de peche de 1'etablissement LeRoy comporte aussi du cable, incluant du cordage a greement de chaloupe, des voiles de chaloupe24, des gants d'etoffe a « decoller » la morue, des mitaines de pecheurs, des couteaux pour la morue et des lignes de peche avec leurs calesz5. En examinant 1'inventaire de 1'etablissement de Charles Mahier, on trouve en plus des compas de chaloupe, du calfat a chaloupe et des turluttes ou plombs a crocszs . A sa mort en 1713, LaHongrie Lucas possede 2801ignes neuves, 800 plombs de peche, quatre compas de chaloupe, 45 barriques de sel, trois couteaux decolleurs et six gouvernails de chaloupe . Au magasin de La Chapelle, on declare 90 barriques de sel, un quart de goudron, deux mats de chaloupe, deux mats de misaine, neuf avirons de chaloupe et un cable pour amarrer les chaloupes sur la grave 27 . I: etablissement d'Elie Tesson Lafloury, decede a 1'ile Royale en 1741, contient des quantites impressionnantes d'agres de peche de toutes sortes : deux quintaux de plombs de peche, 100 crocs de peche, deux quintaux de lignes de peche, sept compas de chaloupe, trois balanciers, trois pieces de filets mont6s, 51 rets neufs, huit casaques, 11 devanteaux (grands

tabliers de cuir) et quatre paires de bottes . On evalue le tout a 2871ivresz8 . Dans les cabanes des engages, qui servent a la fois de logement et de cuisine, on constate souvent un heureux melange de leurs effets personnels, d'ustensiles rustiques de cuisine, de lits couverts de paillasses et de quelques outillages de peche. L'une des cabanes de 1'etablissement de la veuve d'Abraham Pichaud de Plaisance comporte deux chambres ou, en plus des traditionnels pots de fer et cremailleres, s'ajoutent un gril de fer, une paire de chenets, un banc, deux chaises de paille garnies de planches, trois chandeliers de laiton, une paire de mouchettes et un porte-mouchettez9 . Dans les cabanes des engages de la veuve LeRoy, on signale une chaudiere de fer, deux pots de fer, une chaudiere de cuivre, une chaudiere a biere, une cremaillere, des barriques, des quarts, des courbillons a pain, des haches et une scie de long. Dans la cabane des engages du defunt La Chapelle de Plaisance, on retrouve deux devanteaux pour pecheurs, une paire de culottes de peau, 16 douzaines de crocs, du fil a voile et a rets . Chez les engages de Frangois Blondel, on recense une chaudiere de cuivre rouge contenant environ 30 pots servant a faire de la biere ou de la soupe, 25 aunes de rets neufs et un morceau de fer servant a la cremaillere . ll s'y trouve aussi un bon nombre d'agres de peche, soit deux compas de chaloupe, 14 lignes a peche, 12 cales de plomb, 20 crocs a morue, quatre grappins, trois voiles de chaloupe, deux misaines, trois aussieres de chaloupe et un greement de mat de chaloupe3o . Les interieurs et la vie domestique L'identification et la categorisation des objets et des possessions des habitants permettent a la fois de circonscrire les interieurs domestiques et, par le biais de bilans comparatifs, d'etablir des niveaux de possessions mat6rielles et de fortune chez les differents groupes sociaux. Selon Kenneth Donavan, les inventaires apres d6ces de Louisbourg revelent une grande variete de possessions materielles dans les maisonnees . C'est un phenomene normal, si 1'on considere les differents niveaux de richesse et de rangs sociaux des individus concernes. On y trouve, entre autres, des fonctionnaires gouvernementaux, des artisans, des marchands, des officiers militaires et des capitaines de navires. De loin, la categorie la mieux representee dans les inventaires de Pile Royale est celle des pecheurs . Bien que Donavan estime que la majorite de ces inventaires soient brefs et se limitent a de cour-


105

tes listes de quelques possessions31, il neglige de differencier entre ceux des habitantspecheurs et des pecheurs-engages . Les inventaires des premiers, dans certains cas, se comparent avantageusement a ceux des marchands et incluent ceux de quelques habitants alliant les peches a une autre activite economique . De son cote, Anita Campbell utilise les inventaires pour ses travaux sur la vie domestique et la culture materielle . Elle combine 1'analyse de 18 inventaires de Pile Royale a 1'etude d'un nombre comparable de sites archeologiques de Louisbourg . Elle estime que les contrats de mariage peuvent aussi contenir de 1'information sur des objets ne se retrouvant pas dans les inventaires32 . Pour faciliter 1'analyse et la comparaison des objets identifies dans les inventaires, Campbell les regroupe par type d'activite : chauffage, eclairage, transport de 1'eau et entreposage, alimentation, hygiene et finalement les articles personnels . Elle subdivise ensuite chaque type d'activite . Ainsi, la categorie alimentation est subdivisee en entreposage et conservation, preparation, service et ustensiles, contenants pour boire, etc. Quant a Jean-Pierre Hardy, il adopte une methode quelque peu semblable dans son etude visant a comparer les niveaux de richesse et quelques aspects de la vie materielle des artisans de Quebec et de Montreal a la meme epoque . Apres avoir dresse le bilan des possessions financi6res et immobilieres, il s'interesse aux « interieurs domestiques » . Cette approche lui permet d'evaluer certaines facettes du « confort ou de 1'inconfort materiel » du XviIIe siecle . Hardy examine donc attentivement le syst6me de chauffage, la batterie de cuisine, la vaisselle, le mobilier de la salle commune ou de la chambre a coucher et les objets de decor33 .

D'autre part, Dominique Bouchard tente de perfectionner un outil permettant de synthetiser un inventaire a partir de la presence ou de 1'absence de certaines caracteristiques. C'est ainsi que Bouchard etablit les categories d'objets que sont la vie domestique, le confort, la civilisation et le luxe. Dans la categorie de la vie domestique, on retrouve 1'equipement menager essentiel a 1'accomplissement des fonctions 61ementaires de la vie quotidienne : conservation, preparation et consommation des aliments, lutte contre le froid et 1'obscuritt;. La categorie confort comporte les objets considerds comme un peu superflus et contribuant plutot A agrementer le cadre materiel de 1'existence. Dans ce cas-ci, on parle particulierement du mobilier et du decor de la chambre34. Notre travail se situant dans un contexte maritime, nous tentons d'adapter 1'essentiel des methodes decrites plus haut . C'est ainsi qu'aux categories alimentation-conservation, ameublement, civilisation, vie domestique et luxe, s'ajoutent les categories activites maritimes et vetements. En fait, a part les objets relies aux activites de peche, les autres categories se rapprochent passablement de celles utilisees dans les travaux mentionnes . Pour I'instant, 1'etat de nos recherches ne permet pas de proposer une methode definitive quant au regroupement d'objets ou d'articles des inventaires, du moins en ce qui a trait A 1'ameublement. La categorie activites maritimes est sans doute la plus complexe A cerner puisqu'il n'existe pas de modele comme tel. Le present travail peut contribuer a esquisser une ebauche de depart pour arriver A un tel modele . Entre autres defis, il faut dissocier les apparaux et agres des infrastructures de peche. Nous considerons les infrastructures comme des objets du secteur immobilier : habitation,

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materie0e 48 (automne 1998

106

Fig. 1

Louisbourg en 1731 . Illustration tir6e de

A. J. B. Johnston, L'et6 do 1744 : la vie quotidiennc A Louisbourg au xvnr sibcle (Ottawa : minister

des Approvisionnement; et Services . 1983).

Tableau 33s Classement pour le nombre d'entrees du secteur meuble chez 27 habitants-pecheurs de Plaisance et de Vile Royale, 1700-1758 (*indique ceux qui allient une autre activite commerciale a la peche) Noms

a

T. Lafloury

286

82

-

213

-

316

64

960

J . Galbarette.

347

141

10

162

17

8

-

685

B .Paquiau

128

20

-

310

-

104

73

635

C. Mahier

102

40

-

219

-

71

126

558

D . Robert

140

11

-

101

-

183

84

519

, P Boisseau*

199

103

3

132

14

-

8

459

J. Seigneur*

123

94

8

165

15

-

45

450

P. Carrerot*

116

45

4

122

9

54

92

442

A .Pichaud

130

63

-

77

-

2

75

347

P. B. La Chaume*

138

65

-

93

14

9

-

319

133

10

304

L . J. La Chapelle

b

c

d

e

f

g

Total

18

4

-

6

133

M. Aubert

110

29

-

82

-

2

79

302

R. Herpin

169

30

-

52

-

-

21

272

F. Blondel

55

27

-

77

-

37

64

260

L. Lucas

68

-

-

25

-

68

41

G. ZOmard

66

202

50

-

52

-

-

23

191

J . G. Preville

40

52

2

84

-

-

-

178

-

8

3

6

6

-

116

139

J . Milly*

64

25

-

28

-

-

17

134

G. Barnetche

B . Le Brun*

63

17

-

32

-

4

14

130

F. Audigny

-

7

-

18

-

-

82

107

F. Lessenne

26

42

11

7

4

-

1

91

S. Sourdeval

14

25

-

14

-

10

-

63

P. La Boularderie

-

2

-

-

-

-

54

56

P Tailbot

3

1

-

-

-

-

35

39

G. Delort

1

4

1

-

-

-

14

20

J. Lafard

3

3

-

-

-

-

4

10

2049

990

42

2076

212

1001

1142

7872

I

a) b) c) d)

alimentation-conservation ameublement civilisation vie domestique

e) luxe f) activit6s maritimes g) vetements

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (automne 1998) 107

chafauds, graves, chaloupes, cabanes des engages, magasins de denrees, sel, agres et apparaux et finalement, goelettes, chaloupes, canots et charrois . Notre documentation impose certaines contraintes . Par exemple, les inventaires ne contiennent pas systematiquement des evaluations des possessions meubles et immeubles. C'est ce qui explique le manque de certaines donnees et le fait que des habitants-pecheurs affichent des valeurs en argent pour le secteur meubles, d'autres pour le secteur immeubles et quelques-uns pour les deux . Qui plus est, ce ne sont pas tous les habitants-pecheurs qui ont des entrees dans chaque categorie des deux secteurs . Bien que 1'6cart de richesse rende hasardeuse toute comparaison des possessions entre habitants-pecheurs et marchands ou entre habitants-pecheurs et pecheurs-engages, nous constatons neanmoins que quelques individus, chez ces derniers, possedent un nombre substantiel d'objets . Ces chiffres ne sont certes pas repartis de mani6re uniforme . Par exemple, Guillaume Delort n'a aucune entree dans les categories vie domestique, luxe et activites maritimes. Deux autres habitants de Plaisance, Joseph Lafard et Pierre Tailbot, n'af$chent aucune donnee dans les categories vie domestique, civilisation, luxe et activites maritimes. Cet etat de chose peut s'expliquer par le fait que Lafard, qui est aussi marchand, et Tailbot, aussi maitre de navire, ne sont possiblement pas des residents permanents de la colonie. 11 en est de meme pour le Sr Dessaudrais Robert qui, bien que negociant a Saint-Malo, possede un etablissement de peche a 1'ile Royale. Frani~ois Audigny, lui, n'a aucune entree dans alimentation-conservation, dans luxe et dans activites maritimes. Le tableau 3 revble que les categories alimentation-conservation, vie domestique, vetements et activites maritimes dominent par le nombre d'entrees. Comme nous 1'avons mentionne plus haut, la categorisation des objets maritimes s'avere complexe lorsqu'on tente de departager les agres et apparaux des infrastructures. Afin de mieux visualiser la disposition des int6rieurs domestiques des habitants-pecheurs, il faut tenter de cerner les contours physiques de 1'habitation familiale. C'est ainsi qu'en general, les mieux nantis ont des maisons a plus d'une pike et souvent, des cheminees doubles. Par exemple, Bonnain La Chaume est proprietaire d'une maison de sept pieces alors que Magdeleine Aubert et Gaspar Zemard ont des demeures comprenant au moins cinq pieces

et des cheminees doubles. Quant a Gabriel Barnetche, son habitation comporte au moins quatre pieces dont une cuisine et deux chambres a coucher. Joseph Lafard, moins riche, a neanmoins une maison incluant une chambre a coucher et une cuisine. Rene Herpin et Charles Ivlahier, pour leur part, ont des cheminees doubles . Dans la cuisine, comme le souligne Hardy, la cheminee ou le foyer ont des fonctions multiples, soit le chauffage, la preparation des repas, 1'eclairage et parfois, le repos. Le poele apparait graduellement au xvIiie siecle . L'utilisation a bon escient d'une chemin6e exige de nombreux ustensiles que sont chenets, cremaillbres, trepieds, pinces et pelles a feu. Cette description est assez conforme a ce qu'on retrouve chez Rene Herpin : cremaillere, chenets, trepieds, gril, pelle de fer, poele, poele a frire, chaudiere de cuivre, tuyau de poele avec plaque et porte. Dans la cuisine de Magdeleine Aubert, on remarque a peu pres les memes objets auxquels s'ajoutent un fauteuil garni de « cadis vert )>, six chaises de paille ou de bois et un tapis de table. La cuisine de Marie Sceau (veuve Zemard) compte deux poeles de fer. Dans les cuisines du xvine siecle, les objets composant les batteries de cuisine sont le plus souvent congus en cuivre, en fer, en etain, en bois ou en terre. Les articles en verre et en cristal, comme les verres, les gobelets, les salieres, les flacons de boisson ou de vin, ornent les tables et les caves des plus aises . L'essentiel de I'argenterie se compose de gobelets, d'assiettes, de tasses, de fourchettes et de cuillbres. Signalons aussi d'importantes quantites de nappes et de serviettes dans les foyers plus for-

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la cultun? rnaterielle 48 (autornne 1998

108

Mg. 2

Le foyer, ou chemin6e,

constituait n la fois une source de chaleur et tin moyen de cuisson. Les

habitants-pecheurs plus

aises pouvaient rneme en avoir plus d'un dons la

maison . Illustration tir6e

de A. J. B. Johnston, L'6t6 de 1744 : la vie quotidienne A

Louisbourg au xv1lh

siccle (Ottawa : rninist6rF des Approvisionnements et Services, 1983).

tunes36. C'est ainsi que chez plusieurs de nos habitants-pecheurs, on remarque une grande quantit6 d'ustensiles de cuisine et d'articles associ6s a la cheminee . Entre autres, les assiettes de faience et d'6tain sont en grand nombre. Le meme constat s'applique aux nappes et aux serviettes. Ainsi, il y a 96 assiettes en faience chez Lafloury, 36 chez Magdeleine Aubert et 12 chez Rene Herpin . Quant aux assiettes d'etain, on en d6nombre 60 chez Herpin, 45 chez Galbarette, 31 chez Charles Mahier, 24 chez Bernardine Paquiau et 13 chez Gabriel Barnetche. Les nappes et les serviettes sont aussi le reflet d'une certaine aisance. On compte ainsi 58 nappes chez Galbarette, 13 chez Aubert, 12 chez Lafloury et 7 pour Zemard . Quant aux serviettes, elles sont encore plus nombreuses : 96 chez Galbarette, 84 chez Lafloury, 79 chez Preville, 61 chez Aubert, 48 chez Zemard, 35 chez Robert, 25 chez Mahier et 21 chez Herpin . Comme chez les artisans de Montreal et de Qu6bec, les habitants-pecheurs possedent quelques objets en cuivre, entre autres, le sucrier, 1'huilier et des verres . Les articles de vaisselle sont en plus grand nombre encore, de meme que les fourchettes, cuilleres et couteaux . Comme en France et au Canada, la coutume d'usage de ces ustensiles est donc assez generalisee chez les habitants-pecheurs des colonies de peche. Nous tenons a preciser que nous n'avons pas inscrit les quantites mesurables des denrees perissables . Par exemple, les 91 livres de pain ne comptent que pour une seule entr6e tout comme la demi-livre de sel et les 15 livres de beurre . Nous devions ainsi de 1'approche de Dominique Bouchard pour qui « les stocks de denrees perissables ne sont pas syst6matiquement recenses puisqu'ils seront consommes a breve echeance » 3' . Le buffet et le coffre sont les meubles de rangement les plus populaires . Dans les colonies atlantiques, les habitants-pecheurs ont souvent plus d'un coffre et les pecheurs-engages en poss6dent toujours au moins un . Cola s'explique puisque, selon Hardy, le coffre est le « meuble des errants, des mobiles, qu'on apporte facilement dans les demenagements » 311 . La chambre a coucher de 1'epoque, Cost un fait, engouffre la plus importante part des investissements dans les biens meubles. La maison de la defunte Magdeleine Aubert contient au moins deux chambres a coucher . Dans celle de la defunte, se trouve un lit garni de « sent bon de lit >>, une garniture autour du lit, deux couettes de plumes avec un traversin et un oreiller garni. Dans la maison de Marie Sceau, la chambre a coucher des enfants compte un petit chalit, deux

couettes de plumes, un traversin, une couverte blanche, une demi-couverte anglaise, un lit pour deux enfants et un coffre . La plus grande chambre comporte deux lits, un miroir dore, une armoire de chastaline et quatre armoires de deux tiroirs. Dans la plus grande chambre de la demeure du defunt La Fleury, le lit se compose d'un chalit, d'une couette traversiere et de rideaux de cadis vert . On y trouve aussi des couvertures, dont une de laine blanche et une courtepointe d'indienne a fond rouge. En guise d'ameublement, notons un « mauvais » bureau anglais, un petit miroir a cadre de bois, deux tableaux de famille a cadre dore et une table anglaise. Dans une autre chambre, plus petite, se trouvent un « lit tombeau » avec une couette et un oreiller. Il est difficile de dire si les habitantspecheurs possedent beaucoup d'argenterie . Est-ce qu'ils considerent 1'argenterie, comme le pense Hardy pour les artisans canadiens, comme un « gage de securit6, un objet de thesaurisation ou un simple moyen d'accroitre son patrimoine au meme titre que le numeraire » 39? Quelques inventaires revelent des objets d'argenterie . Le contenu le plus impressionnant est celui de Lafloury avec une tasse, 12 fourchettes, une timbale, un gobelet, une ecuelle, une tabatiere, deux boutons et deux boucles. A cola s'ajoutent une montre anglaise a boitier avec chaine en argent et sept horloges . De son cote, Jeanne Galbarette possede cinq tasses en argent, six broches, un crucifix en or et un cadre avec un Christen or. D'autres af$chent des bilans plus modestes, dont Bernardine Paquiau avec une bague en or et 36 boutons en argent, Charles Mahier avec quatre galons en argent, Louis Josselin La Chapelle et Ren6 Herpin avec chacun une tasse en argent et Frangois Blondel avec 35 boutons dores. L'aspect civilisation comprend les livres ou objets religieux. C'est ainsi que Charles Mahier a un petit crucifix en laiton et deux paires de lunettes. Quant a Frangois Audigny, il conserve un roman de tragedie, un memoire du cardinal de Richelieu, deux livres religieux intitules respectivement Conduite de la Confession et Communion et Explication des partiels de 1'Office et de la Ceremonie de la messe et un chapelet . Chez Galbarette, on signale la pr6sence d'un benitier. Les infrastructures des etablissements de peche sedentaire Bien que nous ayons aborde la question des equip'ements de peche plus haut, un portrait plus global et mieux articule s'impose . Comme


109

nous 1'avons precise, notre principale difficult6 reside dans la distinction des agres et apparaux et des infrastructures . C'est ainsi que nous parlons d'infrastructures lorsque nous faisons le decompte des embarcations, des chafauds, des graves, des cabanes, etc. Les agres et apparaux sont plutot des outils et picces qui peuvent etre utilises par un seul homme et qui servent a 1'appretage ou a la conservation de la morue. Nous pensons 6galement que la categorie agres et apparaux peut legitimement comporter tout objet pouvant appartenir a un habitant-pecheur, sans qu'il soit pour autant proprietaire d'infrastructures importantes. Le tableau 4 offre une tentative de r6partition entre les agres et apparaux et les infrastructures. Nous rappelons que, dans certains cas, les inventaires parlent d'agrbs et d'apparaux sans dormer de nombre permettant d'en quantifier les composantes. Dans notre tableau, ils sont marqu6s par un astrsrisque (*). Bien que le tableau 4 prete a reflexion, il se veut davantage un survol des types d'6quipements et d'infrastructures de peche qu'un inventaire exhaustif. C'est precisement par 1'analyse des infrastructures que nous pouvons esp6rer identifier les habitants-pecheurs les mieux nantis . Signalons que, dans certains

Fig. 4

Des officiers de la garnison de Louisbourg, tout comme ce fut le cas a Plaisance, investissaier rEgulierement dans le commerce et la peche. Illustration tiree de A . J. B . Johnston, L'60 de 1744 : la vie quotidienne A Louisbourg au XVIIte sii'cle (Clttawa : ministcrE des Approvisionnements et Services. 1983) .

inventaires, on ne mentionne aucune infrastructure, mais seulement des apparaux et des agres. Les habitants-pecheurs ayant posstid6 ces inventaires auraient alors ete locataires ou saisonniers et seraient deced6s dans la colonie. Les travaux de Nicolas Denys, Charles De La Morandiere, Jean-FranQois Bricre, Laurier Tur-

Tableau 4

Infrastructures, agres et apparaux de peche d'habitants-pecheurs de Plaisance et de File Royale, 1700-1758 Infrastructures Bateaux Brancards Cabanes Cajots A huile Canots Chafauds Chaloupes Chamois Demi-chaloupes Goelettes Graves Lavoirs Magasins Mats Misaines Pirogues Seines, filets Sloops Voiles ViRneaux

Agres et apparaux 3 1 27 2 3 12 77 3 4 3 7 2 12 5 1 1 4 1 48 34

* Agres *Apparaux *Greement Amarres, cables Ancres Avirons Calfat Compas Couteaux d6colleurs Crocs Fleaux (pbse-morue) Gouvernails Grappins Harpons Lignes Plombs Rets

I;i

182 124

Naterial Historv Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoirr, de la culture materielle 48 tautomne 1998)

110

Tableau 5

Infrastructures de peche pour 13 habitants-pecheurs de Plaisance et de Vile Royale, 1700-1758

I

Noms

Cabanes

Aubert

3

1

3

Blondel

2

1

Herpin

1

La Chapelle Lafloury

Magasins

Vignaux

1

-

-

3

1

-

15

-

-

1

-

16

-

-

2,5

-

1

-

5

2

11

1

3

3

Galbarette

1

1

-

1

1

1

Lucas

3

2

18

-

2

-

Mahier

2

1

14

1

1

-

Paquiau

2

2

8

-

Pichaud

2

-

-

-

2

-

1

-

Robert

3

1

9

1

1

1

Sourdeval

-

-

2,5

1

1

-

3

1

3

1

-

-

Z6mard

I

Chafauds Chaloupes

geon et Mario Mimeault permettent tous de mieux comprendre 1'ampleur et les composantes des infrastructures necessaires aux activit6s de peche sedentaires . B. A. Balcom est cependant celui qui a le mieux exploit6 les sources documentaires, surtout les inventaires aprbs d6c6s, pour mieux faire connaitre la nature des infrastructures mises sur pied par les habitants-pecheurs. Nous tentons cependant d'61argir cette analyse en englobant un plus grand nombre d'inventaires, y compris ceux de Plaisance. On sait d6ja que la veuve LeRoy, d6cedee a Plaisance en 1709, possbde une habitation de peche passablement 6laboree. L'inventaire parle de plusieurs 6quipages et fait 6tat d'agres et d'apparaux importants . Les 6quipages logent dans des cabanes et 1'on signale aussi des chafauds, des graves et des chaloupes. Sur le terrain de LeRoy, dans 1'environnement du grand chafaud, se trouvent huit chaloupes et une demi-chaloupe . Pres d'une des cabanes gisent 16 billots, plusieurs courbes a construire les chaloupes et le bois pour la r6paration des chafauds . Le 4 novembre 1709 a lieu sur la grave, devant 1'habitation de la veuve LeRoy, la vente des charrois, chaloupes, gouvernails, etc. Le tableau 6 dresse un apergu des valeurs des objets en question4° . Selon Balcom, les charrois furent d'abord utilis6s pour la p6che au large41 mais il est aussi possible qu'on s'en serve pour le transport de la morue ou autres le long du littoral.

Graves

L'inventaire relatant les installations du d6funt LaHongrie Lucas, lui aussi de Plaisance, est peut-etre encore plus imposant que celui de LeRoy : deux chafauds, deux magasins, quatre cabanes, deux cageots (recipients en bois ou en osier qui servent a stocker 1'huile de morue pour qu'elle se conserve mieux), deux lavoirs (cages en treillis utilis6es pour laver la morue salee avant le s6chage), 18 chaloupes, deux grands canots neufs, un sloop pont6 nomm6 La Marie (25 tonneaux) avec ses apparaux, un autre batiment plus grand, 6chou6 a la baie de 1'Esp6rance et un charroi d'une capacit6 d'au moins 400 quintaux. Letablissement emploie 29 hommes4z . A 1'habitation de Charles Mahier, dans la meme colonie et a la meme 6poque, on compte 14 chaloupes, un chafaud, un charroi

Tableau 6 Valeur a la vente publique d'equipements de peche

de la veuve LeRoy, Plaisance, 1709 Articles

Nombre

Valeur en livres

Chaloupes

10,5

730

Avirons

16

15

Toile-chaloupe

1

15

Cables

-

150

Grappins

-

30


111

et une cabane'3 . Dans le document de renonciation de Catherine Lebaudy, veuve de S6bastien de Sourdeval, de Plaisance, on recense une grave, deux chaloupes et demie et un magasin44. Pour sa part, 1'etablissement de Gaspar Zemard compte, en plus d'une maison de cinq chambres ou reside la veuve Marie Sceau, un jardin entour6 de piquets, trois magasins ou cabanes, un chafaud, une grave et trois chaloupes45 . Comme nous 1'avons precise, la documentation couvrant 1'ile Royale est plus abondante et plus diversifiee que celle qui a trait a Plaisance. Certains inventaires sont plus elabores et refletent une activite de peche tres dynamique. Celui d'Elie Tesson Lafloury indique 11 chaloupes, un canot, un bateau (25 tonneaux), une goelette (30 tonneaux), plusieurs vigneaux, plus de six cabanes, trois magasins et au moins deux chafauds . Le tout vaut pres de 6 OOO livres46 . L'inventaire de Rene Herpin est lui aussi rev6lateur d'une grande activit6 durant les annees 1730 . Sur son terrain de 3 105 toises carrees situe du cote nord du port de Louisbourg, se trouve une grave faite a la main et mesurant 24 toises de large sur 25 toises de profondeur, sur laquelle est situ6e une cabane de piquets couverte de planches de bois de 45 pieds de long sur 16 pieds de large, pour loger les pecheurs . Au nord de ladite grave, 16 vigneaux de 38 toises de long chacun, une maison de 38 pieds de long sur 20 pieds de

large faite de piquets, couverte de planches de bois avec deux petits cabinets47 . Sur la propri6te de Frangois Blondel de Petit Lorembec, on trouve 15 vignaux avec 350 quintaux de morue, une cabane des pecheurs, un 6chafaud garni, deux chaloupes et demie avec leurs agr6s et apparaux sur la grave a 1'arriere de la maison. Finalement, a 1'Indienne, on compte deux autres chaloupes dont 1'une appartient A Blondel et 1'autre est a « ferme ou louage »48. Comme le suggere Jean-Pierre Hardy, si 1'on regarde dans 1'ensemble la batterie de cuisine, 1'ameublement, les vetements, 1'alimentation et meme les infrastructures, il nous semble que, comme chez les artisans canadiens, « 1'indigence est rare et la majorit6 est pourvue de 1'essentiel »49. Mais cette tentative de mesurer les possessions materielles ou encore d'identifier les mieux nantis demeure incompl6te si 1'on n'inclut pas des valeurs en argent dans notre bilan. Par contre, la d6marche peut se buter a de serieuses difficultes . Selon Dominique Bouchard, 1'evaluation des biens meubles est irr6guliere et la finalit6 des engagements financiers figure rarement, si bien qu'on ne peut pas toujours distinguer les dettes contractees a des fins d'investissement des simples « depenses d'6picerie ». Impossible 6galement de degager de la masse des cr6ances celles qui sont attribuables aux activites professionnelles du maris0.

Tableau 7 Bilan des valeurs pour les secteurs meubles et immeubles pour 13 habitants-pecheurs de Plaisance et de Pile Royale, 1700-1758 Noms

Meubles

Immeubles

Total

Lafloury

4591 .44

10 299

14 890 .44

653 .2 .0

13 500

14 153 .2

406.14.0

8 800

9206 .14

2,970.2

5 000

7970 .2

533 .13 .9

3 100

3633 .13 .9

1454 .1

2100 .0

3 554 .1 .0

Boisseau*

Milly* Galbarette Herpin Bonnain La Chaume* Preville Le Brun*

Seigneur* Carrerot, P.*

La Chapelle

476 .9 .6

2000

2476 .9 .6

1 723 .2 .6

-

1 723 .2 .6

1604 .19.9

-

1604 .19.9

1217 .1 .9

-

1217 .1 .9

Blondel

276.45

-

533

Barnetche

173 .80

-

-

533

276 .45 173 .80

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture matErielle 48 (automne 1998) 112

Ici encore, comme ailleurs dans notre travail, la disparit6 de 1'information dans les inventaires des habitants-pecheurs nous oblige a ne travailler qu'avec une partie de notre corpus . Par contre, les r6sultats du tableau 7 ne sont pas facilement comparables a ceux de Hardy ou de Desloges et Lafrance . Dans le premier cas, Hardy estime que les artisans les plus demunis (60 %) affichent des fortunes mobilieres inferieures a 700 livres alors que chez ceux qui sont plus a 1'aise, ces valeurs atteignent 800 livres et parfois meme 2 000 livres51 . A Quebec, selon Desloges et Lafrance, apres 1725, la proportion des menages laissant moins de 1 000 livres de fortune s'accroit dans tous les secteurs . A 1'oppos6, ceux qui disposent de 5 000 livres et plus diminuent d'importance, sauf les personnes qui travaillent dans les services, les transporteurs maritimes et les marchands plus riches5z .

Quoique les tableaux ci-dessus nous renseignent quelque peu sur la valeur des possessions materielles de quelques habitantspecheurs, nous croyons qu'un depouillement plus soigne de leurs nombreuses transactions sert a mesurer partiellement leur dynamisme en tant qu'entrepreneurs . Ceci est possible en examinant les papiers trouv6s dans les inventaires . Il n'est pas surprenant de constater que les inventaires les plus detailles en termes de bilans financiers soient ceux de Jean Milly, de Pierre Boisseau et de Pierre Bonnain La Chaume, qui sont tous des habitants-pecheurs proprietaires d'auberges ou de tavernes . Par exemple, 1'inventaire de Milly revele 31 entrees dans la colonne des dettes actives (2 082 .10 .0 livres) et 68 entrees dans celle des dettes passives (11 882 .14.3 livres) . La valeur totale des biens meubles et immeubles, ajout6e aux dettes actives et passives, montre un bilan deficitaire de 381 .9 livres . Quant au n6gociant Pierre Boisseau, il laisse a sa veuve Marguerite Terriau un bilan positif de 19 951 .38 livres . Il faut dire que les biens immeubles comportent trois terrains, quatre maisons et autres batiments de dependance . Quant aux comptes et factures, la communaute doit 1 110 .49 livres, mais les 27 entrees de dettes actives d6montrent qu'on lui doit 1 178 .67 livres . Pour ce qui est de Pierre Bonnain La Chaume, la valeur de ses biens meubles, immeubles, argent liquide et dettes actives s'eleve a 4 804 .11ivres . En deduisant le montant des dettes passives, on arrive a un bilan positif de 3 780 .11ivres. D'autres ont aussi des bilans positifs, tels le negociant Bonnaventure Le Brun avec 694 .13 .8 livres et

1'aubergiste Jean Seigneur dit Lariviere avec 1604 .19.9 .

Jeanne Baucher, veuve de Jean Gaillon Preville, declare que la communaute, aprcs evaluation des biens meubles et immeubles et a la suite du calcul des dettes actives et passives, affiche un bilan positif de 669 .8 livres . Les biens meubles se chiffrent a 476 .9 .61ivres et les possessions immobili6res, a 2 000 livres . La communaute a des dettes passives de 2 0711ivres et des dettes actives de 263 .91ivres . La meme remarque s'applique a la communaut6 de Jeanne Galbarette, veuve de Jean Dastaris . L'habitation complete (maison, cabanes, grave, vignaux) est evalu6e A 5 000 livres alors que les biens meubles se chiffrent a 2 970 .2 livres . Les dettes actives se montent a 6 005 .8 .11 livres et les dettes passives a 4 175 .4 .3 livres . Il en resulte donc un bilan positif de 9 800 livres.

Pour sa part, l'inventaire de LaHongrie Lucas compte quelques papiers relatant des transactions financieres dont six billets. Un premier billet de feu Lucas pour des lignes de peche a ete acquitte par une personne non identifiee . Un autre, en faveur de Lucas, lui avait W consenti par monsieur De Belhome Simon pour des grappins ; ce billet a egalement W acquitt6 . Deux autres billets ont ete « doubles » d'un marche entre le Sr Fouber et le Sr Lucas pour des viandes. Le solde d'un salaire de 80 livres devait encore etre vers6 a un pecheur-engag6 non identifie sous forme de morue verte, d'huile de morue, d'une paire de souliers et finalement, d'un passage paye pour la France, une fois la peche terminee le 4 septembre suivant53 . Pour Joseph Lafard, une documentation relativement abondante revele qu'il a consenti une douzaine de billets 6quivalents A 649.71ivres . En contrepartie, on lui a allou6 une quantite equivalente de billets pour une somme totale de 832.5 livres . L'inventaire donne une breve description de chaque billet en pr6cisant qui s'engage envers qui et pour combien, s'il s'agit d'un pret ou d'un remboursement, etc. La grande majorite des comptes doivent se regler en aofut ou en septembre, soit a la fin de la saison de peche d'ete. Quelques exemples sont a signaler : le 5 janvier 1705, Jean Maillet consent a Lafard un billet pour la somme de 27 .10 livres payable en aout suivant. Toujours en janvier, Jean Borny accorde lui aussi un billet a Ward pour la somme de 36 livres payable egalement en aofit. Par contre, Lafard fait de bonnes affaires puisque le 20 octobre 1704, Augustin Boustany lui cede une maison du Petit Plaisance pour 45 livres . De meme, le

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23 juillet 1705, Lafard reroit le pouvoir de collecter ce que lui doivent plusieurs particuliers . Il s'agit peut-etre des 18 individus dont les noms apparaissent sur une liste et a qui Lafard semble avoir accorde des billets. Signalons que Lafard vend de la viande a Plaisances4 . Dans la plupart des cas, il demeure difficile de reconstituer 1'essentiel des transactions financi6res . C'est ainsi que pour Jean Samper, originaire de Saint-Malo, on rel6ve un billet qu'il a consenti pour 3001ivres en 1709 . Au bas du billet en question, on mentionne un remboursement partiel de 100 livres en 1712 . Un autre billet indique un remboursement de 43 .18 livres par un nomme Sainte-Marie . Un deuxieme billet sp6cifie que Sainte-Marie reconnait avoir regu de Samper, pour la veuve Marianne, la somme de 18 livres . Ladite veuve lui pr6sente une quittance de 34 livres, le 8 aofit 170755 . Chez Magdeleine Aubert, 1'information relative aux transactions financi6res est plutot rare . On constate seulement un billet de louage du magasin et d'une chambre aux Srs Sapie et Lagardere pour quatre mois a raison de 150 livres ou pour un an a 300 livres, en date du mois d'aout 171156 . C'est encore plus modeste en ce qui concerne Pierre Tailbot, qui n'a qu'un billet de Pierre Gautret converti en faveur du defunt Tailbot pour la somme de 6 livres en 17085' . Un cas fort bien documente pour Pile Royale est celui de Lafloury puisque 1'inventaire compte une vingtaine de documents de toutes natures. On y trouve, entre autres, une sentence rendue a 1'amiraut6 de Louisbourg en aofit 1732, r6sultant en une condamnation au profit de feu Lafloury contre Jean Duhaume pour 249 .15 .1 livres, avec int6rets, frais et depenses, et un billet de Frangois Priou pour 2501ivres encore au profit de feu Lafloury, dat6 de 1736 . La veuve Lafloury, s'appuyant sur un extrait d'un grand livre appel6 Journal, explique que les pecheurs-engages doivent 3 816 livres A la communaut6 . D'autres particuliers ont eux aussi des dettes envers les Tesson : le Sr TYeguy de Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 13 .10 livres, le Sr Soll6, chirurgien, 171ivres, Jacques Bongar,161ivres, le Sr Pepiniere Larue, 18 livres, le nomm6 Lefeve, 60 livres, Lachene, 17 livres et finalement Bruiti6re, 9 livres . En contrepartie, la veuve Lafloury declare que la communaut6 Lafloury doit a divers particuliers environ 9 000 livres pour des fournitures avanc6es a 1'habitation « tant pour la peche qu'autrement ». Autres dettes de la communaut6 : 480 livres « aux gens engag6s dans 1'habitation pour gages jusqu'a ce jour » . On trouve aussi, dans le petit coffre, un acte de

vente fait par monsieur de Mezy au profit du Sr Lemaigre, d'une maison du c6t6 nord du havre de Louisbourg, avec chafaud, grave et vigneaux en date de 1728 . Lafloury acquiert ensuite cette meme habitation en 1733 et, en 1736, elle achete, du Sr Petitpas, un terrain de 45 toises situ6 en face de Vile du Nord. Une concession confirme 6galement la propri6t6 du terrain de File de Scatery, c6d6 6 Lafloury le 19 mars 1716 par les administrateurs coloniaux de 1'6poque, messieurs de Costebelle, Soubras et Decouagne. Une deuxieme concession d'un terrain de 52 toises de fond sur le bord de la mer est dat6e du 9 juillet 1738 . Ce terrain est 6valu6 a 1501ivres par les « appr6ciateurs » Martissans et Dolhabarats . La valeur des meubles et immeubles, les dettes et actes, s'6l6ve A « 19 5361ivres 4 sols et pour les dettes passives a la somme de 9 480 livres »58. Chez feu Fran~ois Blondel, les papiers inventori6s permettent une modeste tentative de bilan financier. Une premi6re cat6gorie de papiers consiste en des billets s'6chelonnant sur la p6riode 1712 a 1731 et leur valeur totale se chiffre a 449.3 livres . Ils se r6partissent entre 13 individus. Une autre liste donne les noms de 27 personnes ayant fait des achats aupr6s du d6funt Blondel, pour un total de 283 .6 livres, dont seulement 27 .15 livres demeurent impay6es . Entre autres acheteurs, on note Guillaume Vallet, Andre Carrerot et Francois Lessenne . Il est a noter que les deux premiers participent A la vente publique des « hardes et effets de feu Blondel », le 11 decembre 1733 . Les papiers de Blondel comportent aussi des accords, dont deux avec Jean Dupr6, capitaine du navire La Ualeur. Celui-ci vend et livre plusieurs marchandises et fournitures de peche a Blondel. Le premier accord fait mention de marchandises telles que du porc, de la m6lasse et du beurre pour une valeur de 267.81ivres ou 1'6quivalent de 65,75 quintaux de morue, que Blondel s'engage a rembourser sur la base de 10 quintaux de morue par campagne de peche. Le deuxieme accord parle de fournitures de peche se chiffrant a 152.15 livres, dont du fil A voile, du goudron et du maquereau. Un iroisieme accord date aussi de 1732 est conclu avec monsieur Obrien, capitaine du navire La Sr Jellene. On y recense du pain, de 1'eau de vie, du sel, du beurre, de la ligne A morue et du lard, dont la valeur totale se chiffre A 301 livres . Un bilan general de ces transactions r6sulte en des dettes de 720.95 livres . Michel Daccarrette est certainement le mieux connu des personnages avec qui transige Blondel. Gaccord dont il est question ici se concr6tise

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en 1728 . Durant les Tableau 8 ann6es 1728 et 1729, Dac- Bilan financier de 1'habitant-pecheur FranVois Blondel de carrette avance des fonds 1'ile Royale, selon les papiers de sa succession de 1732* « tant pour batir mon habitation et chaloupes, Actifs que pour fournitures de Liquidation (vente publique) 276.45 livres peche » . Pour obtenir cet accord, Blondel doit Ventes par Blondel (solde non pay6) 27 .15 hypoth6quer son habitaTotal 303.6 tion et ses chaloupes . Passifs Pour la « sitrete de ladite hypothbque », Blondel Dettes diverses 31 .7 verse, chaque ann6e, a Dettes (solde im aye des transactions) 890.0 .76 Daccarrette 10 quintaux Total de morue par chaloupe. 221 .77 .6 Au total, la somme Bilan negatif 918 .17 .6 avanc6e 6quivaut a 166 quintaux, 80 livres de *Sans oublier un solde n6gatif de 99 quintaux, 401ivres de morue morue, plus 169.12.6 livres en argent. L'entente est renouvel6e en 1732 lorsque superieures a 10001ivres, six exercent d'autres Daccarrette regoit 90 quintaux de morue comme occupations economiques. Comme 1'a d6ja acompte sur la dette de Blondel. Par contre, ce soulign6 Christopher Moore, les habitantsdernier regoit d'autres fournitures . La solde a pecheurs devenus marchands, n6gociants, payer se chiffre alors a 99 quintaux, 40 livres de proprietaires de tavernes ou autres Wont peutmorue en plus des 169.12.6 livres en argent . A etre plus besoin de s'adonner a la peche. Ils la mort de Blondel, Daccarrette estime que, controlent neanmoins la majorit6 de la propour se faire payer, il n'a d'autre choix que de duction locale pendant presque toute la p6riode recourir a 1'autorit6 du Conseil superieur. C'est 1720-1758. ce qui explique qu'il lui demande de d6fendre A Guillaume Vallet, neveu de Blondel et charge de la surveillance des biens laisses par son Les pecheurs-engages oncle, de « s'en saisir ». Le 27 aout 1732, on Avant d'aborder plus en d6tail 1'information s'oppose a la levee des scell6s mis sur les biens compil6e a partir des inventaires des pecheursde Blondel. Le 15 septembre de la meme annee, engages, il est utile de cerner le corpus . Comme 1'Amiraut6 de Louisbourg autorise Uprien pour les habitants-pecheurs, certains invenLaguanbre a percevoir 40 quintaux de morue au taires pr6sentent de 1'information plutot poste de peche de Blondel a Lorembec . Mais squelettique . Dans uri premier temps ; dans 14 voila qu'il se heurte au refus des Srs Dupre et des 27 cas, on indique la cause ou 1'endroit du Aubrys9. Quel est donc le bilan financier de deces : dix engag6s se sont noyes, deux sont Blondel a sa mort? Selon notre compr6hension morts a 1'hopital, un est dec6d6 dans sa pension de la documentation, la compilation des actifs (auberge) et un autre, a son domicile . Pour et des passifs ressemble au portrait trace au quelques engag6s, on ne relbve aucune entr6e tableau 8. dans certaines cat6gories du secteur meuble, et Ce profil collectif des possessions et valeurs aucun n'a de biens immeubles a d6clarer. Par materielles d'un nombre limit6 d'habitants- contre, 21 cas offrent des valeurs en argent des pecheurs des colonies de Plaisance et de Pile possessions mat6rielles, a la suite de la liquiRoyale West pas tout a fait acceptable en termes dation lors des ventes publiques. Seul Olivier de bilan. On doit plutot parler d'un corpus Laisne n'a aucune entree enregistr6e, mais il a repr6sentatif mais partiel. Il Wen demeure pas n6anmoins de modestes avoirs d'une valeur de moins que 1'on peut conclure que les habitants- 101ivres . La case de la categorie luxe demeure pecheurs ayant reussi a ajouter une autre activite pratiquement vide pour tous . 6conomique a la peche semblent arriver au Le total des entr6es, toutes cat6gories du terme de leur vie avec des actifs plus subs- secteur meuble confondues, se chiffre a tantiels que ceux qui se sont limites a la peche. 994, dont 460 pour les vetements, 147 pour En effet, le tableau 7 r6vele que sur les dix 1'alimentation-conservation, 159 pour la vie habitants-pecheurs ayant des valeurs totales domestique, 123 pour les activit6s maritimes, Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (automne 1998)

115

Tableau 9

Classement de 27 pecheurs-engages de Plaisance et de File Royale pour le nombre d'entrees par categorie du secteur meuble, 1700-175860 Noms

Mendiboures Cou ueville Gu6rard Camino M . Duhart

P. Darro~uy LeBuf Laisn6, M. Hirigoyen Renaut, C. Ruel Sam per Lesta ie Verdi6

a

b

c

12 42 2

3 13 4

6 3

5

7

0 6 2

5 2 -

5

10

4 1 2 3 3 3 2 2 2

d

-

10

1

7

25

-

7 17 9

1 1 5

-

9 6

6 10 3 6 3

Moisant

-

-

2

Louvras

-

3 2

-

-

3

-

1

Roger

T6baux

Duhart M. Duval Jouet Boismoreau Laisn6 O.

2

2

-

1

-

147

1 -

76

a) alimentation-conservation b) ameublement c) civilisation

96 80

48 16

3

12Eclanch6

22 54

43 13

-

2

Total

-

2

-

g

9 52

1

Uger

f

3 2

1

Fretel Renaut, M.

e

3 2

-

-

26

76 pour 1'ameublement, 26 pour la cat6gorie civilisation et trois pour la cat6gorie luxe . Bernard Mendiboures domine avec 113 entr6es, suivi de Mathurin Couqueville avec 98 et d'Etienne Gu6rard avec 96 . Gu6rard domine aussi pour les entr6es en alimentationconservation avec 42 . C'est Mendiboures qui a le plus d'entrees dans la cat6gorie activit6s maritimes avec 43 et il est deuxieme derriere Camino pour les vetements avec 48. Dans les vetements, a part Mendiboures et Camino, dix engag6s enregistrent tous 20 entrees ou plus . Dans la vie domestique, seules les 52 entr6es de Couqueville sont significatives .

3 1

2 -

-

-

-

-

159

14 3 10

8 2 -

-

1

-

1

3 -

4 11

3

1

21

19 20 15 24 20 31 21 21

23

18 11

10

60

48 46 43 38

38 35 33 29 26

24 24 18

16

-

8

15

1

5

7

1 4 -

123

d) vie domestique e) luxe fl activit6s maritimes

7 9

11 11

3 -

7 7 7

6 3 -

460

g) vetements

3 -

994

Lorsqu'on examine les d6tails des inventaires des engag6s, on comprend mieux Kenneth Donavan lorsqu'il deplore la pauvret6 de Finformation qui y figure . En fait, les inventaires des engages comportent rarement plus de trois types d'information, soit la liste des possessions, parfois leur valeur en argent a la suite de la liquidation et de rares donn6es relatives aux transactions financi6res ou encore, des ententes contractuelles aupr6s des habitants-pecheurs . Dens la quasi-totalit6 des cas, l'inventaire se fait dans la cabane ou r6side 1'engag6 durant son contrat. Immanquablement, on y trouve au moins un coffre contenant les biens du d6funt .


116

113 98

Les attirails de cuisine et les agres et apparaux sont, de maniere generale, de meme type que ceux qui meublent les cuisines et les magasins des habitants-pecheurs . La difference se situe au niveau des quantites et de la diversite qui sont beaucoup plus modestes chez les engages. C'est ainsi que le tres d6muni Pierre Boismoreau dit Diunoulin n'a pour possession qu'un habit avec une veste et une culotte. On ne specifie cependant pas le contenu d'un coffre . Le tout rapporte tout de meme 253 livres a la liquidation, ce qui laisse sous-entendre la pr6sence d'argent comptant ou encore de possessions mat6rielles non enregistrees dans 1'inventaire61 . D'autres exemples confirment une certaine egalite de richesse en termes de biens mat6riels. Robert Tebaux possede un habit de pelleterie, une paire de vieilles bottes, un vieux change, trois chemises et un coffresz . Son confrere d'6quipage, Christophe Moisant, possede sensiblement les memes articles, auxquels s'ajoutent deux couvertures et deux blanchets6 . Les deux sont engag6s chez Frangois Gamelin a Plaisance.

A Pile Royale, Jacques Fretel est un compagnon-pecheur a 1'emploi de Julien Leperchois lorsqu'il d6cede a 1'hopital de Louisbourg . Il avait nomme Jean Le Roger comme son executeur testamentaire . Encore la, ses biens materiels sont assez similaires a ceux mentionn6s pour T6baux et Moisant, sauf qu'on y remarque une relative aisance : quatre paires de culottes, quatre gilets, huit chemises, deux bonnets et une paire de souliers64 . Etienne Gu6rard, natif de Normandie, est lui aussi d6c6de a 1'hopital de Louisbourg en avri11735 . Son employeur est le Sr Dibrat de la pointe Dauphine . L'inventaire se tient a la cabane oiu Aside Gu6rard puisque ses effets s'y trouvent toujours . La vente de ses biens rapporte 120 .10 livres . On constate environ 80 entr6es materielles se repartissant entre les ustensiles de cuisine (45), les vetements (22), 1'ameublement (13) et la vie domestique (9) . L'aspect activites meritimes est negligeable puisque c'est surtout 1'habitant-pecheur qui fournit les agrbs et apparaux . Au niveau de 1'alimentation, on remarque de la biere (un baril), du vin (un baril), du pain (Sept barriques), des biscuits (deux barriques), de la m6lasse (dix pots), du poivre (0,5 livre ) et du beurre (5 livres ) . Les ustensiles de cuisine sont peu varies mais assez nombreux : des assiettes d'6tain (6), une cuillbre, une fourchette, un gril en fer, une poele a frire, un pot et une marmite en fer, une cr6maill6re, une th6iere et un rechaud.

L'ameublement est bien sur compose de 1'essentiel dont une couverture de laine, un

oreiller, un lit avec sa paillasse, quatre chenets et, ce qui est beaucoup, cinq coffres. Un peu comme Moisant, Guerard possede des vetements en assez grand nombre, mais qui demeurent essentiels : neuf chemises, quatre paires de bas, quatre paires de culottes de peau et une paire de souliers65 . II arrive que chez certains, comme FranQois Ruel, le nombre de biens materiels soit sensiblement superieur quoique de nature assez semblable. Par contre, on signale chez lui environ 781ivres en argent comptant66 . Les inventaires etudies permettent de modestes tentatives d'analyse en termes de bilans financiers . Nous relatons quelques cas de maniere plus d6taillee. D6cede a 1'hopital de Louisbourg en 1733, Jacques Fretel a pris soin de mettre de 1'ordre dans ses affaires . Jean Le Roger, lui aussi compagnon-pecheur et cousin du defunt, avait remis au greffe de Louisbourg le coffre de Fretel . De plus, ce dernier lui avait confie une « espece de testament olographe », en faisant ainsi son ex6cuteur testamentaire . Le Roger devient responsable de payer ce que le defunt doit a ses creanciers . Les cinq reQus des paiements verses par Roger aux creanciers confirment qu'il s'acquitte de sa tache. Fretel a aussi des actifs, au montant total de 36 livres, sous forme de credit fait a cinq personnes pour divers achats . II a egalement conserv6 precieusement Sept lettres de sa famille, toujours a Saint-Michel-des-Loups en France, et a eu recours aux instances judiciaires . Dans un premier temps, il y a eu les pi6ces d'un proces qu'il a intent6 aupres de 1'Amiraute pour reclamer 23 quintaux de morue qu'on lui avait saisis a la requete du Sr Dupr6. Dans un deuxieme temps, Fretel a pr6sente une requete au commissaire-ordonnateur pour etre paye a meme les morues de la succession de feu FranQois Blondel, son maitre, deced6 en 1732 . Le total se chiffre a 8 quintaux de morue et 31 .1 .6 livres en argent pour le solde. A cette requete sont joints deux billets dudit Blondels'. Notre deuxieme cas, Johannis Lestapie, offre un bilan passablement detaille . Ses dettes se chiffrent a 205 .3 .6 livres et ses revenus, a 167 .10 .9 livres, pour un bilan deficitaire de 37 .17 .91ivres. La majorite de ses dettes sont contractees auprbs de Frangois Lessenne, son employeur. Les avoirs de Lestapie se r6sument a ceci : sa part de 27 quintaux, 75 livres de morue, soit 3 quintaux, 96 livres au cout de 8 .101ivres le quintal, pour une valeur totale de 33 .13 .31ivres . Son salaire sur les prises totales de morue de la goelette (429 quintaux, 60 livres ) equivaut a 15 quintaux, 751ivres, toujours au cofut de 8 .10 livres le quintal, pour une

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materie]le 48 (automne 1998)

117

valeur totale de 133 .17.6 livres . Ses revenus cumul6s se chiffrent donc a 167.10.9 livres et son manque a gagner s'6tablit a 37 .17 .9 livres . C'est le bilan de sa dette finale envers Lessennes8 . Notre troisibme cas, Noel L'Eclanch6, affiche un bilan peu reluisant a sa mort puisque sa dette envers Fran~ois Lessenne se chiffre A 259.16.9 livres . t1 cela s'ajoutent d'autres dettes pour un passif total de 376 .8 .3 livres . Sa part et son salaire proviennent des prises de morue (431 quintaux, 671ivres) de la peche d'6t6 des deux chaloupes de Lessenne . Cette part est calculee sur « le pied de 18 quintaux sur 600 » et se chif-

Tableau 10

Bilan des inventaires apres deces de 21 pecheurs-engages de Plaisance et de Pile Royale, 1700-1758 (en livres) Noms

Entrees-meuble

Valeur-meuble

60

274.13.6 253 .0 .0 169.4 .6

Duhart, Marlan Boismoreau, Pierre Laisne, Mathieu

3 43 18

U er, Louis Renaut, Charles Gu6rard, Etienne

38 96 113

Mendiboures, Bernard Moisant, Christo he _ Camino, Mi uel

96 .15.0 91 .0 .0 85 .13 .8

16 80 35

Ruel, Fran~ois Verdi6, Julien T6baux, Robert Fretel, Jac ues

67 .12.0 60 .4 .0 52 .0 .0 36 .0 .0

26 7 24 98

Cou ueville, Mathurin Lesta ie, Johannis L'Eclanche, Noel

33 .6 .0 28 .10.0 14 .1 .0

29 15 7

Duhart, Mi uel Roger, Jean Duval, Antoine

13 .3 .0 11 .0.0 7.10.0

11 7 7

Jouet, Frangois Louvras, Louis

fre a 12 quintaux, 95 morues, a raison de 8 .101ivres le 100 morues, pour un total de 110 .1 .6 livress9 . Le compagnon-pecheur le plus endett6 est sans contredit Julien Verdieu . Le 17 octobre 1742, il signe une entente avec jean Hamon par laquelle il s'engage a lui payer la somme de 24 .12 livres . De cette somme, 6 .121ivres servent A liquider un solde impay6 et 18 livres vont a 1'achat de 12 pots de rhum . t1 sa mort, il travaille pour 1'habitant-pecheur

135 .0 .0 124 .4 .0 120.10.0

5.10.0

11

-

Tableau 11 Bilan de 1'actif et du passif de

8 compagnons-pecheurs de 1'ile Royale, 1715-1758 (en livres) Noms

Jouet, Frangois

Actifs

Passifs

Bilan

-

585 .4 .0

(585 .4 .0)

-

10 .0 .0

-

Guerard, ~tienne

58 .16.0

(58.16.0)

Leger, Louis L'Eclanch6, Noel

10 .0 .0 -

Lestapie, Johannis

167 .10 .9

205 .3 .6

(37 .17 .9)

Fretel, Jac ues

36

-

Mendiboures, Bernard

-

419 .0.7

36 .0 .0

Verdieu, Julien

-

2 699.5 .2

Frangois Picard et lui doit 68 .4 livres. Cependant, le proc6s-verbal de 1'inventaire de Verdieu r6v6le des lettres de change et des billets pour un total de 2 418.0 livres et un billet pour 8 quintaux de morues sur lequel ont 06 pay6es 12 livres, en plus de 78 livres en argent. En tout,

629.9 .19

(629 .9 .19)

(419 .0 .7)

(2 699.5 .2)

le total du passif se chiffre A 2 631.12 livres'° . Finalement, Bernard Mendiboures meurt lorsqu'il est au service du Sr Michel Daccarrette . Selon le bilan dress6 lors de 1'inventaire, Mendiboures doit un total de 419.7 livres a son employeur. Entre autres dettes, sa part des


118

Tableau 12

Bilan de fortune a la mort de 8 pecheurs-engages de Vile Royale, 1715-1758 (en livres) Noms

Bilan

Jouet, Frangois

(58.16.0)

Leger, Louis

10 .0 .0

Lestapie, Johannis

(37.17.9)

Gu6rard, E`tienne L'Eclanche, Noel Fretel, Jacques I

(585 .4 .0) (629 .9 .19)

(419 .0 .7)

Verdieu, Julien

-2699 .5 .2

vivres d'hiver se chiffre A 27 .16.8 livres . Pour sa saison de peche, Mendiboures a droit a un revenu de 70 .16.9 livres7l . En termes de bilan gen6ral, les trois tableaux suivants demontrent que la tres grande majorite des pecheurs-engag6s affichent des valeurs mat6rielles meubles inferieures a 100 livres . Qui plus est, un nombre d'entrees superieur ne r6sulte pas forc6ment en des valeurs mat6rielles plus 6levees. Les compagnons-pecheurs Duhart, Boismoreau, Laisne, Leger, Renaut C. et Gu6rard dominent dans la valeur meubles mais, mis a part Gu6rard, les autres ont des performances d'entree inf6rieures a celles des Mendiboures et Couqueville. En ce qui a trait aux bilans d'actif et de passif, seuls Leger et Fretel offrent des resultats positifs . Par contre, ils Wont pas des chiffres d'affaires comparables a ceux des Guerard, L'Eclanche, Mendiboures ou surtout Verdieu. C'est le meme sc6nario en ce qui concerne les bilans de fortune. Alors que Lr;ger et Fretel affichent des chiffres refletant mieux 1'ensemble de leurs activites, les autres membres de 1'6chantillon n'ameliorent que tres peu leur bilan de fortune final. Cette analyse nous permet de penser que les structures fmancieres du monde des peches coloniales permettent des marges de manceuvre financi6re assez larges . On consent d'importantes avances, meme a de pauvres compagnons-pecheurs qui, en principe, Wont pas facilement acces au credit . On peut aussi penser que les revenus decoulant d'une position de compagnon offrent peu de chance d'accumuler un capital permettant d'acceder un jour au statut d'habitant-pecheur. Mais des exceptions existent . Qui plus est, le credit est souvent la seule fagon pour 1'habitant-pecheur de se garantir une main-d'ceuvre sufFisante .

Bilan de fortune

120.10.0

(465 .4 .0)

5.10.0

(53 .0 .6)

135 .0 .0

145 .0 .0

14.1 .0

28.10.0

36 .0 .0

Mendiboures, Bernard

Valeurmeuble

36.0 .0 I

(615 .8 .19) (9 .0 .7) 72 .0 .0

96.15.0

(322 .8 .5)

60.4 .0

(2639 .1 .0)

Conclusion Comme nous 1'avons mentionne ailleurs dans ce travail, ce profil collectif des possessions materielles d'un nombre limite de pecheurs des colonies de Plaisance et de Pile Royale ne doit pas We percu comme un bilan d6finitif des niveaux de fortune. Bien que partiel, le corpus etudie peut tout de meme etre qualifi6 de reprdsentati£ Un meilleur eclairage ne sera possible qu'une fois que la totalit6 des inventaires sera analysee . Comme le souligne dtsja 1'historiographie de la colonie du Cap-Breton, nous avons vu que les habitants-pecheurs en mesure d'exercer une activite economique suppl6mentaire semblent arriver au terme de leur vie avec des avoirs materiels plus substantiels que ceux se limitant aux peches . Par exemple, c'est le cas de six des dix habitants-pecheurs affichant des valeurs totales sup6rieures a 1 000 livres, a la suite de 1'inventaire apres deces. Chez les pecheurs-engag6s, seulement six des 21 cas documentes affichent des valeurs meubles sup6rieures a 100 livres . Aucun n'a de biens immeubles. Bien que nous ne soyons en mesure de tracer de v6ritables bilans de fortune que pour huit engages, il en ressort que seulement deux demontrent des bilans positifs. Il faudra un jour penser a examiner la situation mat6rielle des militaires et fonctionnaires engages dans les peches et s'interesser a d'autres fonds d'archives, notamment a ceux de la Charente-Maritime qui contiennent un important nombre d'inventaires sommaires d'engages morts en mer'z. Il faut donc souhaiter que nos resultats stimulent assez d'int6ret pour encourager d'autres chercheurs a depouiller la totalite des inventaires apr6s d6cbs de Pile Royale, et a enrichir ces donn6es grace a celles provenant d'autres fonds d'archives .


119

NoTEs 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

L'auteur aimerait remercier Danielle Picard et Denise Hach6 pour leur assistance technique, de meme que Heather Gillis et Eric Krause de la forteresse de Louisbourg au Cap-Breton . Ils m'ont permis d'avoir acces a une importante quantit6 de documents notari6s de File Royale.

Mario Mimeault, « Les entreprises de peche a la morue de Joseph Cadet 1751-1758 », Revue d'histoire d Am6rique finngaise, vol. XXXVII, n° 4 (mars 1984):557-572. B. A. Balcom, La peche de la morue a 1'Ile Royale, 1713-1758 (Ottawa : Minist6re des approvisionnements et Services, 1984). Christopher Moore, ((The Other Louisbourg : Trade and Merchant Enterprise in Ile Royale,1713-1758 », dans Aspects of Louis6ourg, sous la dir. de Eric Krause, Carol Corbin, William O'Shea (Sydney : The University College of Cape Breton Press, 1995), p. 228-252. Jacques Mathieu, Les Frangais en Am6rique du Nord, XVIB-XVIIIB sic?cles (Paris : Editions Belin et Presses de l'Universit6 Laval, 1992), p. 102 et 185. Maurice Garden, « Les inventaires aprbs d6ces : source de 1'histoire sociale lyonnaise on juxtaposition de monographies familiales? », Cahiers d'histoire, vol. XII (1967), p. 155. Jean-FranQois Bribre, « French Notarial Records as Sources for Maritime History", International Journal of Maritime History, vol. II, n° 2 (d6cembre 1990), p.147-162 . Pour plus d'information sur la structure des inventaires, voir Maurice Garden, « Niveaux de fortune a Dijon au milieu du XVIIIe sic?cle », Cahiers d'histoire, vol. IX, n° 3 (juillet-septembre 1964), p. 237. Les papiers retrouv6s dans les inventaires peuvent etres d'une grande diversit6 : contrats familiaux, titres de propri6t6, dettes, promesses, obligations, billets en faveur du d6funt, mais plus rarement, les dettes passives . Bien que les livres de comptes des commerces et n6goces soient lus et d6crits, il ne s'y trouve pas n6cessairement d'indications pouvant nous informer sur 1'importance des activites commerciales. Maurice Garden, « Les inventaires apr6s d6c6s : source globale de 1'histoire sociale lyorinaise ou juxtaposition de monographies familiales? », Cahiers d'histoire, vol. XII (1967), p. 156. Voir entre autres 1'inventaire de Joseph Lafard de Plaisance, qui compte trois livres de comptes totalisant 146 pages et 230 comptes. AN Colonies G3, vol. 7/175, pike 70, Inventaire du d6funt Joseph Lafard, 18-28 f6vrier 1706 . G2, vol. 197, dossier 143, Papiers concernant la succession de feu the Tesson Lafloury, 1741 . Dominique Bouchard, « La culture materielle des Canadiens au XVIIIe siecle : analyse du niveau de vie des artisans du fer », Revue d'histoire de 1'Am6rique frangaise, vol. XLVII, n° 4 (printemps 1994), p. 480.

Brenda Dunn, « L'inventaire de la veuve Plemarais, 1705 », Cahiers de la Societ6 historique acadienne, vol . XXV, n° 1(1994), p . 27 . Pour des commentaires sur les inventaires aprbs d6ces de File Royale, voir Kenneth Donavan, « Communities and Families: Family Life and Living Conditions in Eighteenth-

12 .

13 .

14 .

15 .

16 . 17 .

18 . 19 . 20 . 21 . 22 . 23 .

24 . 25 . 26 .

27 . 28 . 29 . 30 . 31 .

Century Louisbourg )>, dans Aspects ofLouis6ourg, sous la dir. de Eric Krause, Carol Corbin et William O'Shea (Sydney : The University College of Cape Breton, 1995), p. 120. Laurier Turgeon, a Pour une histoire de la peche : le march6 de la morue A Marseille au XVIII° sii?cle », Histoire sociale / Social History, vol. XIV (novembre 1981), p. 322.

Dominique Bouchard, op . cit., p . 483 .

Un exemple concret est celui de Antoine Paris de Guyenne. Arriv6 a Plaisance avec sa famille en 1685, il finit par exporter lui-meme du poisson en France et en 1712, il est en mesure d'acqu6rir un bateau plus imposant . Une fois 6 Pile Royale, il se lance dans 1'immobilier et dans le commerce avec Quebec. A sa mort en 1731, il poss6de des navires qui vont aux Antilles, A Bordeaux et au Canada . En 1'espace de trois g6n6rations, les Paris sont pass6s de simples pecheurs-engag6s A n6gociants. Robert J. Morgan, « La vie sociale A Louisbourg au XVIII° si6cle », Cahiers de la Soci6td historique acadienne, vol. VII, n° 4 (d6cembre 1976), p. 217. Pour plus d'information concernant le ph6nom6ne de promotion socio-6conomique chez les habitantspecheurs, voir Christopher Moore, « The other Louisbourg: Trade and Merchant Enterprise in Ile Royale, 1713-1758 », in Aspects of Louisbourg, p. 228-252. G2, vol. 181, folios 446-478, Papiers concernant la succession de Francois Blondel, 1732 . G2 vol. 183, folios 337-365, Papiers concernant la liquidation des droits de M11B Marguerite Guyon (veuve de Pierre Bonnain dit La Chaume), 1735 . G3 7/175, pike 290, Inventaire de d6funte veuve Leroy, 13 d6cembre 1709 . G3, carton 2055, pike 112, Inventaire de 1'habitation du d6funt LaHongrie Lucas, 12 octobre 1713 . G3, 8/176, pibce 1, Inventaire des effets, meubles, etc., ayant appartenu au d6funt Louis Josselin dit La Chapelle, 8 janvier et 9 aoiut 1711 . G3, 2055, n° 80, Les effets dud Gabriel Barnetche, 25 septembre 1713 . G3, 7/175, pike 70, Inventaire du d6funt Joseph Lafard, 18-28 f6vrier 1706. G3, folio 2039-1, pike 66, Inventaire de la dame veuve Dastarit, 13 fevrier 1735 .

Souvent les habitants-pecheurs gardent d'importantes quantit6s de toile A voile pour les chaloupes . Cette toile est mesur6e en aunes. G3, 7/175, pibce 290, Inventaire de d6funte veuve LeRoy, op . cit. G3 8/176, piece 149, Inventaire de Charles Mahier, habitant-pecheur, 1710.

G3 8/176, pibce 145, Louis Josselin La Chapelle, habitant chez la veuve Mechin ia la Pointe Verte, Inventaire des effets et objets, 5 d6cembre 1710.

G2, vol. 197, dossier 143, Papiers concernant la succession dtlie Tesson Lafloury, 22 mars 1741 . G3, vol. 2055, n° 145, Inventaire de 1'habitation de Abraham Pichaud, 2 d6cembre 1713 . G2, vol. 181, folios 446-478, Papiers concernant la succession de Fran~ois Blondel, 1732 . Kenneth Donavan, op. cit., p. 119-120 .


120

32 .

33 .

34 .

35 .

Anita Campbell, « Domestic Equipment from Eighteenth Century Louisbourg: An Evaluation of sources use for Material Culture Studies », these de maitrise (Quebec : Universit6 Laval, 1981), p. 30 . Jean-Pierre Hardy, « Quelques aspects du niveau de richesse et de la vie materielle des artisans de Quebec et de Montr6al, 1740-1755 », Revue d'histoire d'Amerique frangaise, vol. XL, n° 3 (1987), p. 341, 343.

Dominique Bouchard, op . cit ., p . 481 .

Ref6rences pour le tableau. G2, vol. 199, dossier 197, pikes 2, 4 et 5, Inventaire des effets et meubles de Jean Seigneur dit Larivi6re, 3 f6vrier, 12 et 15 mars 1745 . G2, vol. 211, dossier 518, Inventaire et acte de tutelJe des enfants mineurs de feu Jean Milly de la Croix, 1750. G3, 2039-1, piece 66, Inventaire, estimation et description de tous les biens meubles et immeubles de la dame veuve Jean Dastarit, Jeanne Galbarette, 13 fevrier 1735. G2, vol. 183, folios 337-365, Papiers concernant la liquidation et 1'inventaire des biens delaiss6s par le Sr Pierre Bonnain La Chaume, 1734 . G2, vol. 197, dossier 149, Inventaire des biens de la communaut6 de feu Jean Gaillon Preville et Jeanne Baucher, . conjoints, 11 juillet 1741. G2, vol. 197, dossier 144, proc6s-verbal de vente du coffre et hardes de d6funt Sr Bonnaventure Le Brun d6cMe du port de Niganiche, 1740. G2, vol . 185, folios 76-80, Vente des hardes de feu monsieur La Poupet de La Boularderie, 1738 . G2, vol. 181, folios 410-441, Succession de Pierre Carrerot, 1732 . G3, vol. 2044, n° 19, Inventaire et description g6nerale de tous les biens et immeubles de la communaut6 dentre led. Pierre Boisseau et lade. veuve, sa femme, 24 octobre 1755 . G3, 7/175, piece 70, Inventaire du defunt Joseph Lafard, 18-28 f6vrier 1706 . G2, vol. 197, dossier 143, Papiers concernant la succession de feu the Tesson Lafloury, 22 mars 1741 . G3, vol. 7/175, piece 290, Inventaire de d6funte veuve LeRoy (Bernardine Paquiau), 13 d6cembre 1709 . G2, vol. 181, folios 446-478, Papiers concernant la succession de Frangois Blondel, 1732 . G3, carton 2055, piilce 112, Inventaire de 1'habitation du defunt LaHongrie Lucas, 12 octobre 1713 . G3, 8/176, picce 1, Inventaire des effets, meubles, etc. ayant appartenu au d6funt Louis Josselin dit La Chapelle, 8 janvier et 9 aoiit 1711 . G3, vol. 2055, n° 80, Les effets dud Gabriel Barnetche, 25 septembre 1713 . G3, 8/176, pibce 149, Inventaire de Charles Mahier, habitant-pecheur, 1710 . G3, vol. 2055, n° 145, Inventaire de 1'habitation d'Abraham Pichaud. G3, 8/176, pieces 12,13,14, Inventaire de la succession de S6bas6en de Sourdeval, 7-9 mai 1710. G3,8/176, pike 148, Inventaire de la maison et du mobilier appartenant a Gaspar Zemard, 3 novembre 1711 . G2, vol. 185, folios 358-378, Succession de feu Ren6 Herpin, 1739. G3, vol. 2055, pike 146, Magdeleine Aubert,12 decembre 1713 . G3, 7/175, pike 195, Inventaire des effets trouv6s A hard du navire La Vedus et appartenant a Pierre Tailbot, contremaitre, 8 juillet 1709 . G3, 7/175, piece 7, Inventaire des effets de defunt Frangois Audigny, bourgeois et marchand de La Rochelle, mort a TerreNeuve, 4-5 octobre 1700 . G3, 7/175, piece 88, Inventaire de Guillaume Delort, impundment parti pour la France, 18 novembre 1706. G3, vol. 2057,

36. 37.

n° 8, Inventaire de Dessaudrais Robert, 21 juin 1720 . G2, vol. 206, dossier 465, Tutelle des enfants mineurs de feu Fran~ois Lessenne et inventaire de ses biens, 16 janvier 1758 . Jean-Pierre Hardy, op . cit., p. 358, 361, 363. Dominique Bouchard, op. cit., p. 481.

38. Jean-Pierre Hardy, op . cit., p . 365 . 39. Ibid. 40.

41 .

42 . 43 . 44 .

45 .

46 . 47 . 48 .

49 . 50 . 51 . 52 .

53 . 54 . 55 .

56 . 57 .

58 . 59. 60.

G3, vol. 7/175, pi6ce 290, Inventaire de d6funte veuve LeRoy, 13 d6cembre 1709 .

B . A . Balcom, op . cit . p . 42 .

G3, carton 2055, piece 112, Inventaire de 1'habitation du d6funt LaHongrie Lucas, 12 octobre 1713 . G3, 8/176, piece 149, Inventaire de Charles Mahier, habitant-pecheur, Plaisance, 1710 . G3, 8/176, pi6ces 12,13,14, Renonciation par Catherine Lebaudy, veuve de S6bastien de Sourdeval, A la succession de son mari et requete pour 1'inventaire de ses biens, 7-9 mai 1710. G3, 8/176, piece 148, Inventaire de la maison et du mobilier appartenant a Gaspar Z6mard et octroy6s a sa veuve Marie Sceau, 3 novembre 1711 . G2, vol. 197, dossier 143, Papiers concernant la succession de Elie Tesson Lafloury, 22 mars 1741 . G2, vol. 185, folios 358-378, Succession de feu Ren6 Herpin, 1739. G2, vol. 181, folios 446-478, Papiers concernant la succession de feu Frangois Blondel, habitantpecheur, ile Royale, 1732 . Jean-Pierre Hardy, op . cit., p. 372. Dominique Bouchard, op . cit., p. 481. Jean-Pierre Hardy, op . cit., p. 341. Yvon Desloges et Marc Lafrance, « Dynamiques de croissance et soci6t6 urbaine : Qu6bec au xvtue si6cle », Histoire sociale / Social History, vol. XXI, n° 42 (novembre 1988), p. 259-261. G3, carton 2055, pibce 112, Inventaire de 1'habitation du defunt LaHongrie Lucas, 12 octobre 1713 . G3, 7/175, piece 70, Inventaire du d6funt Joseph Lafard, 18-28 fevrier 1706 . G3, carton 2055, piece 22, Inventaire du coffre de Jean Samper, d6c6d6 dans son habitation, 16 mai 1713 . G3, carton 2055, piece 146, Magdeleine Aubert, 12 d6cembre 1713 . G3, 7/175, piece 195, Inventaire des effets trouv6s a bord du navire La Venus et appartenant a Pierre Tailbot, contremaitre, 8 juillet 1709 . G2, vol. 197, dossier 143, Papiers concemant la succession de feu the Tesson Lafloury, 1741 . G2, vol. 181, folios 446-478, Papiers concernant la succession de feu Frangois Blondel, 1732 . G2, vol. 194, n° 53, folios 223-226, Papiers concernant Marlan Duhart, noy6 sur les glaces au Havre Fouche, 1734 . G3, vol. 8/176, pike 4, Inventaire apres deces, Pierre Boismoreau dit Dumoulin, 20 janvier 1711 . G2, vol. 194, dossier 63, Papiers concernant la vente des hardes des d6funts Mathieu Laisne, Noel L'Eclanch6 et Joannis Lestapie, noy6s au Saint-Esprit, 1735 . G3, vol. 2056, n° 5, Etat des hardes et effets qui se sent trouv6s chez M. de Rochefort appartenant au nomm6 Louis Uger, pecheur d6c6d6 A 1'h8pital de Louisbourg,1719. G2, vol. 180, folios 551-557, Succession de feu Charles et Mathurin Renault, 1731 . G2, vol. 194, dossier 60, Papiers concernant la succession d'$tienne


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Gu6rard, &W6 A I'h6pital de Louisbourg, 8 avril 1735 . G2, vol. 194, dossier 52, Inventaire du nomm6 Bernard Mendiboures, pecheur, d6c6d6 au service du Sr Daccarrette, 1734 . G3, vol. 8/176, pike 22, Inventaire de Christophe Moisant, 4 avril 1711 . G2, vol. 194, n° 49, folios 95-102, Inventaire fait aprcs le d6ciss de Miquel Camino, compagnonpecheur, d6c6d6 chez Pierre Cordonnier,1734. G2, vol. 194, dossier 59, Papiers concernant la succession de Fran~ois Ruel, pecheur au Saint-Esprit . L'inventaire et vente de ce qui s'est trouv6 dans son coffre, 1734 . G2, vol. 198, dossier 178, pibces concernant la vente de trois coffres, de trois compagnons-pecheurs au service de Frangois Picard, nomm6s Julien Verdieu, Frangois Jouet et Jean Roger, 1743 . G3, vol. 8/176, pike 21, Inventaire de Robert T6baux, 4 avril 1711 . G2, vol. 182, folios 914-917, Papiers concernant la succession de feu Jacques Fretel, compagnon-pecheur, d6c6d6 A I'h6pital de Louisbourg, 1733 . G2, vol. 185, folios 336-390, L'inventaire et procbs-verbal de la vente des effets d6laiss6s par feu Mathurin Couqueville, pecheur, 1739. G2, vol. 182, folios 1093-1097, Vente des hardes d6laiss6es par le d6funt Antoine Duval, pecheur, et sa femme Marguerite Commerce, 1733 . G2, vol. 197, dossier 153, Vente du coffre de Miquel Duart, pecheur au service de Gelos et Joannis D'harismendy, 1741 . G3, vol. 2056, n° 6, L'inventaire des meubles, et hardes du nomm6 Louis Louvras, pecheur d6cdd6 chez led Sr Rochefort,1715 . G2, vol. 199, dossier 188, Proc6s r_ri_rnin_ el du nomm6 Joseph LeBuf, maitre de grave,

61. 62. 63. 64.

65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71 .

72 .

accus6 du crime de vol. L'inventaire de ce qui s'est trouv6 dans le coffre dud Joseph LeBuf, 1744. G2, vol. 84, folio 388, Inventaire de ce qui s'est trouv6 dans le coffre du nomm6 Lanny, dit Jean Hirrogoyen d6c6d6 au service du Sr Morel, 1737 . G3, vol. 8/176, pibce 4, Inventaire aprcs d6c6s de Pierre Boismoreau dit Dumoulin, 20 janvier 1711 . G3, carton 2055, pi6ce 22, Inventaire du coffre de Jean Samper, d6c6d6 dans son habitation, 16 mai 1713 .

G3, 8/176, pike 4, Inventaire apri's d6ci's, Pierre Boismoreau dit Dumoulin, 20 janvier 1711 .

G3, 8/176, pike 21, Inventaire de Robert T6baux, 4 avril 1711 . G3, 8/176, pike 22, Inventaire de Christophe Moisant, 4 avril 1711. G2, vol. 182, folios 914-925, Papiers concernant la succession de feu Jacques Fretel, compagnonpecheur, d6c6d6 A I'h6pital de Louisbourg, 1733 . G2, vol. 194, dossier 60, Papiers concernant la succession dttienne Gu6rard, d6c6d6 A I'h6pital de Louisbourg, 8 avril 1735 . G2, vol. 194, dossier 59, Papiers concernant la succession de Frangois Ruel, 1734 . G2, vol. 182, folios 914-925, Jacques Fretel, 1733. G2, vol. 194, dossier 63, Johannis Lestapie, 1734 . G2, vol . 194, dossier 63, Noel L'Eclanch6, 1734. G2, vol. 198, dossier 178, Julien Verdieu, 1743 . G2, vol. 194, dossier 52, Bernard Mendiboures, 1734 .

Information fournie par Kenneth Donavan de la forteresse de Louisbourg .


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Pictures and Portraits Images et portraits Emotion as Document: Death and Dying in the Second World War Art of Jack Nichols LAURA BRANDON Resum6

Abstract

Les peintures,les croquis et les aquarelles de la collection du Canada sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale forment une veritable banque de donnees techniques, sociales et culturelles contemporaines . Une partie des 5 000 ceuvres et plus constituant la collection laisse transparaitre les sentiments que 1'on peut tsprouver en temps de guerre, notamment lorsqu'on se retrouve subitement devant une scene atroce. II s'agit d'un aspect important, mais peu connu, de la collection d'oeuvres sur la guerre . Cet article fait un survol des collections du Canada d'oeuvres d'art sur ]a guerre, s'attardant aux travaux de 1'artiste lack Nichols, sur la marine au temps de la Seconde Guerre mondiale . Quoiqu ils manquent de pr6cision et de nettete, ses tableaux evoquent avec le plus de v6racite ce qu'est la vie en mer par temps de guerre . A la diff6rence de nombreuses ceuvres canadiennes illustrant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les ceuvres de Nicholsgnmvitent autour de la mort et des emotions qu'elle provoque . Aussi, les creations de 1'artiste constituent-elles des aides inestimables pour comprendre 1'experience vecue par les membres de la marine d urant la guerre.

The paintings, drawings and waterco]ours of Canada's Second World War art collection are a source of contemporary technical, social and cultural data . Some of the more than 5000 works in the collection also provide the evidence of the human emotions experienced in wartime, particularly when servicemen were brought face to face with terrible sights . This is a significant and hitherto unexplored aspect of the war art collection . This paper will explore the Canadian war art collections with particular reference to the work of naval artist lack Nichols. Although Nichols' work lacks detail and clarity, it provides the more truthful experience of wartime life at sea. Unlike many of Canada's Second World War art works, Nichols's works address death and its surrounding emotions. As such, his compositions are invaluable tools to expand our understanding of the naval servicemen's experience .

Over recent years the study of art has expanded. Art history and art theory have predominated, but it has also become more common to use paintings and drawings as historical evidence, especially in the field of cultural history. A study of contemporary paintings can yield a rich store of information on the life styles, value systems and social attitudes of a particular era. In Canadian art, for example, a number of studies have focused on depictions of the landscape

and of native people and, as a result, have expanded our understanding of social and cultural attitudes in particular time periods.' Our understanding of the experience of war can also be explored through art. In terms of the First World War, Maria Tippett's pioneering research on its war art program cast light on a variety of cultural agendas, ranging from the purely artistic to the political .2 Jonathan Vance's recent book, Death So Noble, contributes impor-


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tant insights on the cultural imperatives that determined how Canada would remember this conflict .' Canada's Second World War official art collection also provides a unique opportunity to study a group of paintings, drawings and watercolours as a source of contemporary technical, social and cultural data . The history of the program that generated this art collection has been briefly reviewed in Joan Murray's ground-breaking catalogue, Canadian Artists of the Second World War.4 A small selection of the art has also been discussed from a Marxist perspective in Barry Lord's volume, The History ofPainting in Canada : Towards a People's Art.' The fact remains, however, that the intent of the Canadian War Records program, which commissioned war artists after it was established in early 1943, was clearly that the artworks produced constitute useful historical documents in reference to the materiel, personalities and events of that war. Indeed, many of the Canadian artists invited to become Official War Artists in the three services were issued with instructions that placed an emphasis on depicting the machinery, people and events of war accurately . The instructions issued by the army and prepared by Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid, Director of the Army Historical Section, stated : "Any instruments, machines, equipment, weapons, or clothing which appeared in the work had to be authentic. 116 However, a number of the more than 5000 works of art that comprise the Second World War art collection in the Canadian War Museum also provide another form of evidence - the evidence of the human emotions experienced in wartime, particularly when servicemen were brought face to face with terrible sights and conditions that are both frequent and concomitant to the waging of modern war. War artists not only painted the technical aspects of what they saw but also, in several cases, sought to capture the human side of war as expressed in the intangible emotions of fear, joy, pain and struggle . In such instances the artist functioned as both participant and viewer, and consequently was in the unique position of being able to record not only what he observed, but also what he felt. The fact that the Second World War artists had this dual opportunity was due to the circumstances under which they worked . Unlike the artists of the First World War whose experiences at the Front were often only a matter of weeks, and whose paintings were often

compositionally assisted by official photographs and the recollections of participants, the Second World War artists were commissioned and, to take the army as an example, were attached to specific units for long periods of time. Thus they became very much part of the working environment of their unit and, along with their comrades, uniquely able to observe and experience the theatre of war in which they found themselves . The division between the artist's reaction and that of his associates is therefore difficult to separate, as the experience of war was shared equally, to an unprecedented degree . As a result, while a majority of the works in the collection are useful as a source of technical data in reference to the Second World War, a number also provide important, contemporary insight into the nature of human emotion under the stress of conflict . This is a significant and hitherto unexplored dimension of these works of art. The value of the first-hand visual document as an emotional document as well is made very apparent through a study of the paintings and drawings made by the war artist Aba Bayefsky at the Nazi concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen, in the days after its liberation . A Jewish artist, Bayefsky has continued to revisit the subject matter of the Holocaust to this day. A comparison of his 1945 compositions and his subsequent paintings and works on paper demonstrates that the artist's emotional response in 1945 was very different to that in more recent years. The earlier compositions include sensitively observed portraits of suffering and starving individuals, and a number of moving, but low-key studies of a burial pit. The later emotionally charged works centre on the emblematic strutting figure of a skeleton, quite often wearing Nazi insignia . In a particularly powerful composition, the skeletal figure, portrayed as the "grim reaper," cuts a swathe through a pit of dead bodies . The difference in approach is arguably attributable to the fact that less was known about the extent of Nazi atrocities in the immediate aftermath of V-E Day than became apparent after. Thus, with greater knowledge, the artist's painted response became more vehemently angry. However, the works of 1945 demonstrate very clearly that the evidence of human suffering was the central focus of the artist at the time of his visits to Bergen-Belsen, and that the politicization of the later work is a function of second-hand knowledge gained later, rather than at the time . This is not to decry the importance of the later work, but to suggest that by


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Fig. 1

Jack Nichols in his

studio, 1946 (Photo © Malak Karsh. Reproduced with permission)

studying particular works ot art, revealing information concerning the emotional tenor of a particular period can be gleaned.' Jack Nichols, one of Canada's official naval war artists, is another who looked death in the face and recorded the emotions of the wounded and dying on paper and canvas (Fig . 1) . A photograph of the artist in uniform - his paints, brushes, oil, turpentine and palette before him - shows him sitting in front of his most powerful painting, Drowning Sailor." In this painting a terrified mariner clutches uselessly at the water as he is pulled down into its depths. His eyes bulge, his mouth is open in a scream, his convulsed face is a portrait of abject terror. In the background, behind the artist, are two sketches . One is obviously a study, presumably now lost, except that it features two heads in the water. The artist himself, in the centre of the photo, holds a piece of driftwood. The dead wood could be considered emblematic of his tragic subject. It is similar to that which he used in the foreground of his painting Normandy Scene, Beach in "Gold Area," a

study of human emotion in the aftermath of battle .' In a likely unintended parallel, the artist's eyes roll up above the sea of paint and sketches, away from the dead wood and twisted tubes of paint, in an unconscious echo of the composition beside him. None of the seven other naval artists commissioned under the Canadian War Records program chose to depict death or the fear of death so directly. For this reason Nichols's work provides a unique document as to how the average Canadian sailor dealt with it and lived with it .

There were seven other naval artists : Anthony Law, Harold Beament, Leonard Brooks, Michael Forster, Donald Mackay, Rowley Murphy and Tom Wood . None of them painted death by drowning, preferring to concentrate on scenes of action at sea, ship portraits and harbour scenes . Why was this? Did they disagree that death was a factor in the average sailor's wartime career? Were they simply averse to painting the dying and dead? Harold Beament seems to have felt that he was obliged to present a positive view of the Navy, as he was a serving officer as well as an artist. "Beament's main problem," writes Joan Murray, "was in separating the officer from the war artist . He wanted to present the ships as sea-worthy from the Navy's point of view - which caused, [he felt] (aesthetic) 'constipation' . "10 Donald Mackay agreed . "Like Beament, he found the necessary accuracy of depiction inhibiting ."" Leonard Brooks too is recorded as having seen his role as seeking out the positive in the midst of horror. "Brooks felt the war artist had a special role . Like the doctor or priest, he added the constructive human element in the midst of the horrors of war."" Tom Wood saw sailors drown, and was present on the Normandy beaches on D-day, but preferred not to remember the tragedies, and thus did not depict them . 13 Anthony Law was deeply affected by the 1945 destruction of the motor torpedo boat flotilla he had served with, but his mourning took the form of a more general change in subject matter from scenes of optimism to scenes of adversity, and in a change of palette towards purple and yellow, the colours of Easter and of sacrifice .14 Actual depictions of death, however, are absent .

As for artists in the other services, death, when referred to at all, tends to have been symbolized . The army war artist Campbell Tinning was particularly fond of a work he had painted entitled Canadian Graves at the Gothic Line . 15 "The olive tree (the symbol of peace) and the grey sky were there and possibly were Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (automne 1998)

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fortuitous, but their message comes across," he stated.ls When it came to depicting the enemy there was less reluctance to be more graphic. The careful detail of Charles Comfort's Dead German on the HitlerLine is one example.l7 On the back Comfort noted: "I am not given to painting lugubrious subjects of this kind, but at least one horror picture is not inapt in this situation." Tragic Landscape by Alex Colville is another example of a work where the subject is a dead person." Colville was, like Bayefsky, to enter Bergen-Belsen shortly after its liberation where he was brought face to face with the mass pits of the dead. Bodies in a Grave is the finished painting that can be associated with six related sketches ." While the impact of Belsen has not manifested itself in his later work as directly as it has in Bayefsky's, some of Colville's later paintings still echo his war art, and demonstrate that the exposure to deaths of all kinds, while not necessarily a strong artistic inspiration, remains emotionally haunting . As the author has written: "The hanging arm of the woman in Diving Board of 1993 makes a direct reference to the dead arm of the upper figure in Bodies in a Grave. 1120 Nichols's interest in the bleaker aspects of the human condition was not complicated by the issues that constrained many of his colleagues. The human condition, even in death, was ultimately what interested him and we know this simply by looking at his war work itself. There is no other entry point as the extant correspondence from the war years that has survived, and the few published reviews and pieces of critical writing in existence are not particularly enlightening. Moreover, while Nichols himself is interested in what is said about his art, he is not inclined to explain it in great detail . To understand his contribution to the documentary record of the Second World War, there is no choice but to go to the works themselves . He was born in Montreal on 16 March 1921 . Largely self-taught, his mentors were Louis Muhlstock, a Montreal artist, and Frederick Varley of the Group of Seven. In 1943 he joined the Merchant Navy. In the fall of that year he was commissioned and served on ships both on the Great Lakes and in the Caribbean . In 1943 he was commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada to produce some drawings of his Caribbean experiences, which led, in turn, to his being appointed an Official War Artist in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve (RCNVR) in February 1944 . After training on the East Coast, he sailed for England, arriving just in time to participate in the D-day landings on June 6.

Before returning to England, he spent some time in the area around Caen . By August 1944 he had returned to sea and was present at the attempted evacuation of Brest, where the Canadian destroyer, HMCS Iroquois, and several British vessels attacked and destroyed the German convoy attempting to make an escape . At some point during this episode he was injured and he subsequently spent time in England before returning to Canada . He was demobilized in October 1946 having produced an official total of twenty-nine works on paper and nine oils on canvas . He applied for, and won, a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Mexico in 1947 . Consistent in his enthusiasms, he noted in his application: "My basic interest and subject matter is people . ..together with their environment. "zl His interest in human tragedy had also been remarked upon, and was expressed well in journalist Graham McInnes's 1950 book, Canadian Art: Nichols is perhaps the finest figure painter among our contemporary artists. Working in charcoal, pencil, ink and wash, with thick expressive lines and delicate shadings creating form in the round, his deep sense of humanityhas found itself among the slums of Toronto . The same human tragedy, dignity and pathos emerged, in even more striking form, in a wonderful series of studies aboard destroyers and corvettes. Groups of sailors in the sick bay, in their hammocks, in the foetid below-decks atmosphere of a pitching destroyer, or snatching a few brief moments of leisure in the heat and press of convoy duty : all these convey both the sadness and the ultimate serenity of a scene from Dostoievsky. zz

By the time J. Russell Harper had published his second edition of Painting in Canada, in 1977, Nichols had largely retired as a practising artist. However, Harper did draw attention to another aspect of Nichols's war work, other than his humanism, and that was the religious dimension . "Jack Nichols painted groups of sailors and the huddled pathetic refugees being evacuated from the French beaches, and he saw them with a religious aura . 1123 In Nichols's war art, this is borne out in two drawings in particular (Fig . 2) : Ammunition Passer, which makes reference to the head of Christ carrying the cross on the road to Calvary; 24 and Head of a Wounded Soldier Crying, which is reminiscent of traditional depictions of Christ's mourning family.z5 These two important historians of Canadian art both refer to Nichols's war commission as


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Fig. 2

Sketch of Ammo Passer, 1921, conte, 35 x 34 .5 cm (Courtesy Canadian War Museum)

being significant . Certainly this commission remains his most celebrated body of work and constitutes the major legacy of an artist with enormous potential who somehow lost his way, for he did little work of equal force after. While it has undisputed value in terms of its artistic quality, what is of interest here is its value as an important document of wartime emotional experience. One issue that arises when discussing the evidentiary value of Nichols's war art that is also applicable to war art in general centres on the fact that a painting or a drawing is not a photograph. Rather, the artist shapes what he sees and thus distorts the evidence of his eyes . It is known, for example, that artists such as Alex Colville and Lawren P. Harris composed their canvasses using elements taken from a number of sketches and watercolours .26 While the individual elements may well be based on original observations, the resultant composition is not necessarily a depiction of a single reality. In the case of Nichols's Drowning Sailor, the photograph referred to earlier indicates that there once existed a preliminary drawing for the subject that featured two sailors' heads. Given this fact, one might ask how much literal truth there is in the final composition of a single figure . Perhaps not much, but that kind of truth may not be the most important. What may be more important is the question of whether the depiction of the drowning sailor encapsulates that particular experience of death in a way that is universally, as opposed to specifically, meaningful . A recent acquisition by the Canadian War Museum of a tiny graphite drawing by Nichols of a single drowning head confirms that the

artist did work with a single image of a head. The drawing was completed in the aftermath of the action at Brest in 1944, when the artist was on board HMCS Iroquois . It is in no way a completed drawing, and despite the fact that it is of a single head, should not be considered a study for the larger composition. It is rather an attempt to capture on paper the salient details of an act of drowning that the artist had recently observed . The connecting element with the painting of the same subject is the portrayal of the emotion felt by the sailor facing death by drowning .z' The fact that the two heads do not share any particular likeness is irrelevant. The fact that we do not even know the nationality of the victim is also unimportant. The drowning sailor is Everyman, and what the artist appears to have wanted to express was an abstract emotion -anguish in the face of death. His interest was not in portraying a particular person or event. While in the case of Drowning Sailor the act of dying is recorded, Nichols also seems to have been interested in conveying to his viewers the fact that death was a constant fear for any Canadian sailor. In a majority of his RCNVR compositions, his subjects emanate a sense of foreboding. The means he uses to convey this sense of imminent doom are varied. To begin with, in his portraits he chooses to reveal something of the skull, skeleton and flesh beneath the skin's surface. The appearance of naked and unprotected flesh is a powerful visual image. Thus in the drawing 7roops Moving Forward the eyes of the sailor in the foreground seem almost absent, presenting the viewer with what could almost be comprehended as the empty eye sockets of a stone sculpture or of a skull.21 In Men Going to Action Stations the muscles, ligaments and bone structure of the sailors are emphasized so that the viewer is aware of the physiology of the subjects, and hence their vulnerability.z9 Nichols's preference for a dark and sombre palette and the generally gloomy or tense expressions on the sailors' faces all enhance the prevailing mood of potential tragedy in these works. In his search for some kind of universal truth regarding wartime experiences - death included - Nichols appears to have found that as he moved away from the literal, he came closer to the truth. This can be demonstrated further by a brief study of his approach to depicting life, rather than death, at sea. In an interview he once commented that what impressed him greatly was the way in which the crew of a ship could move about silently, with

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Fig. 3 Action Aboard His Majesty's Canadian Shit Iroquois, 1921, graphite and oil wash on paper, 59 .4 _ 73 .6 cm (Courtesi Canadian War Museuml

no light and without getting lost .3° The artist was well aware that the restrictions regarding light and noise were related to safety and survival, so how did he convey this in his work? Essentially what he did, especially in the case of the works on paper, was to remove colour altogether, and in the paintings, to darken the palette so much so that it is hard to identify details in the works. In other words, he sacrificed clarity in the interests of a truthful record of what it was like to be on board a ship in war conditions . Loading Gun During Action at Sea is a good example of a painting completed in this manner.31 The figures emerge only partially from an all-encompassing gloom. The information is obscured for the viewer, yet the imagery is compelling . One senses the tension, the fear and the commitment to the task at hand . Another compositional route that Nichols appears to have followed was seemingly the opposite - to almost provide too much information . In some works he chooses to fill his scenes with a great many figures so that it is at first glance quite difficult to interpret what is actually going on in the scene. This was deliberate. Congestion is an ever-present factor on

board naval vessels, and the artist was impressed that within this congestion, and seeming confusion, sailors actually knew precisely what they were doing.3z He took pains to depict this in a number of his RCNVR pictures . Action on Board HMCS Iroquois is a typical example (Fig . 3) .33 The figures are plastered one against the other, all concentrating intensely on the multitude of tasks called for at the moment, the seeming confusion in reality nothing of the kind . In fact the confusion, while perhaps artistically problematic, represented the reality of shipboard life in wartime. Judging by their existing compositions, a majority of the other naval artists would likely have treated crowded scenes entirely differently. They would have eliminated figures and the diversity of actions in the interests of the clarity of the composition. This is traditional artistic practice . In the case of action subjects, they would have been likely to provide much more detail in regards to the type of gun used, the crew's clothing, the position of the gun on deck, the kind of ammunition used in the action, and to have provided more light. They were in fact working in the tradition of naval art that had prevailed for most of the preceding

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Fig . 4

Taking Survivors on Board, 1921, oil

102 x 122 cm (Courtesy Canadian War Museum)

two centuries . Yet, in the final analysis it could be argued that it is Nichols's work that, although lacking detail and clarity, provides the more truthful experience of wartime life at sea. It is through artistic means of his own devising that the artist comes close to the essence of the experience, as opposed to simply describing the elements that comprise it . In his search for the essential experience of war at sea, Nichols also made use of the viewer's ability to reference other areas of knowledge as a route to understanding the human emotions associated with these experiences . His primary tool was Christian iconography, an aspect of his art that has already been mentioned. In several compositions, it can be argued that the viewers' comprehension of the fear and agony of the protagonists is in part derived from their understanding of these emotions as manifested in the visual subject matter of the Christian faith. In Taking Survivors on Board, previously titled by the artist Rescue at Sea, the scene recalls images of the "descent from the cross" with the wounded Christ figure spread-eagled mid-

composition, the mourners, commiserators and helpers around him (Fig . 4) .34 As a result, the emotions of sorrow, fear, concern and loss associated with the Christian theme are intensified in the wartime composition through association . Unanswered questions remain to be explored, however, relating specifically to issues surrotmding the portrayal of masculinity in his work . By showing men crying in the face of death and dying, some of Nichols's work provides an important alternative to the more traditional portrayals of Canada's Second World War servicemen that conform more closely to familiar masculine military stereotypes . It is apparent that the artist felt that these rather abstract emotions needed to be recorded, and not simply the concrete details of a ship's structure and equipment. It is this element, and the simple power of his imagery, that makes Nichols's war work unusual in comparison to his peers. What makes it particularly interesting is his use of a commonly understood visual vocabulary - often religious at base - to get these abstractions across to the viewer . Thus, that sailors feared death and drowning, and that cold and misery, darkness and claustrophobia were an integral part of shipboard life are awesomely evoked . A range of human emotions not touched upon by more traditional artists is carried in these works of art through solely visual means. As such the works provide an important bank of evidence as to the emotions experienced in the everyday life of Canadian sailors in wartime. In particular, unlike a majority of Canada's Second World War art works, they address the issue of death as well as its surrounding emotions . As such, Nichols's compositions are invaluable tools in expanding our understanding of the naval servicemen's universe of experience .

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank Susan Butlin for the research she did on the artist Jack Nichols in 1995 in preparation for the exhibition Memento Mori, which was immensely helpful in the

preparation of this article. The helpful criticism of Dr Cameron Pulsifer, Chief, Historical Research, at the Canadian War Museum is also appreciated.

NoTEs 1.

2.

3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11 . 12 . 13 .

14 .

15 . 16 .

See for example, Brian S. Osborne, "The Iconography of Nationhood in Canadian Art," in Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, eds. The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1988). Maria 'Iippett, Art at the Service of War (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1984).

Jonathan F Vance, Death So Noble (Vancouver : UBC Press, 1997) . The fullest published account of this program is contained in Joan Murray, Canadian Artists of the Second World War (Oshawa, Ontario: The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1981), Exhibition catalogue .

Barry Lord, The History of Painting in Canada : Towards a People's Art (Toronto: NC Press, 1974). Ibid ., 10. Bayefsky's official and subsequent Holocaust art is described in detail in my article, "Reflections on the Holocaust : the Holocaust Art of Aba Bayefsky," Canadian Military History 6 (1997) 2 (Autumn): 67-71. Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10505, oil on canvas, 76 .0 x 60 .5 cm. Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10523, oil on canvas, 123.3 x 137 .3 cm . Murray, 32 . Ibid ., 78 . Ibid ., 40 . See his account of watching ten British soldiers drown in "Faces of Sailors at Work and Play Placed on Canvas by Ottawa Artist," source unknown, date unknown, author unknown, National Gallery of Canada Archives, 5.42-W. See my obituary, "C . Anthony Law (1916-1996): Official War Artist," Canadian Military History 6 (1997) 1 (Spring) : 97-100. Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 13843, watercolour on paper, 56.8 x 39 .1 cm See my obituary, "George Campbell Tinning: War Artist 1910-1996," Canadian Military History 5 (1996) 2 (Autumn) : 57-61.

17 .

18.

Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 12272, watercolour, red chalk, graphite and black ink on paper, 38 .8 x 56 .8 cm .

Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 12219, oil on linen canvas, 60 .9 x 91 .6 cm . 19. Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 12122, oil on canvas, 80 .0 x 100.0 cm . See my article "Genesis of a Painting : Alex Colville's War Drawings" in Canadian Military History 4 (1995) 1 (Spring) : 100-104. 20 . Ibid ., 104 .

21 .

National Gallery of Canada Archives, Correspondence with War Artists, Nichols .

Graham McInnes, Canadian Art (Toronto : MacMillan, 1950), 85 . 23 . J. Russell Harper, Painting in Canada : A History, second edition (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1977), 312 . 24 . Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10524, graphite and oil wash on paper, 35 .0 x 34 .5 cm . 25 . Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10511, 22 .

26 .

27 . 28 . 29 . 30 . 31 . 32 . 33 . 34.

graphite and oil wash on paper, 23 .9 x 21 .1 cm . See for example, "Genesis . . ."

Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 19970042-003, graphite on paper, 22 .7 x 30 .4 cm . Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10531, graphite and oil wash on paper, 57 .7 x 32 .7 cm . Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10515, oil on canvas, 127.2 x 86 .5 cm. Author's interview with Jack Nichols in Toronto, 2 November 1995 . Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10514, oil on canvas, 60 .9 x 45 .8 cm . Ibid ., interview. Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10500, oil on canvas, 59 .4 x 73 .6 cm . Canadian War Museum, catalogue number 10529, oil on canvas, 122.0 x 101.5 cm .

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"You Paint Me a Ship as is Like a Ship": The Verkin Ship Portraits PATRICIA BELLIS BIXEL R6sume

Abstract

Les archives photographiques de la marine marchande constituent une reserve fabuleuse, mais fort peu exploitee, et 1'examen des cliches qu'elles renferment dans le contexte historique des reproductions artistiques de navires jette une lumiere nouvelle sur les collections de ce genre. On peut considerer les images tirees des archives du studio Verkin, a Galveston (Texas), comme une etape dans 1'evolution des reproductions artistiques de navires, en raison de leur theme et de leur respect de normes de representation tres precises. Les portraits de navires plaisaient aux affreteurs, aux capitaines, aux officiers et aux membres d'equipages. Des le xvml siecle, des artistes au talent variable s'efforcerent de satisfaire une clientele diversifiee. Au XXe siecle, la creation de telles images par ]e truchement d'un appareil photo - sans deroger aux conventions visuelles ni aux pratiques seculaires de la fabrication et de la vente d6montre ]a continuitd de Part de la reproduction artistique des navires. La photographie, methode rapide et relativement peu couteuse de representer ]a realite, supplantera donc rapidement 1'artiste-peintre, qui executait un tableau en deux temps trois mouvements pour quelques sous sur les quais.

Commercial maritime photography archives are rich, largely underutilized, resources and examining photographs from them within the context of the history of ship portraiture offers another way of understanding these collections . Images from the Verkin Studio archive from Galveston, Texas, because of their subject matter and adherence to specific representational conventions, maybe viewed as a step in the evolution of ship portraiture . Ship portraits appealed to owners, captains, officers, and crew members alike, and from the eighteenth century onward, a diverse clientele was supplied by craftsmen of varying skill. By the twentieth century, the creation of these pictures using a camera - while maintaining the visual conventions and centuries-old practices of manufacture and sale - testifies to continuity in the craft of ship portraiture. Photography, the quick and relatively inexpensive way to obtain representations from life, supplants the quick and inexpensive pierhead painter.

When the English poet C. Fox Smith wrote a poem called Pictures she wanted to explain to the landlocked what it was that sailors sought in paintings of ships . Her protagonist, Bill, tells his audience, Some likes pictures o' women an' some likes 'orses best . . .But I likes pictures 'o ships. . .an' you can keep the rest . . .An' I don't care if it's North or South, the 7}ndes or the China Sea Shortened down or everything set - closehauled or runnin' free

You paint me a ship as is like a ship. . .an' that'll do for me .'

Ship portraiture - the accurate painting of important or significant vessels for owners, captains, or crews - was a kind of representation practiced in port cities for centuries. Since accurate representation was the most highly prized attribute of ship paintings, photography would seem to have been the perfect medium for creating a visual record of ships and shipping, and photographers familiar with waterfronts to have been the logical successors

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to legions of "pierhead painters ." Maritime museum photography collections abound in representations of ships and shipping, and this essay explores another way of understanding the rich visual material housed in what usually function as research and reference collections . Members of the Verkin family of commercial photographers who practiced in the port city of Galveston, Texas, produced a valuable, very traditional collection of ship portraits. They loved ships. Both Paul Verkin and his son, Paul Roland Verkin, spent hours on the docks and piers of Galveston taking photographs of the vessels that called there. An extensive documentary record of watercraft that were active in the port was the primary fruit of these endeavours some images created in the regular course of work for the Galveston Wharf Company or other clients, some taken because the Verkins were intrigued by a particularly unique vessel, and a significant number of the pictures shot "on spec," taken, developed, and printed to be sold to the ship's officers and crew as they disembarked in the island city. They were craftsmen, as John Szarkowski notes, "whose professional lives were defined in terms of service to specific communities - geographical or cultural - that no longer exist," part of "the last generation of professional photographers who practised their trade as a local cottage industry . "2 In making these images and marketing them in this specific way, the Verkins not only created an invaluable collection of ship pictures but also perpetuated the centuries-old practice of ship portraiture .

This essay is part of a longer manuscript that examines the maritime photography of the Verkin family. Originally, thirty-one images were examined in the context of a discussion of photographic ship portraiture, some pictures chosen as the best representations of traditional composition and practice and others selected as evidence of the incorporation of photographic technology into the creation of ship pictures . Paul Verkin, who began taking pictures at the port of Galveston in the 1880s, advertised himself as a "commercial photographer" or "view photographer" and worked out of his home or office . Not until his sons also began working as photographers did the Verkins open a "studio." The eight photographs analysed here are only a representative sampling of the more than three thousand negatives that survive and an even lesser percentage of the thousands of negatives created by the photographers over their time in business .3 These particular images were selected because of the style of their presentation and their relevance to a discussion of ship portraiture . Both in their circumstances of production and appearance, the pictures testify to the perpetuation of the practice of ship portraiture through the modern medium of photography. To the extent that photographs might be less expensive to produce than a painting, this practice even expanded the market of consumers who could afford to purchase photographic images of ships . As a major port on the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston welcomed a steady stream of vessels, especially in the years that the port dominated Fig. 1 V-1865, glass, Cora F. Cressy, 5-masted schooner, 1902 ; Bath, Maine, Percy and Smal. shipyard; from the Verkin Collection (Courtesy, Peabody Essf Museum- Salem- Mass .,

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Fig . 2 V-44, glass, Concho, steamship, 1891 ; Chester, Pennsylvania, Mallory Steamship Company; from the Verkin Collection . Mallory Steamship company was one of the most important clients of the Galveston Wharf Company, and Concho was one of the steamers that provided regular service to the east coast from Galveston . (Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.)

.a

a a u

i _

,

Fig. 3

V-1749 glass, Brittania, barge (whaleback), 1891 ; West Superior, Wisconsin, Sabine Towing and Transport (owners), from the Verkin Collection (Courtesy, Peabody F,'.s .sex Museum, Salem, Mass .)

cotton carriage . Even as late as 1936, forty-five steamship lines served the city, with forty-two of them offering regular foreign service and three working coastal routes .4 In addition, craft moving goods through the intracoastal canal (constructed during the operation of the Verkin Studio) and numerous local vessels called in the port for one reason or another. If the archive is any indication, the Verkins never lacked for subject matter.

The eight ships considered below were selected for their pertinence to this particular discussion of ship portraiture . Exact dating of the images is impossible, but information in the collection's index notes that the identified vessels in the photographs were built between the years 1891 and 1927 .5 Three of the pictures

were printed from glass negatives and five from nitrate film stock. Cora F. Cressy (V-1865) (Fig. 1) Concho (V-44) (Fig. 2) and Britannia (V-1 749) (Fig. 3) appear to have been equipped with sailing capability. The remaining ships are more modern powered cargo carriers . Clearly, a diverse fleet might be in port at any given time, and ships of the most advanced technology might berth near the most basic of sailing vessels while all were tended by specialized local craft providing necessary port services. At this time, the needs of maritime commerce created profitable niches for many different kinds of ships. What vessels, then, are chronicled? Much may be gleaned by close examination of the photographs. The easiest way to identify a ship

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Fig. 4

V-1667, nitrate, Iroquois, steamship, 1927 ; Newport News, Virginia, Clyde Line, from the Verkin Collection . Eventually a partner with the Mallory interests, the

Clyde Line maintained regular passenger service to Galveston as well.

(Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum . Salem. Mass .)

Fig. 5

V-518, nitrate, Winona County, steamship, 1919 Kearny, New Jersey, U.S. Shipping Board; from thi

Verkin Collection (Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.)

is by simply reading the name on the bow. Where this is impossible, those familiar with steamship companies may determine a ship's identity from distinctive insignia on her smoke stacks or from house flags flown on board; a national flag indicates a ship's country of registry. Concho (V-44) (Fig . 2) represents one of the most important clients of the Port of Galveston. The ship is "dressed," flying signal flags in celebration of arrival or departure - or simply in honor of having a picture taken. Also included among the passenger ships is the Iroquois (V-1667) (Fig . 4), a beautiful liner built in 1927 . Both ships are pictured postcard style-broadside, steaming through the water with stacks

smoking as they make their way down channel. Unlike the photograph of Iroquois, there is no local shrimping vessel in attendance to suggest scale or speed of Concho ; the passenger ship steams sleekly along, the hull form slicing across the heavy, almost equally sized horizontal areas of sky and sea that seem to sandwich the ship in the centre of the image. A small bow wave and smoke direction suggest forward progress, and the wave action in the foreground sweeps the eye toward the stern of the ship, adding to the impression of movement . The port moved more freight than passengers, and other images under review portray the kinds of vessels employed in this work . As if


134

to suggest the loading and unloading of cargo, the Winona County (V-518) (Fig . 5) is pictured at the dock, photographed from a pier opposite the vessel . The ship is high in the water, awaiting loading or with a cargo recently discharged . Such craft could probably carry a few passengers but were not designed or equipped for the hundreds that could be accommodated on a passenger liner. Winona County was also a U.S . Shipping Board vessel and is shown berthed alongside one of Galveston's grain elevators. The ship is getting up steam, smoke streaming from her stack and engine cooling water being discharged over the side . She may be moving into position prior to loading. The photographer looks up at the pierside vessel, in a manner different from traditional ship portraiture . It is quite possible that this image was taken to promote the facilities of the port of Galveston, or that one of the Verkins, on the wharf for some other business, took the picture out of personal interest .6 Nevertheless, the ship is depicted as a strong, impressive object . It stretches across the frame, the rise of the bow working against straight lines of the horizon, conveying lift and power. Perhaps the most unusual vessel included is the Britannia (V-1749) (Fig. 3), a whale-back barge equipped with sails . Built in West Superior, Wisconsin, she was probably constructed for the Great Lakes; records indicate that by 1927 she was owned by Sabine Towing and Transport Company, a firm based in Port Arthur, Texas, which might explain her presence in Galveston. Also included in this sampling are watercraft important to the operation of the port . The diesel-powered City of Galveston (V-2329)

(Fig . 6) was built in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1929 and purchased by the city for fire protection along the waterfront . The steel motor vessel was 87 feet (26 .5 metres) long and 18 .6 feet (5 .7 metres) wide with a mean draft of 6 feet (1 .8 m) . She was powered by a 250-horsepower engine, but saved her real power for the pumps.7 In 1931 the Wharf Company proudly claimed that the "craft makes use of the latest features and attains a speed of 12 knots per hour" and went on to assure clients "she is docked near the center of the waterfront, at Pier 23, and can quickly reach trouble at any quarter of the wharves ." Two crews were available for round-the-clock availability and her two 500-horsepower engines were capable of pumping 7,500 gallons (28 000 litres) of water per minute ." The fireboat was a prized possession, owned by the city and manned by the fire department. The Wharf Company repeatedly cited the vessel's "instantaneous response," her capacity "to respond at an instant's notice," and the fact that she "has always been ready."9 While stressing the fireboat's preparedness, the Wharf Company reassured its audience that "the fireboat has not been called upon to play any spectacular role at a big fire ." This particular picture captures City of Galveston in the channel off her regular station as she demonstrates her capacity - on a variety of trajectories - in a major display of fire fighting hubris .

Naval vessels were also frequent callers to the port, and Verkin captured many of the visitors on film . In this sampling, U.S . forces are represented by the light cruiser, U.S.S. Memphis (V-1692) (Fig. 7) . The U.S .S . Memphis has a

Fig. 6 V-2329, nitrate, City of Galveston, motor vessel (fireboat), 1929; Jacksonville, Florida, City of Galveston, owners; from the Verkin Collection (Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.)


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Fig. 7

V-1692, nitrate, U.S .S . Memphis, light cruiser, 1920-25; Wm Cramp and Sons . The engraved name on the negative suggests this image may have been used for a

postcard or for large scale printing and distribution ; from the Verkin Collection . (Courtesl, Fnahndl' Essex alu,tiruni . so/em. Mass .)

modern appearance, her masts devoted to communication and observation equipment rather than sails. The image of the Memphis, printed from a glass plate negative, has the name of the vessel engraved directly upon the negative, suggesting that the picture was mass produced for sale during the ship's visit .lo One of the most striking pictures captures a large sailing vessel that called in the port . This schooner, the Cora F. Cressy (V-1865) (Fig . 1) was built in Maine in 1902 and could still operate profitably despite the prevalence of steam vessels . She most likely brought general cargo and worked as a tramp carrier, finding and loading whatever needed to be carried. Upon unloading in the next port, the routine of securing another cargo began again. The picture of this large schooner suggests some of the limitations of photography in ship portraiture . Unlike a painting, photographic images of schooners in port portray the ships as they actually appeared at the time the image was taken. Sails are furled, and the ship lays at anchor . Where an artist could create an imaginative composition with all sail set and the vessel underway, a photographer shoots what is before the lens . The Galveston Wharf Company was a regular client of the Verkin Studio . Pictures of ships that were taken by the firm may be found in port promotional materials, annual reports, and employee publications . In addition, other community organizations used ship pictures from the Verkins as part of general island publicity." Besides taking pictures of ships for these local

interests, Verkin Studio photographers frequently one of the Verkins - would photograph ships as they sailed or steamed up the channel prior to docking or as they were eased into a berth on the Galveston waterfront . After securing the desired image, the photographer would hurry back to the studio (located very near the most active part of the wharves), develop the film, and make prints of the best pictures . Later, prints in hand, Verkin or one of his employees would offer the images for sale to the officers and crew. Conversations with Verkin descendants and collector Eric Steinfeldt confirm this practice . 12 This process-the rapid creation of a ship's portrait in port for sale to her crew - was a custom that originated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A particular kind of itinerant artist who lived near the waterfronts of England and Europe specialized in sketching and painting newly arrived ships and then offering their works to the ship's crew. Owners or captains could commission expensive oil paintings of a favourite ship, and regular crew members often were no less proud of their respective vessels. A small, inexpensive, and quickly executed painting on a board or piece of fabric could be a prized possession at the end of a voyage . These renderings - ship portraits - are a special kind of image with a distinctive art historical pedigree. Within the field of art history, ship portraiture is generally considered to be a subset of marine painting . Marine painting, in turn, is traditionally understood to be a kind of land-

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scape painting . In American Marine Painting, John Wilmerding argues that "marine painting belongs on an equal level of related, coherent interest [to landscape painting]. Often the two areas run parallel to each other: seldom is one an integral part of the other. We have cousins here, or brothers perhaps, but not parent and child. "13 Within the category of marine painting may be depictions of anything sea-related, including seascapes, shoreside scenes of fishermen or busy ports, commemorative views of famous battles, launchings or embarkations, and ship portraits. What distinguishes ship portraits, however, is the overriding commitment to the accuracy of the representation. With roots that are equal parts drafting in nature as well as artistic, the ship portrait is a hybrid product of excellent drawing and deliberate style. The best of ship portraits, magnificently executed renderings in oil on canvas, were above all documentary art and not fine art in the tradition of marine artists like J. M. W. Turner or Fitz Hugh Lane. The Verkins, in producing their ship images, represent the next in a long succession of ship portraitists, following a path trod by artists since the seventeenth century. Views of ships within larger works may of course also be found in ancient Egyptian and Greek art. 14 As the sea became a more important factor in human activities, visual materials and representations included more and more water-related images . Homer's Iliad and Odyssey both concern sea voyages and representations of these epics naturally include depictions of ships. The story of Noah and the flood and various biblical references to fishing were maritime subjects that were incorporated into religious art. Boats and ships also carried symbolic weight in particular visual contexts as well . Ships appeared on the seals of maritime cities as early as the twelfth century and are "surprisingly accurate" in rendering vessels later recovered or understood through other means. 15 In portraits of prominent individuals, ships were frequently incorporated in the background as signifiers of wealth, victory, or extensive travel in a painting of a nobleman, naval officer, or wealthy merchant. European voyages of exploration also provided subject matter for a wide variety of representations that commemorated discovery, conquest, and European expansion. Notable marine imagery documents the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, depictions that fuelled a long British tradition of painting naval battle scenes.16 In addition, increases in both the complexity of ship construction and the size of

vessels meant that more and more drawings were created to guide the shipbuilder. An English shipwright, Matthew Baker, wrote and illustrated the manuscript, Elements of Shipwrightery, circa 1585 .1' The drawings from this work are technical in nature, seeking to convey by accurate mechanical representation the correct dimensions, proportions, and orientation of ships of the period . In short, by the sixteenth century, marine painting, in technique and in the treatment of its subject matter, became a respected genre in its own right. The rise of Dutch shipping, the increasing wealth of that region, and political struggles for independence brought with them an attendant growth in consumption and commemorative art for an expanding class of affluent merchants and financiers . Prosperous individuals commissioned or purchased visual records of their wealth (ships) or of their regional strengths (ships and shipping). Three particular phases in Dutch marine painting lifted that kind of representation to new technical and aesthetic levels and established the field as a distinct artistic form . At the beginning of the seventeenth century, artists concentrated on painting pivotal engagements at sea that led to Dutch independence from Spain. In addition, pictures of busy port scenes and voyages of exploration documented and celebrated commercial expansion and economic growth . During the second, subsequent phase of Dutch marine painting, practitioners focused more on the natural context of vessels, concentrating on sea, sky, and the depiction of wind and weather. The third and final phase of this distinctive art form saw .a return to naval battles during the Anglo-Dutch wars .l8 Ship portraits are generally evaluated by different standards than those usually applied to history paintings or even landscapes . As mentioned earlier, to be taken seriously by a maritime audience in a nation proud of its naval supremacy, paintings had to depict ships accurately. The correct number of masts, proper rigging, appropriate sail configurations, and a realistic attitude of a ship in the water were crucial, whether portraying a pivotal naval battle or the most mundane of waterborne commerce . The great advancement of the Dutch marine artists was in painting ships that "looked right ." Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611-1693) and his son, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), are the most prominent and important marine painters of this period, not only for their combination of technique, accurate representation, and innovative


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subject treatments but also because they moved to England in the early 1670s where they received royal patronage. Once in England, they continued to focus on marine painting and achieved great success. After 1674 each was paid a salary of £100 a year by Charles 11 and later James II to make drawings of sea battles and convert the renderings to paintings.'9 This patronage resulted in the creation of a massive documentary record of watercraft from the period and in the establishment of a school of British marine artists. 20 British support of marine painting and the availability of subject matter in the expanding and thriving English ports led marine artists to settle around active waterfronts . The presence and success of the Van de Veldes encouraged numerous lesser painters, and markets for marine representations grew. Not only did the British aristocracy commission paintings but a healthy demand for ship portraits arose from large communities of merchants and seamen that could be found in the port cities . And the artists in the lower social and economic strata of these urban areas could seldom support themselves from their ship paintings alone. Frequently, ship portrait painters paid the rent as draftsmen, house painters, ships' painters, or carvers of figureheads or other kinds of ship ornamentation.z1ln addition, sea cadets learned drafting skills, and chart-making and coastal sketches were often expected from navigation officers in the navy and merchant marine . Changes in ship construction led to the professionalization of naval architecture; ship plans required more exact and exacting drawing skills, abilities that some craftsmen transferred to the creation of ship portraits.22 Upon retirement, men with maritime careers, guided by their familiarity with ships and the sea, sometimes settled in waterfront areas and commenced producing ship portraits. Only a modern appreciation of primitive or naive art has ultimately granted these practitioners any attention in the fine arts world. Painters of ships' portraits, then, emerged from two strains of artistic lineage. On the one hand, schools of highly trained, mostly landscape, artists supported by public commission, aristocratic, or mercantile patronage created works depicting important maritime events or special vessels for the public sphere or the wealthy, whose financial success increasingly derived from things maritime. On the other hand, self-trained artisans speedily produced paintings for officers and crews of these ships, individuals more intimately engaged in the

daily routine of maritime commerce and pressed for time but no less desirous of visual renderings of their equally esteemed commands or homes. An officer returning from a long overseas voyage could claim no better souvenir than a portrait of his command, rendered in a foreign port and bearing the signature of a foreign artist .23 As Basil Greenhill has noted, "most masters and owners of small vessels could not afford the famous, but relied instead on a breed of artisan painter, a breed which grew up in the ports by demand, who for a small sum would produce a ship portrait, sometimes overnight. "24 "This sort of picture [ship portraits] owed as much if not more to the draughts and doodles of mariners, shipwrights and others of maritime calling . ..embracing the plebeian as well as the patrician. "25 By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, shipowners, shipbuilders, and captains frequently commissioned portraits of merchant ships; occasionally an owner would order a single view of his entire fleet. George Mears (fl. 1870-1895) was "official marine artist to the London, Brighton, and South Coast railway" and painted representations of all the cross-channel steamships operated by that company.zs The period from 1870 to 1914 was the glorious zenith of British commercial sea power. During the 1870s and 1880s, British shipowners built upon their dominant position and found employment for their ships all over the world. Huge sailing ships and powerful steam vessels traveled the world's oceans and passed each other from port to port . By 1900, tonnage registered in Great Britain equaled almost half of all the tonnage in the world and by 1914 British ships would carry half the total sea trade of the world.27 Demand for ship portraits, pushed by the numbers of men working in the industry, expanded with the trade, and most ports developed enclaves of pierhead painters who catered to the myriad sailors in any given port .28 Reuben Chappell (1870-1940), one of these painters who later gained professional respect for his portraits, "painted, on the spot, hundreds of vessels which represented the last days of sail" and "was prolific...as his livelihood depended on the few shillings which seafarers could afford in order to buy his pictures from him. "29 Other new kinds of enterprises increased the demand for ship portraits. Competition between steam and sail passenger lines meant more aggressive advertising for travelers and shippers . Broadsheets listed sailing times for the most modern, luxurious, and regular of


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passenger services and would often be embellished with portraits of the vessels, thereby providing visual evidence of a company's claims . Local tradesmen also took advantage of a vessel's visual appeal ; "R. Crag Sailmaker Swansea" appears on the sails in a watercolour painting of the Swansea pilot schooner, Lion, implying that sails good enough for the pilots would be equally splendid for other craft .3o Besides private commissions and advertising uses, images of ships found their ways into the numerous new illustrated daily and weekly newspapers which, by the mid- to latenineteenth century, felt obligated to provide their readers with visual representations of important stories. Beginning with the Crimean War, marine artists were sent to cover naval events pertaining to the conflict . They provided the illustrated press with sketches and drawings that could be reproduced to supplement correspondents' reports." By this time, marine artists also made lithographs from particularly successful marine representations for sale to the general public .32 An additional market arose from the production of postcards by local photographers for sale to residents of visitors to coastal towns or to passengers aboard the various ships .33 Ship portraits, however, no matter what their use, meet certain criteria and may observe particular conventions. "A ship portrait is a drawn or painted record of aspects of a particular vessel . It may exist in its own right or be a component of a composition portraying some happening or place, a naval action or port scene ...The subject may be glorified, flattered; made fun of or treated in any other way. It is a portrait so long as it declares the identity of its subject. "34 As mentioned above, accuracy was prized above all; but that did not necessarily mean a strictly realistic vision . Customers might request the exaggeration of certain details, "the flags - standards, ensigns, pennants, jacks, burgees, signals and demonstrations of nationality, ownership and identification .. .In some portraits the direction in which they [flags] blow was governed not so much by wind as by readability, and a flag flying in an unrealistic direction is rarely an artist's `mistake .' Flags mattered a great deal to the client - a master who was a Freemason would require his squareand-compass symbol flown.. ."35 The more professional artists often used models to guarantee accuracy, sometimes keeping many ships built to scale - or pieces of ships - to use for their paintings. Artist J. C. Schetky wrote to Admiral George White

imploring that White's sailmaker make and fit "in all particulars of gear -a fore-sail, fore-topsail, and fore-top-gallant sail ...for a frigate . ..I have all masts, yards and rigging, complete and beautiful, but can't get the sails ship-shape. .. You will perceive at once my object and desire to have this model - it is to place it on my lawn and draw from it, for there are no mast-heads to be seen here at Croydon; and I am much at a loss for details when my ships come large in the foreground . "36 On the other hand, the so-called pierhead painters were frequently self-taught by years at sea or observed vessels in the ports where they lived. The most basic and least skilled portraits often strove for delineation only, with a lettered inscription "across the base of the composition recording perhaps in elegant copperplate the rig, ship name, port of registry, and name of commander. When drawn on light or dark base, it [the inscription] served to direct the viewer's gaze into the picture...Where this device was not used the foreground was often represented as in shade cast by a cloud - a compositional ploy used again and again by the best practitioners . "37 The ship was also presented in a very stylized fashion, usually broadside. In the late-eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries, showing a vessel in three different views within the same picture became popular. In addition to the most common broadside view, the same ship would be painted "sailing off to port and starboard. "38 For more money, a stern or bow view of the same ship could be added to the composition. "The more that went into the picture, the larger it was, the costlier. "39 Whether the image was produced in oil or watercolour could affect price as well, with waterbased pictures being the less expensive . Vessels were often positioned near a familiar point of land to commemorate a particular voyage or an especially fast passage, and the work might be inscribed with the name of the craft and date of landfall . Sometimes clients requested ships depicted under particular circumstances - in a gale off Cape Horn, for example, or engaged in a rescue or altercation with pirates. In general, "the most elaborate works .. .were for naval officers and ship owners, the middling ones for the commanders of ocean-going merchantmen, the smaller shipbuilders and ship-brokers, the simplest for the masters, mates and lesser crew of coasting vessels. "40 This hierarchy of production illustrates both the size and variety of the ship portrait market . Ship portraiture style remained rigid and


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circumscribed until the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century, largely because the men who purchased the images were intensely traditional themselves . Surprisingly, given the stress upon accuracy demanded by purchasers of ship portraits, the use of photography in creating these images was slow in coming . By the mid-nineteenth century, some ship portraitists were using photographs to aid the production of their paintings, but photography did not replace painting by any means .41 Technological limitations were largely to blame, since the size of the equipment and long shutter speeds made it difficult to shoot objects that were constantly moving through the water or bobbing at anchor. Even vessels secured to a dock bob up and down according to tide or current, and early marine photographs are often blurred. With advances in technology, more convenient cameras and faster lenses made good pictures of vessels possible, and some marine artists eventually used photographic images from which to paint .41 And, as in the case of the Verkin Studio, some commercial photographers in port cities assumed the roles and the markets of lower end ship portrait painters . Looking at the sampling of ship images from the perspective of the history of ship portraiture offers another way of understanding these representations . The Verkin photographs follow ship portraiture convention in a number of important ways, but at the same time introduce both the limitations and possibilities afforded by photography. Like many paintings, most of the images are captured near familiar land areas. All of the pictures were taken either

in the Galveston channel or berthed at one of the wharves . Familiar land structures may be seen in the background - storage tanks and buildings on Pelican Island (V-693) (Fig . 8) or Wharf properties (V-518) (Fig. 5) . The channel itself is very distinctive, a long, narrow stretch of water bordered near the commercial wharves by jetties to the south and Pelican Island to the north. While this attribute is indeed a convention of ship portraiture, Galveston channel geography also facilitated capturing the vessel underway, most often broadside, another traditional aspect of ship depiction. In fact, the topography of the channel and location of the port created a uniquely propitious setting for the creation of photographic ship portraits. Every vessel visiting Galveston passes through the constricting waterway. The narrowness of the channel helped Verkin obtain clear, relatively close views of the watercraft that passed nearby thereby appropriately fixing the vessel and its location in the representation . Without elaborate special effects, largely unavailable at this time, or rendered impractical by cost and time requirements, photographic ship portraitists had fewer options in situating their subjects ; marine artists positioned painted ships within familiar landscapes at the client's request. The Verkins had little other recourse, but this coincidence of photographed and painted ship portraits worked to keep filmed portraiture within the parameters of painted representation . Besides locating their subjects in a comparable way, artists and photographers also represented the vessels quite similarly. All of the images are horizontal . Rather than emphasize the height of masts or stacks, both kinds of Fig. 8

V-693, nitrate, Natenna, steamship (wood), 1918 Orange, Texas, U.S . Shipping Board (builder from the Verkin (.'ollection. Natenna was on of the ships produced a: part of a U.S. Shipping Board program promoting ship construction at U.S . ports. Many wooden steamers were built at Orange during this time most saw service in coastwise trade. (Courtc.~~~ . t'rnhudvEsse Muscuni. ,ti'u/1vii . Jlass.l

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture materielle 48 (automne 1998 140

portraitists focus on the length of the vessel as it extends through the water. All of the images considered here show vessels broadside, also the most common point of view for ship portraits . The generally straight orientation of the pictures is made more noticeable by the strongly linear components of the images themselves - the horizon line, the length of the ship's hull form, the wave shadows on the water. Many of the ships seem to be composed of layers of lines, with parallel levels of rails, decks, awnings, or portholes, and even smoke spewing from stacks trails away in linear fashion. Vertical masts or stacks and diagonals of rigging are the only punctuation in the sweep of a hull . Motion is suggested but not apparent, conveyed by wakes, discharging smoke, or small bow waves . (Channel traffic is generally restricted to a very slow rate of speed and a captain whose vessel was having its picture taken would probably cut his speed even further.) Marine photographers, like the Verkins, were familiar with traditional marine representations . They met with and dealt daily with sailors, officers, shipping executives, and wharf company representatives who possessed painted ship portraits and were used to seeing ships portrayed - in newspapers and publications - in very traditional ways . As commercial photographers, the studio was not hired to create innovative or pathbreaking imagery; ship photographs were meant to conform to long established standards and conventions of ship paintings. Moreover, representing a vessel broadside eliminates perspective and lessens any sense of depth or movement within the image that might be conveyed. A ship shown broadside appears to move cleanly across an image, entering and exiting the frame independently of the observer and conveying freedom, speed, intent, and unfettered progress . Where ships are captured in perspective, their sense of motion is more strongly suggested, but the observer is a more active participant . An added benefit to the photographer with less than perfect equipment was the opportunity for a longer shutter speed when capturing an image that was far away. Taking a picture of closely and rapidly approaching watercraft had less margin for error than shooting at greater distance . The ship either moves away or toward the viewer, implying an interaction or even interference, a stopping or starting . The frame of the image may be confining or directing; no longer does the ship simply move past and beyond. Perspective may make a ship appear more real, but reality

is not necessarily the primary intended impression. Ships carry imaginative freight as well as goods and people, and those most desirous of ship portraits prize both the realistic depiction of the vessel and its implied journey, a voyage that might be constrained by an image too literal in its appearance . The naval vessel U.S .S. Memphis (V-1692) (Fig . 7), slightly angled within the frame, gives a suggestion of movement, although calm waters and no wake work against such a perception . What makes the ship appear to be moving has more to do with the large white cloud area in the left side of the sky, with the way the top of two cloud banks recede almost exactly parallel to the tops of the communications masts and their wires, and with the large white hull of the ship and its reflection in the water on the left side of the picture. The composition of clouds, ship, and water, as well as the slanting to the right of the identification in the lower right of the frame, focus the eye on the left side of the image and move it swiftly down and to the right, following the ship's hull further back into the view. A painter depicting a ship on the open ocean operated under far fewer constraints than a photographer limited by equipment and location . Gains in accuracy were eroded by losses in vivid visualization . In contrast, several of the ship pictures in this sample were taken of vessels as they lay at their respective berths (Britannia V-1749 (Fig . 3), Winona County V518 (Fig. 5)). As mentioned earlier, these images were likely to have been used in port promotional materials, and do not fit the traditional categories of ship portraiture . The beauty and glory of ships is best depicted underway, and those commissioning or purchasing ship portraits wanted the vessels to be shown actively engaged in their trade. A ship tied to the wharf might be a strong, stable component within a clear, informative composition, but the ship is competing with equally strong, if not larger, shoreside objects. And the focus of activity immediately shifts to the grain elevator, warehouse, or pier, since the ship is purposely attached to the structure for some reason . Wharves and piers connecting the ship to the land worked against the idea of ships as independent, unfettered ocean vehicles. A ship tied to a pier is a passive structure being acted upon, and the craft appears to lose its capacity for agency. While these kinds of images may reinforce the ties of ship portraiture to the larger field of landscape views, these photographs are industrial landscapes, not ship portraits.


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Photographic ship portraits, because of their subject matter and adherence to particulars of representational convention, may be understood as a step in the evolution of ship portraiture . The creation of these pictures, for the most part utilizing visual conventions and centuries-old practices of production and sale, points to continuity in the craft of ship portraiture whereby photography - the quick and relatively inexpensive way to obtain representations from life - supplants the quick and inexpensive pierhead painter. Given the high value attached to accurate representation in ship portraiture, using photography to generate

these kinds of images is a natural development in the larger history of the genre. What is not addressed in this essay, largely due to constraints of time and space, is the reciprocal influence that photography has had on the larger tradition. The painting of ship portraits continued, but those representations assumed certain aspects of photographic technique, most noticeably in the areas of composition and point of view. A survey of later, twentieth-century ship paintings with an eye toward this visual cross-pollination is the logical next step in exploring the evolution of ship portraiture.

NoTEs 1.

2.

3.

C. Fox Smith, "Pictures," as quoted in C. H. WardJackson, Ship Portrait Painters, Mainly in Nineteenth Century Britain, with Reuben Chappell (1870-1940) as a Case Study, Maritime Monographs and Reports no. 35-1978 (Greenwich, England: Published by the'IYustees of the National Maritime Museum, 1978), 2. I would like to thank the anonymous readers for the Material History Review for their extremely useful comments and suggestions. John Szarkowski and Richard Benson. A Maritime Album: 100.Photographs and Their Stories (New Haven and London : Yale University Press, 1997), 14 (first quotation) and 15 (second quotation) . This publication is based upon selections from the more than 600 000 photographs in the collections of the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia. An exhibition of maritime photography is planned for Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts) in late 1998, and some publishers and/or institutions (Mystic Seaport, South Street Seaport, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, and the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, for example) have published striking collections of particular subjects (yachting, fishing, children at sea) or studios (Beken of Cowes, MacAskill) . Nevertheless, maritime photography has not received the detailed analysis, interpretation, or contextualization that maritime painting has been given. See also David M. Williams "An Illustrated Source for Maritime History : The Picture Postcard, 1894-1930," in Stephen Fisher, ed ., Innovation in Shipping and 71nde (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1989) 149-50, for the role of local photographers in documenting small harbour traffic .

Patricia Bellis Bixel, "Working the Waterfront on Film : Images from the Verkin and Simon Collections" (Ph.D . diss ., Rice University, 1997) . The surviving Verkin archive suggests that the business focused on commercial, mostly industrial clients, who commissioned images for promotional or documentary use. There is little evidence of complex, multiple exposure creations or artistic attempts by the photographers to romanticize or fictionalize their presentations .

4.

5.

6.

7. 8. 9.

10 . 11 .

Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, War Department, The Port of Galveston Texas, Port Series no. 6, part I (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1936), 73 .

Typescript index to the Verkin Collection, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts . The bulk of the Verkin Collection (approximately 3000 images, donated by Eric Steinfeldt of San Antonio, Texas) is held by this institution . All information regarding place of construction, ownership, and operation of the ships pictured in these images comes from the index created in the course of processing this collection . Copy of the index in possession of the author.

Images of ships alongside piers may be found in most port promotional materials. See, for example, The Port of Galveston: America's Port of Quickest Dispatch, Port Book of Galveston (Galveston : Port of Galveston,1932), hereafter, Port Book, 40, 42, 48, 50 ; Galveston Wharf Company Dedicates Elevator "B", program, dated 9 May 1931, Galveston Wharf Company vertical files, Galveston and Texas History Center, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas, p. 16 . Hereinafter, Rosenberg Library.

Port Book, 57. ibid., 66 .

"Fireboat Insures Protection to Commerce Which Moves Through Port of Galveston, " Shippers Digest of Ga]veston (4 February 1931), 3, 10 .

Williams, "An Illustrated Source for Maritime History," 148-50 for the prevalence of this practice. For Galveston Wharf Company usage, see George

Sealy, A Brief History ofthe Galveston Wharf Company Established 1854, Galveston Wharf Company Vertical files, Rosenberg Library, folder 1; Shippers Digest, 1927-1931 ; Galveston Wharf Company Employee Magazine, 1929-1935. For use of Verkin ship images by other organizations, see, for example, Galveston Commercial Association, The Port of Galveston : Handbook of Information on the Wharfage and Rail Terminal Facilities, Coal and Fuel Oil Bunkering Equipment, DryDocks, Marine Railways and Repair Shops, with Complete Information on Port and Stevedoring Charges at the Port of Galveston, U.S .A . with Historical, Descrip-


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12 .

13 .

14 .

15 .

16 . 17 . 18 .

19 .

20 .

21 . 22 .

tive and Statistical Data on the Port's Commerce (Galveston, 1922, 1928).

In his monograph, C . H . Ward-Jackson notes that while the best known ship portraits tended to be masterful artistic depictions executed in oils on canvas for owners or captains, smaller, simpler, less expensive renderings were sought by officers and crew members .

For a general historical overview of marine painting see William Gaunt, Marine Painting : An Historical Survey (London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1975), esp. 13-34 for ancient marine representations . See also John Wilmerding, American Marine Painting, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), 7; Michael E. Leek, The Art of Nautical Illustration : A Visual Tribute to the Achievements of the Classic Marine Illustrators, (Secaucus, New Jersey: The Wellfleet Press, 1991), 9. Leek, Art of Nautical Illustration, 14-16.

M . Russell, Visions of the Sea: Hendrick C. Vroom and the Origins ofDutch Marine Painting (Leiden : E. J. Brill/Leiden University Press, 1983), 51 .

Ibid ., 20 . Leek, 20 . Ibid., 28 . As artists worked to commemorate important vessels or naval engagements, however, some of them became intrigued by the challenge of depicting light, wind, and water, and moved landscape painting into new areas. "[J. M. W.) Turner, a marine epoch in himself, affords the supreme instance of one for whom the sea at every stage of his career was a vital complement to his view of the terrestrial scene." Gaunt, American Marine Painting, 11 .

Leek, Art of Nautical Illustration, 41 .

Ibid. See also Ward-Jackson, Ship Portrait Painters, 4-5.

Leek, Art ofNautical Illustration, 42 . Ward-Jackson, Ship Portrait Painters, 5-6 . Erik A . R . Ronnberg Jr, "Imagery and Types of Vessels" in Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, John Wilmerding (Washington D .C . and New York :

23 .

24. 25 .

26.

27.

28. 29.

30. 31 . 32 . 33 .

34. 35 . 36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41 .

42 .

National Gallery of Art and Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 63-64. Ward-Jackson, Ship Portrait Painters, 16 .

Ibid ., p . 128 and Basil Greenhill, introduction to Ward-Jackson, p. v. Ward-Jackson, Ship Portrait Painters, 1 .

Denys Brook-Hart, British Nineteenth Century Marine Painting, (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Baron Publishing, 1978), 22 . R. H. Thornton, British Shipping (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1959), 80-81.

Leek, Art of Nautical Illustration, 128 ; Ward-Jackson, Ship Portrait Painters, 15 . Brook-Hart, Marine Painting, 21 .

Ward-Jackson, Ship Portrait Painters, 15 . Ibid ., Marine Painting, 25 . Brook-Hart, Marine Painting, p. 19 . Williams, in his article, discusses the emergence and surprising size of the market for postcards in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Ship portrait-style cards are one of the categories of images that he describes, 145-50 . Brook-Hart, Marine Painting, 3. Ibid ., 25 . S.F.L.S . Schetky, Ninety Years of Work and Play: Sketches for the Public and Private Career ofjohn Christian Schetky. (Edinburgh, London : Blackwood, 1877), 189 as quoted in David Cordingly, Marine Painting in England 1700-1900 (London : Studio Vista, 1974), 14 .

Ibid . Brook-Hart, Marine Painting, 16 . Ibid .

Ibid ., p. 26 . Erik A. R. Ronnberg cites the case of Fitz Hugh lane using a photograph to assist in the rendering of the coastal passenger steamer Harvest Moon as an early example of what would be come a broader practice later in the century. Ronnberg, "Imagery and Types of Vessels," 68-69. Leek, Art of Nautical Illustration, 90 .

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) / Revue d'histoire de la culture matdrielle 48 (automne 1998)

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Cultural Traditions

Traditions culturelles Mi-marins, mi-mages : caracteres de 1'univers magico-religieux des pecheurs et des gens de mer du littoral tyrrhenien ALBERTo BALDh

Abstract

Resume

As an unpredictable force of nature, the ocean provides neither reference point nor shelter. Sailors and fishers see its limitless horizons and impenetrable depths, and knowing the insurmountable dangers it presents, live in a state of almost constant precariousness within a culture based on a high degree of specialization . The tools of their trade, particularly boats, are tangible examples of a technology that is essential, flexible and multi-purpose, but often insufficient to thwart the unpredictability of the ocean. Fishers thus resort to magic- a set of beliefs and rituals characterized by a mixture offigures, religions and practices drawn from the official liturgy and popular magic, and by a heterogeneous universe populated by demons, souls lost at sea, mythical, fantastic and animistic beings, and divinities and saints reinterpreted in esoteric terms. The author explores some possible interpretations of the magical-religious universe of sailors, using various ethnographies from Italy's Tyrrhenian coast. Some of these ancient practices and customs are still observed today.

Par nature imprevisible, la mer n'offre ni point de reference, ni abri . El1e est sans limite et d'une profondeur impenetrable aux yeux du marin et du pecheur. La conscience d'etre expose d des dangers qui le depassent se traduit chez le navigateur par une precarit6 existentie]le quasi constante et une culture fondee sur I'extreme specialisation de 1'experience professionnelle. Les outils de peche et surtout 1'embarcation sont 1'exemple tangible d'une technologie essentiel]e, souple, articul6e et multifonctionnelle, des qualites indispensables pour contrecarrer et seconderla nature imprevisible de la mer, mais souvent insuffisantes. Le pecheur a alors recours d la magie : un ensemble de croyances et de rituels caracterises par la presence et 1'interaction de figures, cultes et procedures tir6s de la ]iturgie officielle et de la magie populaire, et par un univers het6rogene oiu cohabitent demons, fimes des defunts en mer, personnages mythiques, fantastiques et animistes, ainsi que divinit6s et saints reinterpretes en termes esoteriques .

L'auteur explore quelques hypotheses de lecture relatives a la nature particuliere de 1'univers magico-religieux des marins en s'appuyant sur diffirents cas ethnographiques releves en Italie, le long du littoral tyrrh6nien . Il s'agit de pratiques et d'usages parfois tres anciens, dont certains sont observ6s aujourd'hui encore. « Le destin du marin, c'est de mourir en mer » : ainsi commence un vieux rispetto toscanz, dont la prediction lugubre, lapidaire et funeste, en atiribuant inexorablement a ceux qui naviguent et pechent en mer un bien triste sort, souligne peut-etre trop s6verement et trop cru-

ment 1'ineluctable fragilite de 1'existence des pecheurs et des marins . Dans une dimension oiu le poisson, le produit meme du travail, West objectivement ni visible, ni quantifiable, ni localisable a priori, et ou se cachent des dangers qui menacent la survie physique de 1'equipage, par exemple une tempete soudaine ou la formation inhabituelle d'un tourbillon marin, le pecheur oppose a la precarite qui caract6rise son existence la specificite d'une culture fond6e sur 1'extreme specialisation de 1'experience professionnelle. Les techniques de peche, la charpenterie, la


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conduite du bateau et la navigation sont ainsi le fruit d'une interpretation meticuleuse et realiste du milieu de travail, qui se concretise dans un patrimoine de connaissances acquis par le pecheur, par le marin et par le groupe de peche, patrimoine sans cesse modifi6 et affine au cours du temps. Les outils de peche, en particulier 1'embarcation, sont 1'exemple tangible d'une tecbnologie essentielle, souple, articulee et multifonctionnelle. Ces qualites sont indispensables pour contrecarrer mais aussi seconder la nature imprevisible de 1'element marin, ceci avec la conscience d'un rapport homme-mer qui reste n6anmoins toujours inegal . Il arrive ainsi, aujourd'hui comme hier, que le navigateur en vienne a se trouver dans une situation extremement critique, en v6ritable danger de mort, au bord d'un gouffre devant lequel toutes les ressources d'un bagage complexe de connaissances techniques et de savoius rationnellement orientes perdent leur efficacite operationnelle . Mais 1'homme de mer Wen renonce pas pour autant a une ultime tentative de reponse qui glisse alors sur un plan magico-religieux . Ce plan magico-religieux renvoie a un systeme de croyances et de rituels caracterises par la presence et 1'interaction de figures, de cultes et de procedures tir6s de la liturgie officielle et de la magie populaire ainsi que par un univers extremement h6terogene oil cohabitent demons, ames des defunts en mer, personnages mythiques, fantastiques et animistes, mais aussi divinites et saints reinterpretes et « reutilises » en termes esoteriques. Les distinctions possibles parmi les interventions magiques dans le milieu des marins sont nombreuses . L'intervention magico-religieuse peut, par exemple, assumer une fonction hautement protectrice, mais elle peut aussi etre appelee a conjurer un danger deja manifeste et menagant. Dans le premier cas, afin d'en renouveler et d'en revivifier la force et 1'efffcacite, on la r6pete annuellement ou au terme de periodes plus longues etablies par les differentes traditions locales, souvent tous les trois ou sept ans, les chiffres trois et sept etant notoirement « magiques ». Dans le second cas, par contre, c'est I'apparition d'une situation critique qui conseille et decide sa mise en ceuvre. Parmi les interventions magico-religieuses a caractere preventif et periodique, on peut citer, a titre d'exemples, le bapteme et la benediction du bateau, des filets et des instruments de travail . Parmi les interventions destinees a affronter un evenement nefaste imprevu, on trouve les conjurations contre une tempete et le rite de la

« coupe du tourbillon marin », suivant lequel precisement le « coupeur », un homme auquel sa communaute d'appartenance attribue et delegue des pouvoirs particuliers et extraordinaires, coupe le cone d'eau et d'air qui s'approche dangereusement d'une embarcation3 . D'autres distinctions entre les diverses interventions magiques en mer pourraient etre proposees selon leur fonction protectrice sp6cifique, qui peut etre defensive, offensive ou augurale, selon leur caractere collectif ou individuel et selon qu'elles sont initiatiques et secretes, prevoyant exclusivement 1'action d'un exorciste ou au contraire largement connues et permettant a tous, si necessaire, de se risquer a ex6cuter le rite . Mais, si elles sont legitimes, de telles distinctions ne permettent pas, selon nous, de rendre compte de fagon adequate des aspects qui caract6risent le plus precisement 1'univers magico-religieux des marins . La grande difficulte de controler, sur le plan technique, un milieu souvent insondable, oiu le danger est d'une part impond6rable et d'autre part potentiellement soudain, grave et inevitable, se deplace et se traduit sur le plan magique par une intervention specialis6e et capillaire, visant 1'6venement critique particulier a affronter ou le milieu specifique a proteger, et parfois aussi par une reponse multifonctionnelle capable d'exorciser une gamme plus vaste de situations a risque. Une autre caracteristique de 1'intervention magique est son « essentialite », c'est-a-dire sa tendance a la simplification et a la rapidite des operations a effectuer, des mesures a prendre. On peut donc dire que 1'on retrouve dans la magie les memes caracteristiques que celles des metiers de la mer indiquees plus haut, caracteristiques sur lesquelles le travail en mer fonde son efficacit6. La similitude entre les modus operandi dans la sphere du travail et dans la sphere magique se concr6tise par exemple dans 1'habitude tr6s repandue de se servir d'elements et d'instruments d'usage courant qui sont au besoin investis d'une valeur magico-religieuse. Le plan de 1'efficacite reelle et celui de 1'efficacit6 magique, c'est-a-dire respectivement de la conduite de 1'embarcation et de 1'inhibition de la tempete, de la peche habituelle et de la maitrise exceptionnelle de la mer agit6e, sont donc subsequents mais fortement lies, tant au niveau des instruments que des procedes mis en oeuvre . L'usage frequemment multifonctionnel des instruments (filets, couteaux), des espaces operationnels (le bateau, la plage, le mole) et des hommes (chef de bord et mage) suggere enfin


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1'existence et la persistance chez les gens de mer de traits culturels caractt;rises par 1'aptitude inv6t6r6e a une activit6 constante et febrile oil meme 1'invocation du saint et la recitation de la conjuration vont de pair avec 1'ex6cution des manoeuvres pour affronter la mer ou s'appuient du moins en meme temps sur le « m6tier », sur son substrat empirique et fiable . Si ces caractbres, le multifonctionnel, le sp6cialis6 et 1'essentiel, peuvent representer, selon nous, les elements qui definissent de faQon sp6cifique 1'univers magico-religieux des marins, il nous semble opportun d'appuyer notre hypothese de lecture sur certains cas ethnographiques . Nous ferons reference a de veritables rites oil la presence d'un officiant et 1'utilisation d'une formule specifique ainsi que d'operations et d'instruments d6termin6s sont prevues. Nous decrirons 6galement des coutumes plus simples mais egalement significatives et aussi de simples croyances. Tous ensemble, ces usages creent un « filet de protection)) capable de fournir des reponses diff6renci6es et articul6es en fonction des nombreux types de conjurations mises en ceuvre selon les cas. Dans la premibre partie, nous analyserons des pratiques et des rituels plus ou moins elabores, comme la protection des filets contre le « mauvais ceil », le bapteme et la b6nediction du bateau, qui mettent en evidence le caractere sp6cialise de 1'intervention magique visant a conjurer un danger pr6cis, a prot6ger un milieu particulier a travers des procedures soigneusement calibr6es. Dans la deuxieme partie, nous rendrons compte de certaines habitudes fort r6pandues, comme celle de placer a bord de 1'embarcation, dans des espaces determin6s a 1'avance, des images de saints, des comes et des rameaux d'olivier, ainsi que de peindre des yeux et d'autres symboles religieux et profanes dont les capacit6s d6fensives hautement multifonctionnelles sont en mesure de conjurer des dangers varies . Dans la troisieme et derniere partie, nous examinerons le cas d'une croyance assez speciale, qui attribue une capacit6 protectrice de nature magico-religieuse au systeme de peche tout entier, le « thonaire », destine a la capture du thon. C'est un exemple clair d'« economie des forces », de r6ponse r6duite a 1'essentiel, oiu un moyen de travail efficace et eprouv6 peut se transformer, si necessaire et sans le recours a des pratiques complexes ou a de longues formules, en un instrument magique dote d'un extraordinaire pouvoir protecteur.

11 va de soi que le classement d'un rite ou d'une coutume sp6cifique dans une partie plutot que dans une autre n'exclut pas son 6ventuelle signification plus vaste, la pr6sence de caract6res a la fois sp6cialis6s, multifonctionnels et essentiels . Les choix ont 06 effectu6s sur la base du trait qui nous a sembl6 dominant. Tous les cas ethnographiques cit6s sont tir6s d'une enquete plus vaste, actuellement en cours, sur les caract6ristiques culturelles des populations riveraines du littoral tyrrh6nien . Il s'agit d'une zone qui pr6sente une certaine homog6n6it6 culturelle en raison de courants migratoires r6p6t6s, dirig6s essentiellement du sud vers le nord . Ces courants, d'abord saisonniers puis sans retour au lieu d'origine4, se sont dessin6s d6s le xvm° siiscle mais se sont intensifii;s A partir de la fin du silscle dernier jusqu'aux ann6es 1950 . Les migrations ont conduit les pecheurs de la Campanie et de la Toscane a partager lieux de peche, r6sidence, parents et donc, souvent, syst6mes de croyance . Cette zone a connu, r6cemment encore, d'autres points de contact avec des ri;gions m6ridionales et insulaires, la Calabre, la Sicile et partiellement la Sardaigne (voir fig. 1) . Les cas pr6sent6s se situent dans un arc

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) /Revue d'histoin= de ]a culture matErielle 48 (automne 1998)

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Fig. 1

Carte g6ographique d'Italie montrant les r6gions et les principaux ports mentionn6s dans le texte .

de temps qui s'6tend pour 1'essentiel des ann6es trente a aujourd'hui et sont le fruit de la confrontation des t6moignages que nous ont apport6s les pecheurs interviewes dans divers ports de la section de mer indiquee . La ou c'6tait possible, la confrontation avec des sources bibliographiques et iconographiques a permis de situer 1'usage d6crit dans un arc de temps plus vaste . Les principaux points de la recherche sont, pour la Toscane, les localit6s de Monte Argentario et de Porto S. Stefano, pour la Campanie, Pozzuoli et les iles de Procida et d'Ischia .

Rites specialises Filets et « mauvais ceil » Il est 6vident que le but de tout pecheur 6tait et demeure d'effectuer une bonne peche. Ses espoirs reposent en fin de compte sur les instruments de peche, qui doivent donc etre surveilles et prot6g6s du risque de perdre leur efficacit6 . A terre, le chef de bord ne manquait jamais d'asperger les filets avec de 1'eau b6nite lors du tannage. Pour empecher que les filets de chanvre et de coton ne pourrissent pr6matur6ment, on les immergeait periodiquement dans un grand r6cipient avec une substance v6getale contenant de la r6sine de pin, la zappina, dissoute dans de 1'eau bouillante . Pendant que le tanin fondait, impr6gnant progressivement les fibres du filet, le pecheur ajoutait dans le recipient de 1'eau b6nite qu'il avait pr6c6demment et personnellement pr6levee du benitier de 1'6glise . Une offrande d'argent ou de poisson frais au cur6 6tait obligatoire parce qu'indispensable au bon fonctionnement du rite. Malgre la b6n6diction, il pouvait arriver que le filet reste vide et ne garantisse pas des quantit6s de poissons suffisantes . D'autres rem6des s'imposaient alors. Le premier controle 6tait effectu6 sur 1'outil lui-meme, soit sur le plan « r6aliste ». Si 1'on ne constatait pas de dommages et de mauvais fonctionnement, si le probleme restait insoluble, il ne restait qu'a en chercher une explication et surtout une solution au niveau magique. Les causes du probleme imprevu 6taient souvent attribu6es au « mauvais ceil » et les rembdes demand6s au mage . « Ici, a Porto S. Stefano », rappelle le pecheur Arturo, « a 1'6poque de mon p6re [ann6es 1920-1940], il y avait un mage qui chassait le " mauvais ceil " . Il accrochait des rubans aux filets . Qa arrivait si souvent qu'on ne prenne pas de poisson ! Si un pecheur ne s'expliquait pas pourquoi lui seul

ne r6ussissait plus a capturer de poissons, il allait chez le mage . Mais d'abord il fallait v6rifier si le filet n'avait pas de d6faut technique. S'il n'y avait aucun d6faut, il allait chez le mage »5 . Suivant un rite largement diffus6 bien au-dela des cotes tyrrh6niennes et non limite aux cultures de la mer, le mage auquel on avait fait appel laissait tomber des gouttes d'huile dans 1'eau. S'il lui semblait distinguer la forme de deux yeux, d'aprbs la fagon dont les gouttes s'agglutinaient, le mage les « coupait » avec des ciseaux ou un couteau. Il remettait alors au pecheur des rubans de couleur rouge afm de les fixer avec un noeud au filet « ensorcel6 ». « II prenait une assiette, il y mettait de 1'eau, de 1'huile et puis il disait : tu vois ces yeux comme ils te regardent ? C'est eux qui te donnent le mauvais ceil, c'est eux qui ne te font pas prendre de poisson (.. .) Il disait des mots incomprehensibles, il mettait du sel, il coupait la tache d'huile avec les ciseaux »6. Nous avons rencontre des exemples semblables dans la region de la Campanie, oil quelques pecheurs de Lacco Ameno et d'Ischia nous ont confirm6 1'existence d'un rite pour chasser le « mauvais ceil » des filets . En mer, le filet 6tait au centre d'autres rituels visant a favoriser une peche fructueuse . Dans les ann6es cinquante, le pecheur r6citait quelques Av6 et rep6tait la formule « Au nom du Pere, du Fils et du Saint-Esprit » dans ses nombreuses variantes, au moment de mettre A 1'eau ou de remonter le filet. Cette pratique etait tres repandue, surtout dans le sud mais aussi le long du littoral toscan, dans d'autres rites de mer et aussi de terre. Alors que certains pecheurs en appelaient ainsi a la puissance magique de la Trinit6, d'autres pr6f6raient prononcer « Au nom de saint Andr6 » avant de methe les filets a 1'eau et « Que Jesus-Christ soit lou6 » au moment de les remonter'.

Bapteme et benediction du bateau

Les operations mises en ceuvre pour prot6ger le bateau sont differentes et en g6n6ral plus complexes . La defense de 1'embarcation semble pour 1'essentiel de nature pr6ventive et accompagne le bateau des le moment de son lancement, puis est renouvel6e et r6p6t6e A chaque halage successif, a chaque nouvelle « contamination » avec la terre ferme, quand 1'embarcation toute entibre, ceuvre vive et ceuvre morte, se trouve aux « yeux » de tous . Ainsi, le bateau est prot6g6 a terre et a 1'amarrage dans le port contre le « mauvais ceil » et en mer contre le risque d'une tempete. Il semble ainsi « assur6 » grace a des formes de protection en


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quelque sorte « sp6cialisees » selon les dangers qui pourraient se presenter. Si 1'inconnue « economique » que nous avons 6voqu6e pese sur le filet, une inconnue « existentielle » pese aussi sur 1'embarcation. La plus grande complexite des techniques de protection appliquees au bateau renvoie en dernibre analyse a la sauvegarde des vies de 1'6quipage : c'est pourquoi le rite doit etre r6iter6, rep6t6 de fa~on cyclique . Le lancement d'une nouvelle embercation exige, aujourd'hui encore, la pr6sence d'un pretre qui, par la benediction, a pour tache de « baptiser » le bateau et son armement. Le bapteme effectue en montant a bord de 1'embarcation encore sur bers ou amarr6e a quai 6tait consid6r6 comme le plus efficace. D'apres un usage signal6 egalement par Pitre et Amalfi, on demandait quelquefois au pretre de s'adresser, au cours de 1'acte de b6nediction, aux diff6rentes parties du bateau et surtout a la proue et a la poupe qui allaient devoir affronter la violence des flots8 . La ben6diction etait suivie d'un « rafraichissement » auquel participaient les proches des pecheurs et durant lequel on buvait du vin et on consommait des sucreries. Dans ce cas aussi, le cur6 recevait et regoit encore du pecheur, pour 1'Eglise, une obole qui, dans le passe, etait souvent remplacee par un 6change en nature . On lui offrait du poisson ou bien on 1'invitait a bord pour partager avec 1'equipage une soupe de poissons prepar6e pour 1'occasion . Gianniniello, pecheur de Pozzuoli, se souvient que son embarcation « a W baptis6e avec le pretre, quelques rafraichissements, de la bi6re, des biscuits secs : c'est ga, un bapteme de bateau ». Catiello, lui aussi de Pozzuoli, sp6cialise dans 1'utilisation des tremails, 6voque comment « une fois le pretre appel6, on baptise et puis on jette la bouteille de mousseux contre le bateau (. ..) Le pretre r6cite une pricre pour les pecheurs et pour le bateau (.. .) et puis on prend les biscuits et on fait une petite fete comme ga, entre amis et pecheurs »9 . Le bapteme se deroule selon les memes modalites en Toscane, notamment a Porto Ercole et Porto S. Stefano. Les pecheurs de Toscane et de Campanie interrog6s ont donne des raisons analogues pour expliquer le caractere indispensable du bapteme du bateau . A ce qu'ils disent, on n'a jamais vu le cas d'un bateau qui Wait W baptise. « Pour le propri6taire », souligne Arturo de Porto S. Stefano, « le bateau, c'est plus qu'une femme, c'est plus qu'un enfant, c'est lui qui donne a manger a la famille, et alors il en prend soin, il le baptise, il le b6nit (...) Le bateau a toujours ete important » .

« Le bapteme, ga, c'est la premi6re chose », remarque « U figlio e' Cacola », pecheur de Pozzuoli, « pour moi, quand le bateau est neuf, il faut le baptiser parce que, quand on va en mer et que le bateau est baptise, ga a un autre " air ". C'est comme si quelqu'un qui a eu un fils ne le baptisait pas, ne 1'enregistrait pas a 1'6tat civil. La meme chose doit se passer en mer ; si je me fais construire un nouveau bateau, je dois le baptiser parce que c'est comme ~a seulement qu'il devient un vrai bateau ». L'embarcation est ainsi enveloppee d'une aur6ole de protection dont 1'efficacite est soulign6e et garantie par le caract6re sacr6 du rite du bapteme. Cette aur6ole ainsi d6crite et rendue comme « air », comme atmosphere nouvelle, diff6rente, palpable, revient encore dans les mots de Catiello, autre pecheur de la Campanie, selon lequel le bapteme est necessaire « comme bon augure, perce que sur le bateau, on respire un air nouveau quand il est baptis6 ». Cette tendance a associer 1'embarcation a un nouveau-n6, ~ un enfant, est 6galement exprim6e par « Piscione » quand il declare que « face a un enfant qui nait et a un bateau qui nait, c'est presque la meme chose », tandis que « N'derra i sassi » avence que « le bateau est comme un chr6tien (...) et un pretre le baptise comme il le ferait avec un enfant, en lui dormant meme un nom », et qu'Alfredo, encore plus explicite, soutient que « le bateau est un chretien et c'est pour ga qu'il est baptis6 ; (...) il est baptise parce qu'il doit avoir un nom comme un chretien qui croit en Dieu, qui croit aux saints, qui croit a tous »1°. Ces multiples analogies entre le bapteme de 1'enfant et celui de 1'embarcation trouvent, selon nous, une explication plausible dans 1'association que le pecheur tend a faire entre bateau et nouveau-n6, dans le lien particulier qui le conduit a assimiler la nouvelle embarcation A un nouveau-n6 . Dans les cultures populaires, la p6riode intermediaire entre la naissance et le bapteme se presente comme un moment de suspension pendant lequel 1'enfant, sorti de la condition prenatale, s'apprete a entrer dans la vie mondaine . C'est une phase particulicrement critique a traverser pour celui qui a alors, suivant 1'interpretation d'Ernesto De Martino, « une existence fragile, fluide et fuyante, particulierement expos6e a 1'agressivit6 des forces malignes et non encore dfiment prot6g6e ». Le bapteme devient indispensable « en raison de ses propri6t6s exorcistes (...), il consolide et renforce 1'existence fragile du nouveau-n6 » en le mettant de fait « dans cette condition d'immunit6 magique qui procbde du bapteme »11 .


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De meme, 1'embarcation a peine sortie des mains du maitre-charpentier et descendue des cales du chantier oiu elle a ete, des mois auparavant, mise en route et construite, ne connait pas encore la pleine mer qu'elle devra affronter, elle n'a pas 06 guidee et utilisee par son 6quipage lors de la premiere peche. Sa solidite, sa fiabilit6, ses qualites marines en gen6ral sont encore purement potentielles et doivent donc elles aussi We consolid6es et renforcees par un rite, le bapteme pr6cisement, qui 6loignera de 1'embarcation tous les risques et exorcisera tous les dangers possibles. Le bapteme tient lieu de viatique, pas simplement en guise de bon augure mais pour son efficacite, et on attend donc de lui une protection reelle : « le bapteme » , remarque en effet Procolo, un autre pecheur de Pozzuoli, « doit porter bonheur »1z. La comparaison reit6r6e avec un nouveau-n6, mais plus particulierement avec un fils, souligne aussi la tendance diffuse a inscrire 1'embarcation dans un horizon d'affections et de liens familiaux. En effet, tout au long des nombreux jours et nuits passes en mer, loin du village et de la maison, le pecheur devra etablir avec son bateau un haut degre de « familiarite », un rapport presque symbiotique qu'il finit de fait par instaurer. Une sorte de gratitude, un sentiment de reconnaissance semble en outre lier le pecheur a son embarcation qui lui permet de travailler, d'obtenir un benefice et de vivre. Cette gratitude, cette reconnaissance font meme du bapteme un acte du par rapport au bateau lui-meme . Les analogies rencontrees dans le bapteme du bateau le long du littoral tyrrhenien, aussi bien en Toscane, a 1'Argentario, qu'en Campanie, dans les Champs phl6greens, sont donc nombreuses . Par contre, la variante la plus significative observ6e dans la procedure suivie pour baptiser 1'embarcation a Pozzuoli, par rapport aux usages des pecheurs de Porto S. Stefano, reside selon nous dans 1'utilisation de 1'eau de mer a la place de 1'eau douce. Angelo D'Ambrosio note a ce propos que, « une fois le bateau construit et decor6, le pretre puisait 1'eau de la mer et aprbs 1'avoir benie, il 1'aspergeait sur 1'embarcation avec une espece de petit bouquet d'algues au lieu du goupillon. Les cloches de la petite 6glise du port sonnaient pour la fete et puis, a la maison, il y avait le banquet »13. Ce n'6tait cependant pas la seule occasion oiu, aux memes fins, on utilisait de 1'eau de mer. Le d6part pour la saison de peche de 1'ete inaugurait une longue periode d'eloignement du lieu de naissance et de la famille et substituait au lien visuel et tactile quotidien avec les quais

et les maisons du village de pecheurs une p6riode de non-retour, d'exil forc6 dans une dimension delimitee seulement par 1'horizon marin, ce qui constituait chaque ann6e un moment particulierement critique pour le pecheur de Pozzuoli . En raison des inconnues et des dangers qu'il pouvait cacher, c'6tait un moment difficile v6cu avec appr6hension et souffrance . Une fois effectu6s 1'armement et 1'arrimage de tout ce qui etait necessaire pour la longue traversee vers les cotes toscanes et le sejour prolonge dans ces eaux,les equipages quittaient le port de Pozzuoli, puis revenaient vers la cote et s'approchaient a quelques mcs,tres de 1'eglise de 1'Assomption et du village. En face du petit temple dedie a la Madone, ils recueillaient 1'eau de mer avec laquelle ils mouillaient le bateau et les filets, puis ils partaient. « Nous, quand nous allions a Civitavecchia et en Toscane a la voile, parce qu'avant il y avait la voile », rappelle encore Procolo, pecheur de Pozzuoli, « une fois arrives a 1'embouchure, nous revenions en arri6re en longeant la cote a 1'exterieur du mole jusqu'a la hauteur de 1'eglise, nous prenions 1'eau de mer, parce que la, il y avait la Madone . C'6tait un usage de nos p6res et nous avons fait comme 4;a nous aussi »" . Une interpr6tation du rituel decrit ci-dessus pout etre tent6e a partir de 1'acte de 1'aspersion issu de 1'ancienne coutume d'immerger enti6rement dans 1'eau lustrale le corps de celui qui doit recevoir le bapteme. Aspersion et immersion peuvent a lour tour etre ramenees au rite de 1'ablution pratiqu6 des 1'antiquite par d'innombrables populations de la Mediterranee, de 1'Asie et de la Polynesie, et a travers lequel, notent Jean Chevalier et Alain Gheerbrant, « les vertus de la source sont assimil6es . Les differentes proprietes des eaux se communiquent a celui qui s'en impregne (.. .) L'ablution est une fagon de s'approprier la force invisible des eaux »15 . Laspersion de 1'embarcation avec de 1'eau de mer, au moyen d'une touffe d'algues, indique la tentative d'etablir avec 1'6lement marin un contact et donc aussi un rapport non plus de 1'exterieur, de la surface, du « dehors », du « dessus )>, mais de 1'interieur, de la profondeur, du « dedans », du « dessous ». Ce contact, qui change de direction et de sons, pout etre reli6 a une tentative de faire partie de la mer devoilant un desir de fusion, de reconnaissance et d'acceptation, comme Anita Seppilli 1'a mis en lumiere a propos de la coutume du « saut en mer » , un moment cuhninant de diffirents rites deja connus dans la Grece antique qui prevoyaient un plongeon dans 1'eau a partir de


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iochers ou de lieux toujours elev6s, coutume oiu pr6domine aussi cette exigence d'aller a la rencontre de 1'el6ment marin et de se « donner » A lui. Dans le cas que nous analysons aussi, on peut avancer 1'hypothese de 1'existence, encore plus en amont, d'une « projection symbolique de nature eminemment psychique, implicite dans 1'eau, [qui] nait sans aucun doute de 1'intuition d'une similitude entre eau (...) et liquide amniotique »ls. Une telle projection est r6v6latrice d'une situation existentielle difficile dont la r6solution est confi6e a 1'eau, 6l6ment capable de dormer de nouvelles forces et de nouvelles 6nergies qui permettront de surmonter le moment critique et d'acqu6rir un statut reg6n6r6 . S'immerger, « incorporer » la mer a soi A travers le rite de 1'aspersion, peut donc signifier en assumer la nature intime, 6tablir avec elle une alliance, un pacte de nonagression qui, en derniere instance, cache le d6sir de s'approprier sa force terrible, ou du moins de 1'exorciser, de la domestiquer et de la controler. Nous avons pu noter par ailleurs comment 1'eau de mer employee pour asperger le bateau et les filets est d'abord b6nie par le pretre ou est en tout cas 1'eau « de la Madone » parce qu'elle est pr6lev6e du cot6 de 1'6glise de 1'Assomption. Le fait d'avoir recours, avant d'affronter la mer, a une eau qui presente ces qualites sacr6es, qui est par ailleurs employ6e dans le rite du bapteme et 1'acte de la b6n6diction, met en evidence sa forte valeur purificatrice d6ja peri~,ue chez diverses populations et illustr6e par H6siode, entre autres auteurs, selon ce que rapporte encore Anita Seppilli : « franchir les mers sur des navires, [franchir les d6troits] est donc un d6fi (. . .) . Cela se pr6sente comme un acte p6rilleux (...) qui exige pour le moins purete rituelle . Malheur a celui qui ne s'arrete pas avant sur le rivage pour se purifier et se laver les mains »l1. Dans divers ports de la Toscane, du Latium et de la Campanie, la b6n6diction de 1'embarcation avait lieu a nouveau au terme des op6rations p6riodiques de calfatage et de peinture du bateau, effectu6es de pr6f6rence durant les premiers mois de 1'annee, avant la nouvelle saison de peche . t1 Porto S. Stefano, le cure du village 6tait invit6 par les pecheurs a se rendre sur la plage pour b6nir les bateaux avant leur lancement. De nos jours, la b6n6diction est donn6e sur les cales et sur les quais du port commercial oil se concentre une grande partie de la flotte de peche de Porto S. Stefano. Parfois, 1'intervention religieuse 6tait requise et Pest encore aussi en cas de restructuration, de modernisation ou d'intervention rendue n6ces-

saire a la suite d'avaries ou de r6armement de 1'embarcation. Dans les situations que nous venons de d6crire, A la diff6rence de la b6n6diction effectu6e lors du bapteme d'un nouveau bateau, le rite n'6tait pas necessairement accompagn6 de festivit6s comprenant banquet, rafraichissements et participation des proches de 1'equipage . Nous ne sommes pas en effet devant une pratique initiatique mais devant la simple et successive confirmation de 1'efficacit6 protectrice du rite .

Coutumes multifonctionnelles Saints et amulettes de bord Parmi les habitudes de 1'6quipage une fois A bord, pour se defendre durant les p6riodes de navigation et les phases de peche contre les nombreux pieges possibles de la pleine mer, il faut signaler le recours a des images et A divers objets a fonctions hautement protectrices plac6s en des points pr6cis de 1'embarcation. Les effigies des saints et des divinit6s envers lesquels il entretient une d6votion accompagnent tr6s fr6quemment le pecheur de Porto S. Stefano . Parmi les saints les plus v6n6r6s, on retrouve le saint du village, saint St6phane, saint Jean et saint Andr6, puis saint Frangois d'Assise, la Madone de Pomp6i et aussi saint Paul de la Croix, de meme que, en son siccle, Paolo Danei, qui d6barqua en 1721 du cot6 de Porto Ercole, fonda a 1'Argentario 1'ordre des peres passionistes et construisit le premier couvent sur le versant oriental du promontoire . Dans le bateau, le pecheur a toujours choisi avec soin 1'emplacement consider6 le plus digne et le plus respectueux du caract6re sacr6 du saint, le mieux adapt6 a prot6ger la figurine de papier contre 1'eau sal6e et les intemp6ries, mais aussi le plus conforme a la d6fense de 1'embarcation et de 1'6quipage . Sur certains bateaux, de petits placards ou des tiroirs 6taient am6nag6s a proue, sous le pont, et chaque pecheur y rangeait ses effets personnels et les images des saints . Arturo rappelle encore que « chaque marin avait sa caissette ou il rangeait 1'argent, les lettres qui venaient de la famille, ou il plagait le petit portrait de sa femme, de ses enfants, le saint, la Madone . Derri6re cette petite porte, quand on 1'ouvrait, A 1'int6rieur il y avait une petite 6glise ! » L'habitude de conserver dans une caissette 1'image sacr6e ainsi abrit6e et encadr6e est trbs r6pandue un peu partout dans la zone 6tudi6e. « J'ai une caisse avec tous les papiers », explique Pierino, pecheur de Pozzuoli, « c'est 1A-dedans


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Fig . 2 Le bateau de peche avec voile la tine et foc reproduit dans cet ex-voto du x[xe siecle, dddi6 a la Madonna dell'Arco dont le sanctuaire se trouve dons la province de Naples, possi3de une proue intentionnellement disproportionnee et voyante, semblable a l'organe sexuel masculin . Repandu en Campanie, en Calabre et en Sicile, ce type de proue se retrouvait sur differents bateaux d voile, par exemple sur ceux destin6s a la peche au corail de Torre del Greco, prcs de Naples. Ces bateaux avaient souvent besoin de protections particulierement puissantes et explicites car ils ctaient utilises sur de trbs longues routes et dans des portions de mer dangereuses.

que je garde la Madone aussi, parce que mon bateau est petit et que je dois le proteger. Mais maintenant, je veux 1'encadrer, la Madone »'$. Le pecheur entretenait un rapport de devotion de caractbre presque liturgique avec la caissette, placee en un lieu volontairement retire et protege. La caissette le defendait du danger de perdre son identite physique et culturelle, en gardant ensemble et en lui permettant d'embrasser d'un coup les entites de ce monde et de 1'autre, qui orientaient sa vie, qui lui donnaient sens et valeur et grace auxquelles il s'opposait aux risques inherents a la precarite de son existence. Si la representation sacree assumait une fonction clairement protectrice, 1'image photographique, selon un usage recurrent dans la culture populaire, analyse entre autres par Bourdieu, Faeta, Mazzacana, Seppilli et 1'auteur'9, jouait un r61e essentiel de commemoration et de reintegration, en rempla~ant le contact physique direct avec les proches par leur image. 11 s'agit d'une photo souvent con~ue et realisee expressement pour ceux que leurs exigences professionnelles contraignaient a rester longtemps loin de chez eux et que la femme faisait realiser avec ses enfants pour 1'envoyer au mari . Grace a une mise en scene austere et digne, habituellement dans le studio de photographie, au port des meilleurs vetements et a 1'adoption de poses et d'expressions qui, dans

leur rigidite formelle predeterminee, entendent confirmer sans equivoque la respectueuse observance des roles et des devoirs familiaux socialement approuves (plus generalement 1'adhesion aux valeurs d'une tradition perQue immuable et indiscutable), la photo est investie du devoir de rassurer le mari, ici le pecheur, sur le caractere inalterable de 1'equilibre domestique, en le confirmant, meme a distance, dans ses affections familiales et en lui significant la protection que lui garantissent ses ancetres. La « petite eglise » dont parle Arturo remplace pratiquement le meuble de la cuisine ou, derriere une vitrine ou sur le dessus, se pressent les images des saints que Fort v6n6re, les photos des parents emigres et lointains et celles des chers defunts, veritables dieux tutelaires de la famille. Le pecheur logeait aussi cet ensemble iconique magico-religieux complexe et heterogene dans d'autres endroits, toujours choisis en sorte que 1'action protectrice soit particulierement efficace . Selon une habitude extremement ancienne et tres r6pandue, la proue, construite plus massive et plus robuste que le reste de 1'embarcation parce qu'elle etait la premiere exposee au choc des lames, devait etre protegee et renforcee de manibre adequate, non seulement sur le plan technique et structural, mais aussi sur le plan magico-religieux.

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Fig. 3 Detail du tableau de J.P. Hackert intitulc ha Marina Piccola

a Sorrento, 1794, representant la proue d'un bateau 6 voile latine utilise pour le transport de

marchandises, au mouillage aux alentours de Sorrente . La coutume de recouvrir 1'extremite superieure de la proue ave.c une boule de chiffon ou une peau de mouton, en souvenir de 1'entreprise t6meraire de Jason et des argonautes pour s'emparnr de la toison d'or, est tMs ancienne .

La proue est la premiere partie de 1'embarcation a rencontrer la mer, qu'elle fend et « viole » en ouvrant un passage pour le bateau : il s'agit, par certains aspects, d'une veritable profanation, repetee ensuite par 1'immersion des filets dans ce « corps etranger », la profondeur marine, dont 1'homme est exclu mais dont il veut pourtant extraire la « lymphe » precieuse, le poisson. Depuis toujours, la proue est donc particulierement protegee au niveau magique. A la fin du siecle dernier, sur le littoral de la Campanie et en Sicile, il y avait encore beaucoup de bateaux de peche qui presentaient une proue exagerement haute se terminant par one forme ovoYdale peinte de couleurs violentes, souvent en rouge. L'allusion a 1'organe sexuel masculin et en particulier au gland etait evidente . Cette proue etait tout aussi efficace sur le plan technique pour affronter les vagues raides et rapprochees de la mer tyrrhenienne (voir fig. 2) . La proue-phallus, ouvrant et penetrant la surface de la mer, affirme un principe vital dans un contexte potentiellement mortel et repete one tentative de domination masculine sur one surface associee ici a des connotations negatives, attribuees traditionnellement a 1'univers feminin, telles le caractere imprevisible, 1'ambiguite, on danger latent et masque . D'autres proues arborent a leur sommet soit une boule de chiffons (voir fig. 3), une peau de chevre enroulee sur elle-meme ou bien sa representation gravee en ronde-bosse sur un

morceau de bois . La reference est le mythe de Jason, la valeur, la hardiesse et la temerite des argonautes naviguant de la Grece jusqu'a la Colchide pour s'emparer de la toison d'or. Cette toison, replacee stir le bateau de peche et de marchandise, doit transmettre par contact et par incorporation du symbole ces memes qualites aux equipages et, par transfert, au bateau . C'est en general sous le beaupre des vaisseaux, puis sous le beaupre des premiers navires a propulsion mixte a voile et a vapeur, qu'etait placee la figure de proue, chargee de differentes valeurs de protection, selon le personnage reel, fantastique ou divin qu'elle representait . Dans la zone que nous etudions egalement, c'est A proue qu'on pla~ait 1'image sacree, selon un usage probablement importe sur les littoraux toscans par des pecheurs emigres de la Campanie . Arturo, dont les parents etaient originaires de Pozzuoli, rapporte encore A ce propos : « Mon pere avait un bateau ou la Madone etait placee a proue ; elle etait prot6g6e par une petite boite de bois, une petite boite faite pour ~a, juste ici, en haut de la proue. Beaucoup de bateaux de Pozzuoli venaient en Toscane avec ces petites boites de bois clouees et il y avait la Madone peinte, et meme un ange, et aussi saint Michel que bien des marins veneraient . Ils les peignaient avec des couleurs contrastant avec celles du bateau ; si celui-ci etait bleu, il les peignaient en blanc. Le visage etait peint soigneusement, les yeux aussi, et la bouche en

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Fig . 4 Sur ce bateau de peche photographie a San Remo, les dimensions de 1'image de ]a Madone et de /esus enfant, placee en evidence sur la passerelle, laissent deviner la devotion particuli6re et la confiance nemarquable que 1'equipage voue a la Vierge . Malgre cela, il y a ega]ement deux cornes prps de 1'antenne du radar.

rouge »2°. L'habitude d'exposer la divinite dans une espece de tabernacle, de petit sanctuaire, a ete relev6e egalement a Pozzuoli par Vincenzo Cafaro dans les annees 1940 . A propos de la construction d'un nouveau bateau, ce dernier ecrivait qu'au terme des travaux, « pour rendre le bateau plus fastueux, on y pla~ait a proue des petits anges, un saint et meme la Madone »2'. C'est donc a la divinite que revenait la tache d'eviter les obstacles sur la route du bateau, en veillant sur la mer et sur les vagues a partir de 1'extremite de la proue, dans une caissette a fonction de tabernacle ou elle etait diiment protegee, mais aussi deliberement exposee et rendue plus visible grace a des tonalites chromatiques contrastant avec celles de 1'embarcation . Ces couleurs, qui soulignaient le caractere sacre de 1'image et de la niche oiu elle etait placee, etaient employees comme force de dissuasion face a 1'agressivite potentielle des forces malignes et mettaient en evidence la protection en acte . L'usage d'exposer, avec la Madone et le saint, differents anges et en particulier saint Michel archange est illustre dans diverses regions et jusqu'en Sicile. En 1'occurence, il doit sans doute etre mis en relation avec le culte particulier dont le Prince des Anges fait 1'objet dans la zone des Champs phlegreens et stulout a Procida, He dont il est d'ailleurs le saint patron 21 . Au cours des premieres decennies de ce siecle, on avait en outre 1'habitude de placer une lampe devant les images sacrees. « Le samedi, sur les bateaux a voile qui allaient pecher jusqu'aux cotes de la Tunisie », rappelle Pietro Fanciulli a propos des pecheurs de Porto S. Stefano, « il y avait ce bel usage d'allumer la

lampe a huile votive devant 1'image de la Madone ))23 . Chez les pecheurs qui ont conserve cot usage, cette lampe est aujourd'hui remplacee par une lumiere electrique. A partir du moment ou, entre les annees 1920 et 1930, la diminution progressive des bateaux a voile s'accompagne d'une diffusion toujours plus importante de batealix de peche a moteur equipes pour la peche au filet trainant, 1'image votive et les photographies de famille changent de place et se retrouvent, aujourd'hui encore, surtout dans la passerelle ou bien a proue, mais a 1'abri, dans le local ou sont les couchettes . L'interaction avec le saint, dont 1'effigie, comme nous 1'avons vu, est generalement conservee a bord avec soin et souvent encadree, pout cependant prendre des formes, pour ainsi dire, plus directes et « concretes ». Pour solliciter 1'intervention divine, il arrive que le pecheur ressente 1'exigence de sortir 1'effigie de la caissette oil il l'avait deposee afin de la porter sur le pont, devant le grave evdnement en cours. Au meme moment, a terre, on expose devant la mer en tempete 1'icone sacree ou la statue du saint protecteur du village. Il s'agit d'une coutume aujourd'hui largement tombee en desuetude mais qui etait encore presente au debut du xxe siecle . L'exhibition de 1'image, opposee directement, physiquement, a la furie des elements, se presente souvent comme extrema ratio, comme la derniere tentative desesperee de calmer la mer, de 1'appprivoiser, quand toutes les maneeuvres accomplies precedemment par 1'equipage Wont pas produit les effets desires. C'est une ultime tentative commune aux pecheurs et aux marins de tons lieux et dont on trouve temoignage dans la zone que nous etudions, en Toscane comme en Campanie . Cot usage est ainsi illustre dans certains exvoto de 1'eglise de S. Restituta de Lacco Ameno, dans 1'ile d'Ischia, et dans ceux qui sont dedies au Beato Romano et realises en particulier par les pecheurs de corail de Torre del Greco, oil 1'effigie du saint est parfois representee dans son cadre au bas du mat ou bien soulevee entre les mains d'un membre de 1'equipage, souvent le commandant lui-memez4 . En Campanie toujours, un rite encore plus radical que celui que nous venons de decrire, mais auquel il est lie et dont il represente par certains aspects la continuation et 1'aboutissement extreme, a ete signale et illustre par Lello Mazzacane, dans 1'analyse de certains ex-voto marins retrouves dans 1'ile de Procida. Il s'agit de 1'usage de « jeter I'image du protecteur invo-

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qud dans les flots en temp6te », suivant lequel le « protecteur est " mat6riellement " engag6 dans 1'dvenement dramatique, participant de sa propre image A 1'exp6rience du naufrage »z5. Des saints mais aussi des comes L'usage d'arborer une paire de comes de bmuf orn6es de rubans rouges 6tait et est encore fr6quent sur les bateaux de p6che. Les comes sont souvent placees sur la cabine, c'est-a dire en correspondance avec le « cceur du bateau », un point « n6vralgique » puisqu'il s'agit du local d'oiu 1'on gouverne 1'embarcation, oiu sont rassembl6s tous les instruments pour la navigation et oiz la presence du chef de bord est pour ainsi dire constante (voir fig. 4) . Si une habitude analogue a ete signalde, ainsi que nous le verrons plus loin, comme dtant pratiquee par les pecheurs du Latium, de la Campanie, de la Sicile et de 1'Adriatique, elle presente aussi des ressemblances dvidentes avec 1'habitude des paysans qui, pour d6fendre leur habitation, placent des objets g6ndralement acumines (comes, couteaux, faux et ciseaux) dans des points consider6s particulierement critiques, a la conjonction des deux versants du toit, sur la porte d'entr6e et aux coins des murs principauxzs . Toutefois, expliquer les raisons d'une telle analogie, du moins a un niveau de premiere approximation, en recourant a 1'hypothese de contacts, m6langes et transvasements 6vidents mais probablement inconstants et fragmentaires, n'est peut-etre pas aussi utile que de remonter a 1'universalite 6vidente du symbole, a la forte valeur d6fensive attribuee populairement a la come tant par les gens de 1'interieur que par ceux de la cote . En effet, chez les peuples les plus divers et des 1'antiquite, des Sum6riens aux Hindous, des Iroquois aux Dogons, comme dans les mythologies grecque, celtique et cbinoise, on peut relever la tendance a interprdter la come comme un symbole de puissance, d'6nergie et de pouvoir d'origine souvent phallique. Selon Chevalier et Gheerbrant, il s'agit d'un « principe actif et masculin, dont la conformation physique robuste repr6senterait en raison de sa duretd une force d6fensive comme le bouclier ))27, d'une efficacit6 suppos6e indiscutable . Le ruban rouge, dont nous avons deja releve 1'usage dans la pratique destinee a liberer le filet du mauvais sort, semble avoir dans ce cas aussi une tache de renforcement et de complementarit6 par rapport a celle de la come . On peut observer, d'une part, le choix de la couleur rouge qui, dans ton acception positive et diurne, est le symbole de la vie, de la force et de 1'a-

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gressivite et, d'autre part, le nceud qui, avant tout, entrave, lie, raffermit et confbre cette 6nergie a la come et donc au bateau, mais qui intervient aussi comme moyen de « lien » magique, d'immobilisation des forces malignes : « la bande rouge nou6e sur la come (...), chasse le mauvais oeil, arrete la malchance, il y a cette coutume ici », dit a ce propos Arturoz8. L'utilisation de la come a 60 relev6e encore dans les ann6es cinquante : les pecheurs de Nettuno tenaient a bord de petites comes de corail ; les pecheurs de Minturno suspendaient une come a proue ; a Acciaroli, la come 6tait attachee au mat ; sur les bateaux de Catane, elle etait souvent peinte ; dans 1'Adriatique, la paire de cornesz9 apparait de nouveau. Saverio la Sorsa rapporte enfin 1'habitude qu'avaient certaines femmes d'exposer une come de bceuf sur le rebord de la fenetre si leurs hommes se faisaient surprendre en mer par une tempete3o .


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f'r4 :4`.~ .:... . . . .

Fig. 5 Diagramme du thonaire de 1'ile de Procida, vu du dessus. A remarquer : la forme du filet 6voquant une croix et la « p6dale v, le long filet qui part de la c6te et est reli6 sur les deux c6tEs a 33 amarres .

Nous avons personnellement constat6, aujourd'hui encore, l'habitude de placer les comes a bord : non seulement sur le toit de la passerelle, mais aussi sur les infrastructures du bateau de peche, dans de nombreux ports du littoral tyrrh6nien . A cot6 des comes, on trouve souvent un rameau de palmier ou d'olivier beni a 1'occasion du Dimanche des Rameaux : c'est une habitude qui reste parmi les plus repandues encore aujourd'hui, a la fois dans la region tyrrhenienne et sur les cotes adriatique et ionienne . Dans cette recherche d'une fusion symbolique avec le ciel et donc avec la « sphbre celeste », le rameau est place le plus haut possible, au sommet du petit mat m6tallique qui soutient les antennes de la radio et le radar ou, sur les chalutiers, au sommet de 1'arc arriCre a partir duquel on descend le filet. La come et 1'olivier repr6sentent peut-etre 1'une des synergies protectrices actuelles les plus utilis6es, exemple significatif du syncretisme fr6quemment op6re par les milieux populaires entre le plan magique et le plan religieux.

Reponses essentielles Croix et thonaire Nous avons consid6r6 jusqu'ici des techniques de protection qui impliquent toutes, a differents niveaux, la r6utilisation d'instruments et de moyens, mais aussi de lieux normalement utilis6s pour la peche, la navigation ou, simplement, pour la vie a bord . En vue de son utilisation a des fins de protection, l'homme de mer a s6lectionn6 chaque fois 1'outil le plus ad6quat en lui conf6rant une valeur magique, sp6cialis6e ou pas, grace une pratique appropri6e ou en 1'associant a d'autres objets et 6l6ments . Comme nous 1'avons indique au d6but, il y a cependant des cas oil c'est le systeme de peche tout entier, donc le complexe filets, outils et bateau, qui acquiert un pouvoir d6fensif, un pouvoir magique d'une extraordinaire efficacit6 . Le thonaire repr6sente sans doute 1'exemple le plus significatif de ce cas . Le thonaire est un syst6me de peche pour la capture du thon de conception tr6s ancienne, particulibrement r6pandu en Sicile oiu il est encore utilis631. A partir du sibcle dernier, 1'usage du thonaire s'est diffuse sur le littoral tyrrh6nien jusqu'en Ligurie et le long des cotes de la Sardaigne. II a disparu autour des ann6es 1950, parallblement avec 1'intensification d'une navigation cotibre essentiellement touristique,

pour laquelle le systeme de filets de ce type de peche constituait une entrave. Le thonaire est en effet constitue d'un filet de barrage, la « p6dale », qui, partant de la terre, s'avance en pleine mer jusqu'a plus d'un mille : la, son extremite s'engage dans une espece de vaste enceinte rectangulaire form6e, elle aussi, de longs filets soutenus sur les deux cot6s plus courts par deux grosses embarcations, dont 1'une, en gen6ral la plus grande, est solidaire avec le filet et West donc pas utilisee pour naviguer. Maintenue a la surface par de nombreux flotteurs, la « p6dale » est assujettie sur tous les c8tes a de longs cordages appel6s « croix » attach6s sur le fond a des ancres de grandes dimensions ou corps morts. Des cordages aussi nombreux maintiennent en place une enceinte a 1'int6rieur de laquelle, grace a un autre barrage de filets, est amenag6e la « chambre de la mort » oiu s'effectue la mattanza, c'est a dire la capture au moyen de harpons du thon ainsi pi6g6. II s'agit d'un systeme de peche qui demande jusqu'a un mois de mise en place et qui demeure donc fixe au meme endroit, jour et nuit, pendant toute la saison, en g6n6ral d'avril ou mai jusqu'a septembre ou octobre. De nombreux hommes remplissant les diff6rentes fonctions li6es a ce type de peche rejoignent le thonaire a bord de petites embarcations, pour passer ensuite sur les deux plus grandes et attendre les bancs de thons. Quand ils rencontrent la « pedale » sur leur chemin, les thons la longent en pointant instinctivement vers le large, mais ils finissent a l'int6rieur de 1'enceinte . C'est le rais qui dirige le thonaire . Ce terme d'origine arabe, largement repandu dans le sud de la Wditerranee, d6signe le chef, un homme d'exp6rience que les propri6taires de thonaire cherchent a engager pour plusieurs saisons s'il se r6v6le particulibrement habile . Au cours d'une interview avec 1'un des derniers rais, Carlino Intartaglia, responsable du thonaire de Procida en activit6 jusqu'aux ann6es cinquante32, il nous a sembl6 naturel de demander comment il 6tait possible, sur un thonaire et sur les bateaux rattach6s a celui-ci, de se prot6ger contre un soudain tourbillon marin, 6tant donn6 qu'aucune fuite, aucun d6placement West permis par ce systeme de peche qui est, comme nous 1'avons vu, enchaine a ses multiples ancrages . Sa premicre r6ponse tendait a souligner les qualites d'extreme solidit6 des bateaux, filets et cables d'amarrage : il s'agissait d'une explication « r6aliste » qui exaltait les qualites techniques de 1'6quipement . Quand nous lui avons fait remarquer qu'il 6tait difficile de supposer que, en tant d'ann6es

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d'exercice et de mois passes en mer a chaque saison, le thonaire n'ait jamais subi de tempete, Carlino a declar6 que jamais une grave tempete ne s'6tait abattue ni n'aurait pu s'abattre sur le thonaire, parce que celui-ci etait constamment prot6ge par Dieu . Devant notre expression dubitative, l'ancien rais nous a alors invites a r6fl6chir sur la structure du thonaire, sur sa conformation particuliere qui, vue du dessus, prend la forme d'une croix dont la pedale est le bras le plus long et 1'enceinte le bras le plus court (voir fig. 5) . « Si cela n'avait pas W suffisant », a ajout6 le pecheur, « mon filet avait meme irente-trois " petites croix ")), faisant allusion au nombre des cordages qui maintenaient la p6dale, egal a 1'age du Christ a sa mort, « et donc qu'est-ce qui aurait pu nous arriver ? Rien ! ».

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

La structure du filet qui fait 6cho 6 la croix, le symbole le plus v6n6r6 du monde chr6tien, est ainsi en mesure d'attirer une protection exceptionnelle, celle du Christ . Cette protection West pas r6p6tee dans le temps ou en cas de besoin : elle est continue, permanente . Elle devient effective au moment oit le filet, descendu en mer, prend la forme de la croix et est « ancre » solidement au thonaire qu'il defend, de ses 33 amarres, durant toute la saison. Le filet est donc suffisant en soi, meme sur le plan magico-religieux. Nul besoin de rite et de conjuration . La reponse a la menace s'exprime de fagon synth6tique et implicite dans 1'outil lui-meme : c'est une reponse essentielle pour une defense totale .

NoTEs

Cet article, incluant les extraits de textes en italien et les transcriptions de recit de vie et d'entretiens qui y sont cit6s, est une traduction de Catherine Rutili .

Il s'agit d'une chanson d'amour populaire A m6trique d6finie, recueillie et transcrite par G. Tigri au si6cle dernier, rapport6e recemment dans A.V. Savona et M.L . Straniero, 1980, p. 216. Dans la po6sie populaire, la mer est souvent m6taphore de la souffrance, du d6tachement, de la separation, de 1'inconnu, de 1'oubli, de la mort. Le rite de la coupe des tourbillons marins, de 1'amputation physique du c8ne d'eau avant qu'il ne puisse s'abattre sur une embarcation, s'effectue par la r6citation d'une puissante conjuration et 1'execution d'une s6rie d'op6rations secr6tes . Nous avons tent6 d'illustrer et d'interpr6ter ce rite dans un article en voie d'impression auquel nous nous permettons de renvoyer : A. Baldi, dans Actes, 1998 . Sur les courants migratoires qui ont concern6 les cotes de Toscane et de Campanie, voir L. Candida et Alberto Mori,1955, E Fanciu11i,1970 et Assunto Mori, 1960. Histoire de vie de A. Di Fraia, Porto S. Stefano, sept.-nov.1991, vol. III-B, p. 10-12.

rbid., p.13.

De Martino pr6sente a ce sujet de nombreux exemples de 1'invocation de la Trinit6 dans les rites de sfascinazione, de lib6ration du mauvais .ceil en Lucanie (E . De Martino, 1989, p. 16-19) . La d6votion a saint Andre est motivee a Porto S. Stefano par les origines de pecheur du saint, fils de Jonas et fr6re de Simon-Pierre . Il West pas exclu, meme si cela ne ressort pas clairement des entretiens, que la predilection pour ce saint soit A relier A sa participation A la peche miraculeuse du lac de Tib6riade, P. Fanciulli, 1978, p. 71 . Le culte de saint Andr6 est 6galement vivant chez les pecheurs de File d'Ischia et a Minturno, d'apres F. Sansone,

8.

9. 10 .

1982-1983, p. 177-179 et PB . Fedele, dans Actes, 1957, p. 306. Pitr6 signale qu'il 6tait courant, dans la province de Messine, que le constructeur lui-meme, avec 1'accord du propri6taire, proci'de 5 la b6n6diction de 1'embarcation en en mentionnant les diff6rentes parties et en utilisant ces mots : « Et moi je vous benis ce bateau (. . .) Je te b6nis toutes les fois que je suis pass6 de la poupe A la proue. Ma pens6e a toujours 06 de te faire bien droit ; moi (. . .) je b6nis tous les coups de hache que je t'ai donn6s ; je b6nis tous les clous que je t'ai plant6s » (G . Pitri', 1889, r66d . 1979, vol. I, p. 458). Un rite similaire avait 6t6 d6crit 6galement par G. Amalfi dans la p6ninsule sorrentine A la fin du siiscle dernier (G . Amalfi, 1890, r6ed. 1974, p. 131-137) . Dans les deux rites rapport6s par les deux auteurs, A la b6n6diction du charpentier s'ajoutait celle du pretre sp6cialement appel6 pour 1'occasion. Autour des ann6es quarante, c'est encore un pretre qui est appel6 pour le bapteme du bateau A Pozzuoli . Voir V Cafaro,1943, p. 69 . Une description r6cente du bapteme du bateau en Sardaigne se trouve dans G. Mondardini Morelli, 1990, p. 107-113. Entretiens avec Gianniniello, Pozzuoli, 17 mai 1991, p. 1 et Catiello, Pozzuoli, 20 juin 1991, p. 3. Histoire de vie de A. Di Fraia, Porto S. Stefano, 28 avril 1992, vol. VI-A, p. 7. Entretiens avec « U figlio e' Cacola », Pozzuoli, 17 mai 1991, p. 2, Catiello, Pozzuoli, 20 juin 1991, p. 3, « Piscione », Pozzuoli, 21 f6vrier 1991, p. 1, « N'derra i sassi », Pozzuoli, 14 mai 1991, p. 2 et Alfredo, Pozzuoli, 21 f6vrier 1991, p. 2. « U figlio e' Cacola », e Piscione » et « N'derra i sassi » sont les surnoms par lesquels trois des pecheurs cit6s sont normalement connus et appeles dans leur communaut6 . « U figlio e' Cacola » se traduit par « le fils de compi?re Nicola ('cola) », le terme « compare » d6signant le t6moin du bapteme ou de la premii're communion, selon un usage trbs r6pandu en Italie m6ridionale.


156

11 . 12 . 13 .

14.

15 . 16.

17 .

18 .

19 .

20 . 21 .

22 .

« Piscione » fait allusion, sans equivoque possible, A un homme dot6 d'un membre viril de dimensions remarquables : en Campanie, le terme dialectal « pisc », qui est 1'appellation g6nerique de nombreux repr6sentants de la faune marine, est aussi utilis6, en forme de plaisanterie ou vulgairement parlent, pour d6signer le p6nis et « piscione » est 1'augmentatif de « pisc » . « N'derra i sassi », qui signifie litteralement « A terre, sur les cailloux )), d6signe une personne « sur le pave », condamn6e ii vivre dans une grande pr6carit6 financiere .

23 . 24 .

E. De Martino, 1989, p. 44-45. Entretien avec Procolo, Pozzuoli, 17 mai 1991, p. 2. Entretien avec A. D'Ambrosio, Arco Felice,12 juillet 1991, p. 7. L'eau de mer West pas la seule variante : A Minturno, selon un t6moignage de 1957, le bateau 6tait baptise avec du vin. Voir P. B. Fedele, dans Actes, 1957, p. 304. Entretien avec Procolo, Pozzuoli, 17 mai 1991,

P . 2. J. Chevalier et A . Gheerbrant, 1992, vol . I, p . 2 . « Cette composante ( . ..) se retrouve aussi dans le rite

du " saut en mer ", qui r6pondrait a des nostalgies de r6gression dans le ventre maternel (ou du moins au binome eau et mbre -en raison d'une autonomie psychique insuffisament achevee, que peut suivre 1'immersion dans une nouvelle vie)> (A. Seppilli, 1990, p.160-161). L'auteur retrouve la meme racine dans le mythe de 1'eau de jouvence (ibid., p. 292) . A. Seppilli, 1990, p. 231. Le lien que le pecheur tente d'6tablir entre eau de mer et divinitd revient, par exemple, avec des modalites diff6rentes a Cetara, ou la statue de saint Pierre est plusieurs fois mouill6e avec de 1'eau de mer avant d'etre men6e en procession sur la mer. Voir F. Casaburri, dans Actes, 1957, p. 88 . Histoire de vie de A. Di Fraia, Porto S. Stefano, septnov. 1991, vol. IV-B, p. 23 . Entretien avec Pierino, Pozzuoli, 19 janvier 1991, p. 6. A. Baldi, 1996 ; P Bourdieu, 1972 ; F Faeta, 1987 ; F. Faeta, 1989 ; F Faeta, 1995 ; F Faeta (sous la direction de), 1984 ; F. Faeta et M. Miraglia (sous la direction de), 1988 ; L. Mazzacane, dans A. Uccello (sous la direction de), 1976, p. 13-18 ; L. Mazzacane et A. Baldi, 1992 ; T. Seppilli, 1985 .

Histoire de vie de A . Di Fraia, Porto S . Stefano, sept .-nov. 1991, vol . IV-B, p . 3 .

V. Cafaro, 1943, p. 67 . D'autres emplacements attribu6s aux anges par les pecheurs ant ete signal6s par La Sorsa : « le long des bandes de couleurs vives ou sur les ornements ext6rieurs et int6rieurs des bards sont peints des anges et des archanges, des ch6rubins et des s6raphins » . Voir S. La Sorsa, dans Actes, 1957(B), p. 455. Sur la d6votion des Procidiens a saint Michel archange jusqu'a la fin du siccle dernier, voir N. Ricci, 1899 . Ce culte est 6galement atteste par les ex-voto marins presents dans certaines 6glises de Procida. Voir L. Mazzacane (sous la direction de), 1989, p. 116-131. L'habitude, au debut des ann6es soixante, de peindre 1'ange sur les deux faces de 1'extr6mite de la proue a W relevee dans la r6gion de Catane . « Sur les ceuvres mortes a proue, saint Georges et saint Michel archange sont souvent

25 . 26 .

27 . 28 .

29.

peints, le premier A cheval tue le dragon avec sa lance, le second empoigne, de la main droite, l'6p6e d6gain6e contre le serpent infernal et, de la main gauche, il p6se avec la balance A peser les ames. Ces deux saints ( . . .) personnifient les forces du bien et de la lumi6re qui 1'emportent sur celles du mal et des t6nebres ». Voir M. Ragusa, dans Actes, 1957, p. 630. P. Fanciulli, 1978, p. 64 . Un programme de recherche approfondi, recensement et catalogage informatis6, des ex-voto marins de la Campanie, dirig6 par Lello Mazzacane et coordonn6 par Domenica Bordello et Tommaso Covito, est en cours depuis des ann6es au Centre interd6partemental de recherche audiovisuel pour 1'6tude de la culture populaire de 1'Universit6 Federico II de Naples . Sur 1'ex-voto marin, voir C. Tagliareni, 1956, L. Rebuffo, 1961, V. Bennigartner (sous la direction de), 1972, R. Brignetti, 1974, M. Mollat du Jourdin (sous la direction de), 1975 et 1981, E. Angiuli (sous la direction de), 1977, collectif, 1981, P. Monti 1984, A. Cosulich, 1986, collectif, 1987, L. Mazzacane, 1990, p. 75-83 et L. Mazzacane (sous la direction de), 1989 . L. Mazzacane (sous la direction de), 1989, p. 127 et 208. On trouvera des exemples du recours A la come dans le monde paysan dans E. De Martino, 1989, p. 24 et P. Scotti, dans Actes, 1957, p. 678. J. Chevalier et A. Gheerbrant, 1992, vol. 1, p. 321322 . Histoire de vie de A. Di Fraia, Porto S. Stefano, sept .-nov.1991, vol. III-B, p. 22 . Sur le nceud comme symbole de lien dans les pratiques d'ensorcellement et dans celles d'inhibition de la maladie en Italie m6ridionale, voir E. De Martino, 1989, p. 22-23 et 32-33. Sur la coutume relev6e a Nettuno, voir G. Domp6, dans Actes, 1957, p. 281 ; pour celle retrouv6e A Minturno, nous renvoyons ~ P.B . Fedele, dans Actes, 1957, p. 304. Les pecheurs d'Acciaroli avaient 1'habitude de placer « comme signe de bon augure (. . .) sur le mat du bateau et ~ la proue (. . .) des comes de baeuf originales ». Voir F. Casaburri, dans Actes, 1957, p. 98 . A propos des pecheurs de Catane, Ragusa 6crit : « Le pouvoir apotrfropafque de la come est universellement reconnu, peut-etre par d6rivation et image de la come d'abondance classique, peut-etre a cause de la valeur tot6mique que lui attribuaient les populations primitives ou par un commun principe de magie de la pointe ; le pecheur de Catane exige du peintre une belle come 6clatante sur son bateau, autrement il suspend lui-meme une come de beeuf au grand mat (. . .) avec un ruban rouge. Ainsi, le ncEud entrave tous les mal6fices possibles » . Voir M. Ragusa, dans Actes, 1957, p. 633-634. « D'apres une brbve recherche effectu6e ( . . .) sur les cotes des Abruzzes pr6s de Teramo », ecrit Silvestrini, >, dans Actes du 18r Congresso Internezionale di Etnografia e Folklore del Mare, Naples, Ente Autonomo Mostra d'Oltremare, 1954 . Naples : L'Arte Tipografica, 1957 . P. 435-448. Lombardi Satriani, L.M . et M. Meligrana, « Precariet'a esistenziale ed esorcizzazione del rischio nella cultura folklorica marinara tradizionale del Sud Italia », dans Mondardini Morelli, G. (sous la direction de), La cultura del Mare : centri costieri del Mediterraneo fm continuita e mutamento. Rome : Gangemi, 1985 . P 153-162. Lubrano, L. « Quando i tonni passavano per Procida » , dans Espressioni procidane, 48 ann6e, n° 4, juilletaoiit 1988 . P 5-6. Mazzacane, L. « Forma e struttura dell'ex-voto marinaro », dans L. Mazzacane (sous la direction de), La cultura del mare nell'area flegrea. Bari : Laterza, 1989 . P 116-131. -(sous la direction de). La cultura del mare ne11'area flegrea. Bari : Laterza, 1989. . « Ritualithk fotografica e fotografia rituale nella vita e nella cultura delle classi subalterne », dans Uccello, A. (sous la direction de), Amore e matrimonio nella vita del popolo siciliano, Catalogo dell'omonima mostra. Palazzolo Acreide : 1976 . P 13-18. . Storie di corallari, di miracoli e di predoni nella Torre del Greco tra 700 e 800 », dans La Ricerca Folklorica, n° 21, 1990 . P 75-83. et A. Baldi. Specchio di donna. Foggia : Gercap, 1992 .

Mollat du Jourdin, M . (sous la direction de) . Ex-voto marins dons le monde de 1'antiquit6 d nos jours. Paris : Mus6e de la Marine, 1981 .

(sous la direction de). Ex-voto marins du ponant offerts a Dieu et a ses saints par les gens de la Mer du Nord, de la Manche et de l'Atlantique. Paris : Mus6e de la Marine, 1975 . Mondardini Morelli, G. I/ mare le barche i pescatori : cultura e produzione alieutica in Sardegna . Sassari : Delfino, 1990 . (sous la direction de). La cultura del Mare : centri costieri del Mediterraneo fra continuita e mutamento. Rome : Gangemi, 1985 . Monti, P Gli ex-voto di S. Restituta . Naples : Laurenziana, 1984 .

Mori, Assunto . Le migmzioni stagionali dei pescatori del1'Alto Tlrreno in relazione col popolamento recente

dei centri costieri », dans Caraci, G. (sous la direction de), Assunto Mori : scritti geografici scelti e ordinati a cura di Giuseppe Caraci. Pise : Cursi, 1960 . P 253-270.

Pitr6, G. Usi e costumi credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano, vol . I, II, III et N Palerme : Clausen,1889, r66d . Bologne : Forni, 1979 .

Ragusa, M. « Figure, simboli e motti nelle barche catanesi », dans Actes du 1e, Congresso Internazionale di Etnografia e Folklore del Mare, Naples, Ente Autonomo Mostra d'Oltremare, 1954 . Naples : LArte Tlpografica, 1957 . P. 629-636. Rebuffo, L. Ex-voto marinari. Rome : Edindustria,1961 . Ricci, N. Le gnnndezze di S. Michele Arcangelo meditate nella quaresima in onore del Celeste Prlncipe degli Angeli per cura di Nicola Ricci vicario curato perpetuo di Procida. Angri : Scuola Tipografica Battistina Vescovile, 1899 . Roda, R. (sous la direction de). Rappresentazioni fotografiche del ]avoro contadino, Quaderni del Centro Etnografico ferrarese . Padoue : Interbooks, 1985 . Sansone, F. La narrativa di tradizione orale nell'isola di Ischia. M6moire de maitrise en anthropologie culturelle, UniversitA di Salerno, FacoltA di Lettere e Filosofia, Corso di Laurea in Lettere Moderne, sous la direction de Paolo Apolito, ann6e universitaire 1982-1983. SarA, R. Tonni e tonnare : una civilta, una cultura. Trapani : Libera UniversitA di 'Irapani, 1983 . Savona, AN. et M.L. Straniero, I canti del mare nella tradizione popolare italiana. Milan : Mursia,1980. Scotti, P. « La medicina popolare in Liguria », dans Actes du ill Congresso Intemazionale di Etnografia e Folklore del Mare, Naples, Ente Autonomo Mostra d'Oltremare, 1954 . Naples : L'Arte Tipografica, 1957. P. 675-680.

Seppilli, A . Sacralitd dell'acqua e sacrilegio dei ponti. Palerme : Sellerio, 1990 .

Seppilli, T. « Sull'uso della fotografia come strumento di documentazione nella ricerca antropologica », dans Roda, R. (sous la direction de), Rappresentazioni fotografiche dellavoro contadino, Quaderni del Centro Etnografico ferrerese. Padoue : Interbooks, 1985 . P. 154-174. Silvestrini, E. Elementi deconmtivi sullo scafo di alcune imbarcazioni tradizionali, dans Izzo, P. (sous la direction de), Marinerie adriatiche tra `800 e '900 . Rome : De Luca, 1989 . P. 59-62.

Simeone, A . Memoriale su11a tonnara Ciraccio in Procida. Naples : Pelosi, 1933 . Tagliareni, C . Ex-voto religiosi marinari della Penisola Sorrentino . Naples : D'Agostino, 1956 . Uccello, A. (sous la direction de) . Amore e matrimonio nella vita del popolo siciliano, Catalogo dell'omonima mostra. Palazzolo Acreide : 1976 .


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Les objets du rite : le bapteme de la Ligne Maurice Duval Abstract

Resume

With the crossing of the equator, sailors developed a rite of passage using objects and reactivating ancient sea gods . In this rite, when entering another hemisphere, permission is sought from the gods of the sea, particularly Neptune, who "boards" the ship for the occasion . The god is played by a sailor who takes command of the ship. But is the sailor invested with actual authority, or is this a rite of reversal? A description dating from the nineteenth century resembles contemporary descriptions, giving rise to certain questions. What is the meaning of the items used? Why does Neptune play a role? Do contemporary sailors believe in Neptune as a god?

Depuis que les marins franchissent 1'6quateur, ((]a Ligne », ils ont instaure un rite de passage au cours duquel des objets sont utilisds et les divinites antiques de la mer reactiv6es . Le principe de ce bapteme est que, pour changer d'hemisphere, il convient d'en demander l'autorisation aux dieux de la mer, notamment d Neptune, cense monter d bord pour la circonstance. Le personnage du dieu est jouts par un matelot qui prend, d'une certaine maniere, ]e commandement a bord . Mais le matelot est-i1 investi d'un reel pouvoir ou s'agit-il d'un rite d'inversion ? Une description datee du xlxe siecle'est rapprochee de descriptions contemporaines recueillies par l'auteur. Les questions suivantes se posent alors : Quel est le sens des objets utilises ? Pourquoi Neptune est-il mis en scene ? Peut-on imaginer que les marins contemporains croient en Neptune comme en un dieu ?

Le materiel ethnographique relatif aux souvenirs du passage de la Ligne utilise dans ce travail a W collecte aupres de marins du commerce lors d'enquetes menees entre 1990 et 1995, d'une part a bord des navires, d'autre part au domicile de ces hommes, qu'ils aient 6t6 en activit6 ou a la retraite . Par ailleurs, nous avons rapproch6 des descriptions du passage de la Ligne datant du XIX6"e siecle' des informations collect6es sur le terrain, afin de mettre en 6vidence les logiques symboliques et les logiques des pratiques, comme nous y invite le projet ethnologique. Pour cela, sont consideres en particulier les objets et les images (dans tous les sens du terme) utilis6s dans le rite, afin d'en degager le sens . Car les gestes des marins ainsi que les objets qu'ils utilisent ont necessairement un sens . 11 ne s'agit donc pas ici de considerer ce rite pas a pas dans la dur6e pour en cerner 1'evolution, comme pourraient le faire des bistoriens,

mais de saisir la structure a 1'ceuvre depuis que ce rite existe, dans deux moments distincts, Pun au xix0m° si6cle, l'autre dans la seconde partie du XX6'ne si6cle . En effet, meme si ses e1ements ont pu connaitre quelques modifications, la structure, elle, demeure. En d'autres termes, ce qui importe ici, c'est plus la permanence que la diff6rencez . Le principe de ce bapteme est que, pour changer d'hemisphere en quittant 1'Europe, on doit en demander 1'autorisation a Neptune et a « son epouse » Amphitrite. Le rite a lieu exclusivement lors du passage du navire dans le sens nord-sud parce que, normalement, ceux qui sont deja pass6s a 1'aller sont d6ja baptis6s . Le navire doit theoriquement s'arreter sur 1'6quateur et le commandant, solliciter le droit d'entrer dans 1'h6misphere sud aupres de Neptune, sous couvert d'un matelot d6guis6 en dieu de la mer et cense etre « monte » A bord avec son entourage en pleine mer. On ne peut trou-


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ver plus d'adequation entre rite de passage et passage physique. Faut-il rappeler 1'importance que revetent les passages mat6riels dans les . rites et meme « la similitude des rites de passage et des passages materiels »3 ? Les marins considerent frequemment ce rituel de passage comme une « mascarade » et ne Font jamais qualifie de « rite », ce qui supposerait qu'ils aient pris la distance permettant d'en faire 1'analyse. Toutefois, ce West pas la conscience ou la non-conscience qui fait ou ne fait pas la qualite d'un evenement . Ce bapteme de la Ligne a pour corollaire le rite d'initiation pratique dans les Ecoles Nationales de la Marine Marchande' . Il confirme les marins, tant les officiers, pour lesquels il s'agit d'une seconde 6tape du rite (la premiere ayant eu lieu a 1'ecole), que les membres de 1'equipage, dont c'est 1'unique rite de passage. II faut bien entendre la polysemie de ce dernier mot : le passage est social, culturel et geographique, il aide a la transition de 1'etat de marin a celui de marin confirm6, c'est-a-dire, du point de vue des int6resses, de celui qui part au bout du monde, qui s'eloigne de son port d'attache jusqu'a quitter son hemisphere . La plupart des auteurs, des journalistes surtout, considerent qu'il s'agit la non d'un rite, ce qui implique du sens, mais d'une « mascarade grotesque »5 ou encore de « vieilles et ridicules saturnales de bord »6 destinees a distraire les marins a 1'6poque de la marine a voile, sous des latitudes oil le vent faisait defaut et le temps pouvait paraitre bien long dans le fameux « pot au noir ». Lorsque le sens West pas analyse, il est nie. ll n'existe nulle part de faits depourvus de sens, comme le note Tlrner', alors le rite en a forc6ment un ! En effet, la derision ou Pindifference que les marins affectent pour parler de cette pratique est en contradiction formelle avec son maintien et leur attachement a celleci. Si elle n'etait que du « folklore », c'est-a-dire une pratique anachronique, elle ne se r6peterait pas avec le meme acharnement depuis que les marins franchissent 1'equateur. Pourtant, la coutume se perd, disent ces gens de mer, sauf sur certains navires qui, partis de France, voguent vers 1'Amerique du sud, disposant ainsi d'un temps relativement important sans escale, et sur quelques autres lignes ou, encore et surtout, sur les paquebots. Mais, dans ce dernier cas, le rituel est adapte aux passagers et risque d'etre epure, fige et transforme en folklore, c'est-a-dire en tradition qui, de dynamique, se codifie a 1'exces et devient donc statique. Mais, deja au milieu du =6-e sibcle, on d6plorait le fait que, « sur nos navires le bap-

teme tropical ou equatorial [ait] consid6rablement perdu de son importance et de son appareil »8 . De nos jours, il a recule jusqu'A disparaftre de certains bateaux. Ceux d'entre eux qui font des lignes Europe-Afrique, notamment, ne disposent plus de suffisamment de temps entre les escales de Pointe-Noire, au Congo, et celle de Libreville, au Gabon, de part et d'autre de 1'equateur, pour 1'organiser . De plus et surtout, la diminution enorme, en quelques d6cennies, du nombre de marins composant un equipage rend tres lourde la mise en ceuvre de ce rituel9. La disparition des eleves de la Marine Marchande a bord des navires se fait sentir ; ils constituaient une part importante des neophytes et les baptises dans leurs rangs participaient tr6s activement a la preparation de cette journ6e . Dans la Marine Nationale, en plus de ce rite, il existe une cer6monie apparent6e lors du franchissement du Cercle polaire, comme il existait egalement un rite du passage du cap Horn, lieu fort difficile a franchir, au temps de la marine a voile. Cette information contredit radicalement 1'id6e selon laquelle le rite du passage equatorial decoulerait de la monotonie qu'engendre le calme quasi permanent de la mer sous cette latitude, puisqu'a la hauteur du Cercle polaire, la mer est presque en permanence agitee et dangereuse . Sur le passage de la Ligne, les points de vue varient considerablement d'un auteur a 1'autre. Les uns estiment que cette manifestation donne lieu a des exces, les autres, au contraire, se r6jouissent de son existence. Un bal au milieu de 1'ocean! Oh! pour qui a vu toutes les physionomies de cet Ocean, pour qui connait combien sont courts les entr'actes du calme et de la tempete, que de sauvages et sinistres poesies dans cette idee de fete sur un pan?il the&tre! Un bal au milieu de 1'Oc6an! sur les profondeurs de 1'abime des mers, un bal ou les hommes croient au plaisir, lorsqu'a chaque moment la voix sourde des lames et les sifflements ironiques du vent dans ]es cordages, peuvent produire un effinyant concert avec leur menagante harmonie! Un bal au milieu des solitudes de 1'Ocean, ]orsqu'en quelques instants les vagues furieuses peuvent etendre leur suaire d'ecume sur ces pu6rils hochets de fete'o I

Ce texte quelque peu emphatique traite sur sept pages du passage de la Ligne, dont il retient uniquement la notion de fete, valoris6e au detriment des autres aspects de la c6remonie . Cette valorisation est inh6rente au caractere insolite et inattendu d'une fete sur un navire, d'autant plus que celle-ci s'oppose radicalement (en


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apparence), par 1'insouciance dont elle semble t6moigner, aux risques encourus en permanence par les marins . L'auteur 6crit : « 1'on sacrifiait vingt-quatre heures de navigation, les voiles serr6es (.. .) sans (. ..) soucis de tempete. Les marins pouvaient se consacrer aux plaisirs bachiques..." ». Un autre auteur developpe un point de vue diam6tralement oppos6 : (. . .) mais la fete donne souvent lieu d de veritables brimades cruelles contre les marginaux de Nquipage (etrangers surtout) et contre les plus faibles, notamment les jeunes futurs officiers . Le pilotin Leon Ravasse en fit les finis: on le deshabille, on le peint, on rajoute un affreux melange de suie et d'huile rance dont on lui frotte le visage, les jambes et les bras [en note 1'auteur pr6cise : « et sans doute ce qu'il ne dit pas : les testicules ! » 1 . Puis, jambes entrnvdes, suspendu a un filin qui passe par une poulie, i] est p]ong6 sept ou huit fois dans un baril d'eau de mer, et copieusement arrose n la manche (a incendie) quand il sort . L'6quipage se venge ainsi inconsciemment du supp]ice de la cale injlig6 a ses ancetrvs. A demi noye, leganton est ensuite « interrog6 », et n'en sortira que s'il a r6pondu de ]a fagon ]a plus obscene aux questions ]es plus ordurie'res . Pour, finir, on lui passe sur la tete une jambe de cire, coupee, serr6e au tour du cou, dons laque]le on verse de 1'eau de mer. Uhomme nest juge baptise que s'il suffoque, a demi-noye, cep qui s'appelle « avaler une bonne goutte »'z .

Par-dela les jugements de valeur de ces auteurs, ce dernier extrait, aussi partiel et partial soit-il, est int6ressant en ce qu'il souligne, en la contestant, une sorte d'inversion brutale du pouvoir d6tenu ici par 1'6quipage. Par ailleurs, 1'id6e selon laquelle les brimades seraient inflig6es aux marginaux de 1'6quipage est contestable dans la mesure oiu tous les marins du bord, quels qu'ils soient, doivent gtre baptis6s au franchissement initial de 1'dquateur . La marginalit6 n'a pas sa place ici, car ce qui est recherch6, au contraire, c'est un consensus, meme s'il n'est que formell3 . Enfin, jusqu'a maintenant, la l6gislation frangaise n'autorisait pas d'offlciers etrangers a bord des navires battant pavillon franqais et les quotas 6taient tr6s limit6s pour les membres d'6quipage . Ethnographie Ceux qui ont deja franchi 1'equateur se doivent de baptiser les n6ophytes. Les anciens - ou « les vrais marins » - se donnent un president de c6remonie : Neptune, le Pbre la Ligne ou encore le Bonhomme la Ligne, autant de synonymes.

Au }CIX&'°e siecle Dans les r6cits de la marine a voile, la c6r6monie commen~ait par une pluie de haricots blancs jetes du haut d'un mat, « faute de drag6es », avant que 1'homme pourvu d'un porte-voix ne harangue les marins : - Oh! du vaisseau! - Hold!

- D'ou venez-vous? - De Brest. - Ou allez-vous? - A Madagascar. - Comment vous nommez-vous? -Achil]e, capitaine Prior. - le connais le capitaine, il a d6ja travers6 mes Etats, mais c'est ]a premiere fois que je vois le vaisseau et je serais bien aise de le visiter. Uoulez-vous me permettre de descendre d votre bord avec la reine man 6pouse, man f]s et toute ma cour"?

Jusqu'a 1'evocation des noms du navire et du capitaine, le texte reprend ce que disaient les hommes de deux voiliers battant meme pavillon qui se croisaient . Ils se rapprochaient autant que faire se pouvait et, sans pour autant ralentir, echangeaient ces mots et quelques nouvelles d'une connaissance commune, de la m6t6orologie, etc., tant qu'ils restaient A port6e de voix . Le « courrier » descendait alors du haut de la mature . Ce matelot portait une 6norme cocarde tricolore sur son chapeau cir6 . II 6tait vetu d'un frac bleuatre sur les contours duquel avaient W rapportes de larges galons de papier, chauss6 de bottes de pecheurs, affuble d'une queue faite d'etoupe et pourvu d'un fouet : Les marins se rangilrent en cercle autour de lui et il se dirigea vers ]e capitaine situ6 sur ]e gaillard-d'arriere . II prononga un discours annongant au capitaine sur un ton humoristique, qu'i] etait 1'6missaire de son maitre « Neptune ou le Pere la Ligne, le VEnEmble Sultan des trois Piques et de la Ligne », et qu'il venait annoncer so venue pour ]e lendemain . Le commandant imposa d'un coup d'reil ]e silence n ]a Joule qu'6gayait 1'embarras du courrier, manifestant ainsi implicitement qu'il detenait encore 1'autorite, bien qu'elle fiut d6ja perturbee par le fait inhabituel qu'un matelot s'adresse d ]ui de maniere directe et non par la voie hierarchique . Apres avoir fait ses politesses au « dominateur des latitudes Equatoria]es », i] exprima ensuite le p]aisir qu'il eprouverait n ]e recevoir a bord. Puis, il ordonna que le messager soit convenablement traite, « d so propre office » . Le courrier s'Eclipsa discretement.

Ainsi s'achbve la premike s6quence du rite.

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) /Revue d'histoire de ]a culture matErielle 48 (automne 1998)

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L'6change verbal, mais aussi le fait que le matelot soit trait6 « a sa propre office » ebranlent les r6gles hi6rarchiques puisque, normalement, le commandant mange seul ou avec les trois membres de 1'etat-major les plus grad6s, il ne mange pas avec les autres officiers et jamais avec les membres de 1'6quipage. Le jour suivant, les officiers et ]es e1eves observerentlahauteur m6ridienne du soleil a 1'aide de leurs sextants afin de determiner exactement ]e moment ou le navire finnchirait 1'6quateur. Des 1'imminence de la Ligne, la cloche du gail]ard d'arriere et ]a clochette de 1'avant caril]onnerent . Le maitre d'6quipage regut alors I'autorisation du premier lieutenant de r6gler les ultimes preparatifs . Un echafaudage de barriques vides, 6tayees et surmontEes de planches, fut adosse au grand mdt . Des pavil]ons aux multiples couleurs furent d6rou]es et « un autel improvise s'en enveloppa sur toute les faces. Une tente en toile legere mit de 1'ombre surle sanctuaire reserve; ( . . .) des faisceaux de piques, de haches d'armes, se grouperent en rayons sur le fond de 1'autel . (. . .) On planta les bougies jaunes de ]a timonerie . Deux tableaux picturaux furent empruntes pourle decor. Sur les faces latemles de 1'6chafaudage, deux machoires de requins desquelles sortaient les flammes d'emban;ation telles les langues tricolores (. . .). Des tableaux reprEsentant les quatre parties du monde furent installdes, toutes personnifiees par un choix vo]uptueux dons le beau sexe d Europe, d Asie, d'Afrique et d Amerique . » Se courbant sur la queue du marsouin, a de brillantes plumes d'oiseaux nuancees de toutes les couleurs ( . . .), des pipes en terre noircie appuyees sur les dents des mdchoires; des chaines d'argent d6tach6es des siffets des maStres » . . . Sur ]e devant de 1'autel, « une cuve haute et large, sur laque]le s'etendait une planche ( . .) mysterieusement envelopp6e dons un immense pavillon » . . . Surles coins de Pa utel on distinguait encore « un enorme rasoir peint (. . .), une assiette pleine de farine, une hache et un billot, du noir de fumee, des tenailles et une ferule de cuir. » Sur 1'arriere de la fregate, une foule de marins s'6tait 6chelonnee sur toutes les 6levations »15 . L'ouverture fut annonc6e par une « foudroyante detonation de fusils (. . .) a laquelle repondit une explosion d'eclats de fires . » Le cortege du dieu de la Ligne apparut simultan6ment a de nouvelles detonations qui envelopperent 1'autel de fum6e . Deux gendarmes parurent d'abord qui firent reculer la Joule . Puis arriva, traine par deux hommes, un char pavoise « sur lequel tronait une jeune femme el6gamment paree en reine », en fait un jeune novice . A 1'arriere du char duquel

descendit ]a reine, on apergut un viei]lard a la longue chevelure d'6toupe et d ]a barbe « pendante et touffue », vetu de peaux de moutons. « Le trident de Neptune, le sceptre du monde, lui servait d appuyer so marche » . . . Suivaient les demons, les valets des dieux marins, tout noircis de goudron, « les uns saupoudr6s de toutes les plumes mises en r6serve depuis longtemps » . Le cortege prit place dons le cerc]e form6 par 1'equipage, le Pere la Ligne donna un signal auquel r6pondit un vigoureux coup de sifflet « qui convertit brusquement en silence les chuchotements des spectateurs » . . . Le dieu s'approcha du commandant entoure de son etat-major et demanda : - « Ou es le comandant? Celui-ci se detacha du groupe pour se montrer. -Oh! C'est vous, m . . .! Vous etes un vieil enfant de 1'Oc6an et plus d'une fois dejd vous avez travers6 les regions oil s'6tend ma puissance. . . Soyez ]e bienvenu, moi, man epouse, mes officiers, toute ma cour enfin sommes d vos ordres . - En effet v6nerable vieillard, il y a fort longtemps que jai reVu les baptemes de 1'6quateur et des tropiques, aussi n'aurais je d vous demander vos bontes que pour quelques-uns de mes compagnons de voyage. » - C'est bien, man secretaire va ]es enregistrer surlegrand livn= de 1'equateur, ils dcposeront entre mes mains les sermons d'usage » . . . Apn=s s'etre retire un instant, au nouveau coup de siffet, le dieu ayant 6tendu ses bras « a la maniere d'un predicateur », dit : « Mes enfants ! Lorsque naquit le monde, le so]eil charg6 d'eclairer la terre ne devait d'abord que parcourir une ligne droite qui est 1'Equateur. Mais. . . mais des que c'eut 6tE un peu comme go . . . go n'allait pas tres bien (. . .) Vous n'etes pas sans avoir entendu parler (. . .) du fils du soleil, qui est cense avoir voulu prendre la barre et conduire la lumiere. . . alors la barque chavira, et tout le soleil tomba sur la terre » . Le matelot-dieu joua ensuite sur ]a confusion entre a les Tropiques » et « les Trois Piques)), celles du trident de Neptune, avant d'a]ler partager avec son epouse un siege sur 1'estrade adossee a 1'autel. « Les personnages symboliques » fuent une haie pourles honorer. Puis le Pere la Ligne, a puissant ordonnateur de la fete », fit signe a ses gendarmes de s'emparer du premier des n6ophytes .

Un des fondements humoristiques de ce propos est lie a 1'apprehension du locuteur inh6rente a la distance sociale qui le s6pare, lui matelot, du capitaine auquel il s'adresse sur le


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mode direct, contrairement aux usages . Son expression verbale caricature le niveau de langue propre a son milieu social en multipliant les fautes de frangais autant que les d6formations de certains mots. Chaque n6ophyte fut assis surla planche par6e du pavi]lon au dessus de la cuve. Le coiffeur, pourvu d'une couronne herissee de plumes, s'approcha de ]ui et lui barboui]la le visage d'un m6lange de detestables ingr6dients de cuisine a 1'aide de son pinceau a barbe avant de ]e raser a 1'aide du grand rasoir en bois . Un autre personnage vint ensuite avec la f6ru]e, frottee d'un cot6 de blanc d'Espagne et de 1'autre de noir de fumee et lui appliqua sur ]es joues dont 1'une devint noire et I'autre blanche . Puis, ]a planche sur laquelle il etait assis fut subitement retiree et il se retrouva assis dons la cuve pleine d'eau de mer. Au meme instant dix seaux d'eau, pr6par6s a cet effet derriere 1'autel, lui furent deverses sur la tete et a chaque fois que ]e baptise tentait de se soustznire, a une nouvelle catarncte fondait surlui » . Apres que tous ]es n6ophytes furent ainsi baptises, des danses et des jeux eurent lieu, concomitants d'unegenereuse distribution de vin . La journee s'acheva bruyamment, avant que 1'ivresse n'endorme le navire a I'exception de 1'homme de vigie et du timonier. Au XX6'°e

siecle

Examinons maintenant un mat6riel recemment collect6 aupres de marins du commerce . Le moment venu, un groupe d'anciens se r6unit sur ]a base du volontariat et determine a qui ]es differents roles seront attribues avant de faire ]a ]iste des neophytes d baptiser. Puis, le groupe organisateur pr6pare les certificats de bapteme et ordonne la journee, il verifie 1'etat des costumes ceremoniels en gEneral conserves a bord, mais il s'occupe aussi du vin d'honneur qui suivm et du repas pris dons des conditions exceptionnelles . Un matelot est choisi pour representer Neptune . I] doit etre grand, fort et de prEference barbu . Les convocations sont redigees apres que ]es motifs de « punitions » ant 6te etab]is. Un « facteur » amene ensuite a chaque neophyte so convocation . Chacun d'eux est tenu, pour ]e remercier, de lui offrir a boire. L'annonce est faite du debut des ceremonies par la corne de brume, les sirenes et des coups de sifflets qui produisent un vacarme assourdissant . Neptune et Amphitrite miment de monter d bord pour prendre possession du navire . I]s sont accueillis officie]lement par le commandant sur]'aileron (partie exterieure de la passere]]e d'ou est dirige le navire pendant ]es manceuvres de port, c'est aussi le lieu ou ]e pilote est eventuellement h6litreui]le). Sou-

vent,, des 1'accueil, le commandant se met « en tenue » (il revet son uniforme) pour recevoir, avec tous les 6gards qui leur sont dus, Neptune et Amphitrite . Apres quelques mots de bienvenue et d'echanges de politesse rEciproques, un defile s'organise avec Neptune et Amphitrite au premier rang, suivis par lesgendarrnes, ]'avocat, ]e procureur, les sauvages, le coiffeur et parfois le pilote et 1'6veque . Lorsqu'un pilote figure parmi ]es personnages de la c6r6monie, i] est pourvu d'un sextant dont la lunette est constitu6e d'une bouteille de vin rouge, sur le modele de celui qui est utilise dans ]e rite des ecoles de ]a marineis, et d'une jume]le dont]es deuxlunettes consistent en deux canettes de biere . Le defile se transforme en une visite du bateau, notamment de la cabine du commandant, en vue de ]e mettre en d6faut. Neptune et son entourage peuvent y repandre des photographies pornographiques et des bouteilles de vin rouge renvers6es, mettant ]a cabine sens dessus dessous, d6sordre inacceptable sur un navire qui fera 1'objet d'une r6primande de la part de Neptune au commandant « pris en faute » . Dons certains cas, avant la visite, les complices de Neptune se rendent a la passerelle et mettent un lit dans ]a chambre des cartes, ou collent une photographie de femme nue sur le radar. Puis, Neptune fait un discours de circonstance devant 1'autel et demande aux neophytes « la dignit6 pour entrer dans son royaume » . Les gendarmes amenent les personnes 8 baptiser et apres un d6bat entre le procureur et 1'avocat sur le contenu de « ]a punition » qui va leur etre inflig6e, aux dieux de la mer revient 1'ultime decision . ll arrive que les neophytes cherchent a se soustraire au bapteme par crainte des epreuves qu'ils doivent subir, mais g6n6ralement ils sont retrouves et ramenes de force par les gendarmes sur les fonds baptismaux. A titre d'exemp]e, un informateur d'origine d'Agde s'etait vu puni parce qu'il Etait m6ridional et donc d'une « r6gion productrice de vinasse » . Un avocat prend la d6fense et valorise les neophytes, tandis qu'un procureurles vilipende comme des « ivrognes », des a marins indignes », pour justifter les brimades que ]es « sauvages » sont charg6s d'ex6cuter. Ces punitions peuvent par exemple consister a croquer une pomme mise dans un seau d'eau de mer sans 1'aide des mains, ce qui implique inevitablement I'ingurgitation de cette eau . Mais que]le que soit ]a nature de la « punition », chaque neophyte doit croquer un morceau de morue crue . 11 doit ensuite embrasser ]es pieds de Neptune et d'Amphitrite, enduits de moutarde ou de harissa .


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et ostentatoires des marins qui est menac6 par le coiffeur rituel, cet homme singulier dont la tache en temps ordinaire est toujours de toucher a 1'apparence du visage et donc a un aspect fondamental de 1'identite, tant collective qu'individuelle . La particularite du coiffeur est de toucher simultanement a la forme et au fond en traitant les cheveux et la barbe. ll est le seul naIls regoivent ensuite des coups de pinceau vigant a ne pas faire partie de 1'equipage (depuis d'une substance faite a base de farine, une la reduction considerable du nombre d'hommes « pfite inffime », doivent boire un verre d'eau a bord, il a ete supprime sur les bateaux de de mer et manger ce qu'on leur pr6sente : un commerce), il etait toujours « en surnombre >), morceau de morue crue pimente ou enduit ce qui explicite la singularite de sa position. de moutarde . Ils sont ensuite jetes un par un Dans le rite, Cest un renouvellement de la barbe les fonds baptismaux (une piscine iniprodons qui est signifi6, comme si a la nouvelle identite visee) dons lesquels ant deja pris place les a sauvages », dont le role est de maintenir devait correspondre une nouvelle barbe, le marin chaque n6ophyte immerge le plus longtemps faisant, d'une certaine manibre, peau neuve. possible. A leur sortie, ils son t asperges d'eau Nombreuses sont les societes dans lesquelles de mer a 1'aide des lances d incendie . la barbe ou les cheveux coupes, ainsi que les 11 y a ici detournement dans le registre rognures d'ongles, sont des fragments de la perludique de ce qui, en temps normal, connote un sonne - peut-etre meme de la personnalit6 risque redout6 plus que tout autre : 1'incendie separes d'elle, mais encore susceptibles de r6agir, comme si la separation n'avait pas eu lieu . a bord . Us offrent donc la possibilite d'agir sur la perTous vont ensuite prendre une douche d'eau sonne elle-meme et a son insu, comme c'est le douce avant de se rendre au vin d'honneur qui cas lors des pratiques de sorcellerie ou du jetage pr6cede ]e repas . Ce]ui-ci se prend sur un pont de sorts. Une question se pose alors : cette ext6rieur, contrairement a 1'usage . Le diner crainte de se couper les cheveux et la barbe en de brochettes ou d'un mEchoui, est compose mer ne viendrait-elle pas de la peur d'une action mais il s'agit preferentie]lement de viandes dirigee contre soi que pourrait commettre la sur un barbecue, accompagnees d'une gril]6es consommation de vins superieure d ce qui est mer personnifiee, voire divinis6el8, a 1'aide de ordinairement bu, qualitativement et quantices elements d6taches de la personne (chutes tativement. de cheveux et rognures d'ongles) ? Ou, plus d'une pens6e Quelques jours plus tard se tient la remise simplement et dans le cadre analogique, ces fragments de personne jet6s au des certificats de bapteme. Celle-ci donne lieu fond de 1'abime oceanique ne seraient-ils pas a un ap6ritif collectif au cours duquel on d'entrainer avec eux la totalit6 de susceptibles plaisante beaucoup en se rem6morant la ceremonie, ce qui est une maniere de renforcer le la personne ? « Le marin est tres porte sur la consommacaractbre agr6gatif du rite . tion d'alcool », ce que signifient les trbs nombreux moments oiu 1'on boit de 1'alcool . Celui oiu le point « est fait » avec le sextant Lecture du rite mat6rialite du rite, nous rep6rons des pourvu d'une bouteille de vin est important, car Dans la objets qui renvoient au mythe du marin, c'est- faire le point en mer est essentiel : savoir oiu 1'on a-dire a 1'image faussement speculaire, donnee se trouve n'est pas donne, mais c'est le r6sultat de lui au monde mais qui, par retour, inflechit d'un travail qui oriente toutes les decisions, ses propres representations de lui-meme . Ainsi qu'elles soient courantes ou urgentes . se dessinent son portrait et son univers. I: usage du sextant West pas anodin puisqu'il La figure stereotyp6e des marins il y a fait partie des objets qui, dans les repr6sentaquelques d6cennies, toujours en 6volution dans tions collectives, caracterisent les officiers : 1'histoire rapide de la marine marchande, inclut Cest un instrument connotant le savoir (se une barbe « touffue » et les marins d'un certain situer a 1'aide des astres) et le pouvoir qui lui age ont conserve le souvenir d'une majorite est associe . Autrefois, le sextant (comme le d'entre eux portant la barbe. Dans 1'Antiquite, radar un peu plus tard) etait enferm6 dans un « il est interdit pendant la travers6e de se couper placard dont seul le commandant d6tenait la les ongles et les cheveux, de pratiquer 1'acte cle. 11 s'agit dans le rite d'une inversion symsexuel "17. Cest donc Pun des traits identitaires bolique du pouvoir, car jamais les matelots Des matelots sont outrancierement deguises en femmes, ainsi se placent-ils entre les jambes, entre autres elements de travestissement, du coton teinte au mercurochrome pourmimerles regles feminines . Les neophytes peuvent se voir enduire les cheveux avec des d6chets de graisses, ou encore, badigeonner les parties g6nitales de graisse ou de bleu de m6thylbne.


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Wont a toucher le sextant, objet embl6matique s'il en est. La hierarchie s'exprime dans la pr6sence de Neptune ou de son substitut, le Pere La Ligne, des valets et des gendarmes. Uinversion sociale est spectaculaire dans ce rite . En effet, la suppression momentan6e et apparente de la discipline et le contexte bachique autorisent les gens du bas de la hi6rarchie a user d'un pouvoir exceptionnel qui leur permet de commander a leurs habituels sup6rieurs hierarchiques. Ainsi, un maitre d'equipage affirme que c'6tait la le seul moment ou les subalternes « pouvaient baiser le vieux », en le prenant comme cible avec le jet de la lance a incendie, par exemple'9. N'oublions pas qu'un matelot - c'est-a-dire quelqu'un du bas de la hierarchie -devient le dieu de la mer : West-ce pas la la plus grande inversion sociale possible sur un navire ? Ce jour-la, nombreux sont ceux qui changent de fonction et donc de position sociale. La femme d'un second capitaine, exceptionnellement a bord pour accompagner son mari une fois par an comme certaines compagnies 1'autorisent, occupa la fonction de commandant - fait impensable et impense en temps normal - tandis que le commandant devenait timonier, tache normalement accomplie par un matelot. Un matelot peut devenir commandant et un commandant, maitre d'hotel. Le capitaine doit se soumettre aux fantaisies d6bridees de Neptune. « Pendant la fete, le capitaine West plus rien »z°. Quant a la symbolique des dieux en presence, c'est bien le pouvoir des pouvoirs que ceux-ci incarnent - le commandant est le seul maitre apres Dieu -, mais ils symbolisent aussi la protection contre les risques en mer. Ici, il est imperieux de se prot6ger, de maitriser la mer. C'est ce qui est accompli avec la mise en scene de Neptune et d'Amphitrite, les dieux de la mer, car, si dieux il y a, la mer West plus un univers chaotique mais « un royaume », donc un univers organis6 . Le rite lutte contre les angoisses que fait naitre la possibilit6 d'un retour du chaos . Dans les rites de passage, la mort de 1'ancien 6tat et la renaissance a un nouvel 6tat sont souvent manifest6es par des passages mat6rialis6s . Ici, la mort est signifiee par la chute dans 1'eau au moment du bapteme et par 1'obligation de boire de 1'eau de mer, « la tasse ». L'6Iement le plus important pour la comprehension de cette manifestation r6side certainement dans la m6taphore du risque qu'il y a a tomber a la mer, repr6sente par la cuve remplie d'eau de mer et dans laquelle on joue 1'engloutissement,

comme pour rappeler le danger majeur que constitue la mer. En effet, un marin tomb6 A la mer est le plus souvent un homme perdu. Autrefois, les grands voiliers ne s'arretaient pas toujours en pareil cas, sachant la manceuvre de r6cup6ration quasi impossible. Il West pas anodin que la chute dans 1'eau au moment du bapteme symbolise la mort de 1'ancien 6tat, puisqu'il s'agit de marins . Tomber a 1'eau est un grand danger associ6 a une grande inqui6tude : mourir perdu en mer, c'est mourir sans s6pulture, avec le risque d'etre d6vor6 par les animaux marins . La mort symbolique ne pouvait etre mieux jou6e qu'en ce lieu . Souvent 1'eau est associ6e A 1'id6e de naissance. Ici, elle est li6e A une ambivalence, celle de la naissance mais aussi celle de la mort, ou de la re-naissance, au meme titre que 1'eau de bapteme chez les chr6tiens fait naitre pleinement 1'enfant profane A la chr6tient6. Cet aspect du rite marin est certainement une catharsis. L'immersion forc6e est une inversion, celle d'un marin qui West plus a sa place, se retrouvant dans 1'eau plutot qu'au-dessus . Le repas, qui se prend dehors plut6t que dedans ce jour-la, rel6ve aussi de 1'inversion. Outre le fait que 1'eau de mer se trouve A 1'interieur du bateau et non plus a 1'ext6rieur, selon 1'ordre normal des choses, la formule « rite d'inversion » est ici parfaitement ad6quate . De plus, l'inversion rituelle est sociale, mais elle se double d'une inversion physique . En effet, en passant de 1'h6misphbre nord A 1'h6misphbre sud, le monde physique s'inverse lui aussi : de 1'hiver tropical, on passe A 1'6t6 austral ou inversement. Les vents - qui constituaient autrefois le « moteur » du voilier - passent du nord-est (les aliz6s) au sud-est. Si les jours augmentaient au nord, ils vont diminuer dans 1'autre h6misph6re . Jusqu'au sens de rotation de 1'ecoulement de 1'eau dans le lavabo qui change lui aussi de sens, selon la loi de Coriolis . .. La pr6sence de machoires de requin rappelle la grande crainte des marins : la chute 6 la mer, souvent suivie, nous 1'avons vu, d'une devoration par ces requins, risque simultan6 4 celui d'avoir les yeux picor6s par les albatros dans les latitudes sud. Ceci est 6galement A lire dans 1'usage des plumes d'oiseaux, bien que ce signe soit ambigu, du fait que d'autres oiseaux annoncent la proximit6 de la terre et sont ainsi signes de r6jouissance . II faut savoir que, pour un marin, le poisson est un animal ambivalent : il repr6sente la vie, mais aussi la mort . C'est la vie dans 1'oc6an, mais c'est aussi la vie des hommes qui s'en nourrissent et que les marins pechaient autrefois, lorsque la vitesse des


166

navires 1'autorisait . Mais, paradoxalement, Cost aussi la mort, car les poissons sont ceux qui se nourrissent des marins tombes a la mer, We qui reste encore perceptible dans les representations . Le rapport au travail est connote par le sifflet, puisqu'a 1'epoque de la marine a voile, tous les ordres, ou presque, 6taient donnees par un sifflet2l. Au nombre des objets rituels figurent la hache et le billot sur lequel les mousses coupaient le bois de chauffe, tache banale A terre mais extremement p6rilleuse en mer par gros temps, et nombreuses furent les blessures parfois graves lors de ce travail sur un navire qui roule et tangue . Le goudron dont les corps des n6ophytes sont enduits est celui avec lequel 6taient badigeonn6s la coque et les cordages, soulignant ici encore 1'identification r6currente du corps des marins au corps du batiment. « Uimmense pavillon » prend d'abord son sons dans le contexte historique puisque, au siecle dernier, le patriotisme 6tait partage par le plus grand nombre, mais aussi parce qu'en pleine mer, les marins etant totalement isoles, les sentiments d'appartenance connaissent un renforcement qui s'exprime par le pavillon national, d'autant plus qu'en 1'absence de repr6sentation consulaire, un navire est officiellement un lieu de representation officiel et le commandant, entre autres choses, un ambassadeur de son pays . La nourriture, dont on ne dira jamais assez 1'intket du fait qu'elle constitue une compensation aux frustrations nombreuses, se retrouve metaphorisee par 1'assiette pleine de farine . Mais cette assiettee est aussi un symbole de prosperite, comme le sont les haricots lances du haut du mat « a defaut de drag6es ». Or, on connait 1'importance de la nourriture a bord, lieu de tous les transferts, et nombre de mutineries, puis de luttes syndicales, ont eu pour d6clencheur la nourriture . Uinversion sexuelle apparait symboliquement tant chez le matelot qui joue Amphitrite que dans les danses entre marins . Elle est un phenomene bien connu dans les rites d'initiationzz . Les « quatre parties du monde » sont repr6sent6es par « un choix voluptueux dans le beau sexe d'Europe, d'Asie, d'Afrique et d'Am6rique ». Cette geographie sexuelle du voyage est associee a 1'image du marin qui rechercherait des femmes dans tous les ports pour compenser ses frustrations sexuelle et affective. Ce rite d'inversion est une mise en forme du chaos, ce que la mer pout toujours devenir et que redoutent les marins . Le d6sordre s'exprime par les corps enduits de goudron a la

place de la coque du navire et par 1'utilisation de costumes de 1'ancien r6gime (gendarmes, bourreau, astronome), qui soulignent aussi simultanement que le rite et le corps de m6tier auquel on appartient traversent les epoques sans s'alterer, malgr6 les mutations enormes que connait la marine depuis quelques decennies. Le desordre trouve a s'exprimer par ces inversions du normal. En bref, le rite met en scene la rupture pour mieux affirmer la continuit6. Mais 1'inversion du pouvoir et des identites sexuelles qui est mise en scene est jou6e seulement le temps du rite . En fait, il n'y a jamais de veritable inversion du pouvoir, soutient M. Augez3 . Mais, lorsque celui-ci af$rme qu'il n'y a pas reelle inversion, on pout se demander s'il n'y a pas ici confusion. ll faudrait sp6cifier de quelle inversion on parle : s'agit-il d'une inversion reelle des rapports sociaux habituels, ou d'une inversion rituelle qui West, par essence, que symbolique ? On ne pout confondre le temps du rituel et le temps ordinaire de la societe, meme s'il est evident que Pun agit sur 1'autre. Le commandant reste le commandant et un matelot, un matelot. L'inversion West qu'illusoire, car, s'il advenait un probleme majeur, le commandant reprendrait a n'en pas douter, immediatement et sans discussion, le commandement. Mais cette inversion rituelle choque le sons commun, car elle est aussi une inversion de la morale et des codes sociaux par essence. Le sons profond du rite semble echapper aux marins, tout comme sa fonction : celle d'apaiser 1'anxi6te qui sourd en chacun des que 1'on part en haute mer. Les rites sont des manipulations du temps, ainsi que nombre d'auteurs Font souligne . Il est vrai que le moment du rite concentre le pass6 dans une representation immediate, en meme temps qu'il ouvre la porte a un devenir que 1'on veut tenter de fagonner. Cost une n6gation de tout processus, car il concentre le cheminement dans 1'existence, habituellement realis6 par etapes, en un temps accelere. Le rite nie le temps effectif tout en le mettant en scene. Mais, pour les marins du commerce -qui, rappelonsle, ont 1'espace comme matiere premiere sur laquelle travailler -, le rite est aussi un jeu avec 1'espace, comme si celui-ci indiquait un temps donne : 1'equateur indique le moment oiu les marins sont devenus marins confirm6s parce qu'ils franchissent justement cot espace, fait exceptionnel il n'y a pas si longtemps encore, loin de lour port d'attache et dans un isolement grandissant au fur et a mesure que le bateau progresse.


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Si le passage de la Ligne est une reaffirmation de 1'ordre de 1'ocean, c'est aussi la reaffirmation de 1'ordre a bord du navire, que nul ne saurait remettre en cause sans du coup remettre en cause la securite de tous . Les brimades, la fete qui s'ensuit et les manifestations particulieres de la commensalite sont autant d'6lements qui soudent les marins entre eux et renforcent le sentiment d'appartenance a quelque chose de commun : la culture maritime, dont la cl6 est la cloturez4 . La vie sociale dans son ensemble est « un monde de rapports symboliques », ecrit Claude Levi-Strauss25 en reprenant la formule de Mauss . Mais un rite est, plus que tout autre aspect de la vie sociale, du concentre de symbolique, parce que c'est un systeme de pensees en actes . Nous vivons en permanence au centre de rapports symboliques parce quo tout groupe humain eprouve le besoin de donner un sons a la vie et que chacun le fait en fonction de ses specificit6s que les langages parle et ecrit ne suffisent pas a exprimer, d'oiu 1'usage de 1'expression symbolique au coeur du rite . De meme que « le plus souvent les gens accomplissent les rites sans croire a lour signification et en tous cas, sans s'y int6resser »26, aucun marin ne croit a 1'existence reelle de Neptune, ni a celle d'Amphitrite . Toutefois, comme au theatre, les spectateurs savent qu'ils ont devant eux non pas Carmen ou le roi Lear en personne, mais une comedienne, un comedien . Ces spectateurs n'en sont pas moins susceptibles de pleurer ou de rire devant le jeu des comediens, comme s'ils croyaient a un second degr6 en la realite de ce qu'ils voient. On pout penser que Cost un peu ce qui se produit entre les marins et les dieux de la mer : on joue a y croire sans y croire, mais cola suffit a rendre efficace la symbolique de ce ritez7. Si le rite n'etait qu'un « arnusant folklore », les personnages mis en scene n'auraient pas perdure depuis 1'Antiquite, epoque oiu 1'on sacrifiait aux dieux avant d'affronter les passages difficiles, les caps, detroits, etc . L'une de ces ceremonies est d6crite lors du passage du detroit 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

de Gibraltar en 1643, avec serment de fidelit6 au rite28 . Ce caractere th6atral a d6j6 06 relev6 par Smithz9, qui observe a plusieurs reprises des rites « au cours desquels les adeptes ne font que jouer consciemment - et ils le reconnaissent les roles ster6otyp6s du heros divinis6 (.. .) On West donc pas tres loin ici d'une situation th6atrale » . Dans le rite qui nous int6resse, la dimension theatrale est attestee . Toutefois, ce serait amputer la r6alite que d'y voir uniquement cola, comme le fait cot auteur, dans un contexte fort different, il est vrai, de celui a 1'6tude ici. En effet, dans le jeu th6atral, hommes et femmes sont des acteurs, au sons oil ils jouent consciemment des personnages. Or, dans les rites, si les marins jouent ce jeu, ce West 16 qu'une part du reel, car la mise en scbne rituelle - par le moyen de divers objets signifiants - lour permet de juguler inconsciemment 1'appr6hensioin qu'ils ont de la mer, toujours potentiellement dangereuse . Ce qui pout 6tre pense comme un simple et banal divertissement est donc un v6ritable rite de passage, rite per ailleurs repris et am6nag6 dans le bizutage, ou rite d'initiation, des Ecoles Nationales de la Marine Marchande fran~aises . Mais la question que 1'on pout l6gitimement se poser maintenant est celle de savoir pourquoi ces dieux de la mer sont toujours d'actualit6 . Comment expliquer lour resistance au temps, alors que la marine, elle, s'est consid6rablement transformee? Ces dieux relevaient initialement de la culture religieuse et 1'une de leurs caract6ristiques etait de prot6ger les hommes qui osaient affronter la mer. Or, si les representations mentales inh6rentes A ces dieux ne sont plus liees a la culture religieuse - car on ne les considere plus comme des dieux -, ils conservent n6anmoins leurs caract6ristiques protectrices, comme nous 1'avons vu, lorsque les marins jouent a croire en ces dieux r6volus. Par-dela les siecles qu'ils transcendent, lour fonction protectrice est reactualisee . C'est ce qui explique la r6sistance des dieux de la mer au temps.

NoTEs

Notamment A. Gr6han, La France maritime, 1855, p. 240 et suivantes. Je rememie J. Robuchon, directeur de la revue Jeune Marine, pour son aide documentaire . N. Belmont, « La notion de rite de passage)), 1986, p. 12 . Pour une analyse de ce rite, voir Duval, « Sous la protection de Neptune », 1995 . J.-J. Antier, A bord des grands voiliers, 1991, p. 138.

6. 7.

8.

9.

J. Lecomte, Dictionnaire pittoresque de marine, 1982, p. 261. V.W. Turner, Les tambours d'affliction : analyse des rituels chez les Ndembu de Zombie, 1972, p. 12 .

A. Gr6han, op . cit .

En France, on est pass6 de 33 620 A 5 840 membres du personnel d'6quipage et de 9 930 ia 2 787 officiers entre 1960 et 1995 . Les navires, eux, sont pass6s de 766 a 207 pour la meme p6riode.


168

10 . A. Gr6han, op. cit., p. 288. 11 . Ibid., p. 282. 12 . J.-J . Antier, op. cit., p. 139. 13 . Sur le consensus formel A bord, voir M. Duval,

« Paroles de marins : gestion de la parole A bord

14 . 15 .

16 .

17 . 18 .

19 .

d'un cargo long-courrier », dans Ethnologie FranCaise, 1992, p. 368-380 et Ni morts, ni vivants: marins! : pour une ethnologie du huis clos, 1998, p. 88-93 . A. Jal, Scenes de la vie maritime, 1832 . Cette description et, sauf indication contraire, celles

qui suivent, proviennent de A . Gr6han, op . cit.,

p. 258 et suivantes. M. Duval, « Sous la protection de Neptune : le rite d'initiation des 6lbves de la marine » , dans Terrain, 1995. J. Roug6, La marine dons I'Antiquite, 1975, p. 207. M. Duval, « Allo Navire? Ici la Mer! : du langage siffl6 des marins, des navires et de la mer », dans . Langages siffles, 1995 .

Le commandant est couramment d6sign6 par les expressions a le vieux >>, « le pacha » ou encore « le tonton » .

20 . J .-J . Antier, op . cit., p. 139 . 21 . M . Duval, « Allo Navire? Ici la Mer! » . 22 . R. Bateson, La ceremonie du naven, 1971 . 23 . M. Aug6, Pouvoirs de vie, pouvoirs de moil, 1977, p. 118. 24 . M. Duval, Ni morts, ni vivants: marins!, p. 25-78. 25 . Cl . L6vi-Straus, « Introduction A 1'oeuvre de Marcel Mauss », dans Sociologie et anthropologie, 1979, p. XIV. 26 . P. Veyne, « Conduites sans croyance et ceuvres d'art sans spectateurs », dans Diogene, 1983, p. 33 . 27 . Sur ce point, voir M. Duval, « Ni morts, ni vivants: marins! » 28 . Cl. Jannequin, Voyage de Lybie au royaume de Senega, 1643, p. 34 et suivantes. H. Henningsen, dans Crossing the Equator : Sailor's baptism and other initiation rites, 1961, cite 6galement des rites analogues a ceux qui sont d6crits ici, A Gibraltar et sous les Tropiques dcs qu'ils furent franchis . 29 . P. Smith, « Aspects de 1'organisation des rites » , dens La fonction symbolique : essais d'anthropologie, 1979, p. 142-143.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Antier, J-J . A bord des grands voiliers. Saint-Malo : Ed . L'Ancre Marine, 1991 . 317 p .

Aug6, M. Pouvoirs de vie, pouvoirs de mort. Paris : Flammarion, 1977 . 216 p. Bateson, R. La c6r6monie du naven. Paris : Ed . de Minuit, 1971 . 274 p.

Belmont, N. « La notion de rite de passage », dans Les rites de passage aujourd'hui, Actes du colloque de Neuchate11981 . Centlivres, E et J . Hainard (sous la dir.), Lausanne : Ed. L'Age d'homme . E 9-19 .

Duval, M. « Allo Navire? Ici la Mer! : du langage siffl6 des marins, des navires et de la mer », dans Langages siffl6s, Actes du colloque des 26, 27 et 28 nov. 1993 . Albi : Ed. GEMP/La Talvera, 1995 . P 33-39. . Ni morts, ni vivants: marins! :pour une ethnologie du huis clos. Paris : RUE, 1998 . 164 p. . « Paroles de marins : gestion de la parole a bord d'un cargo long-courrier », dans Ethnologie Frangaise, vol. XXII, n° 3, 1992 . P. 368-380. . « Sous la protection de Neptune : le rite d'initiation des 6lbves de la marine », Terrain, n° 24, 1995 . P 133-144. Gr6han, A. (dir. par) . La France maritime, t. 2. Paris : Dutertre libraire-6diteur, 1855 . 297 p.

Henningsen, H. Crossing the Equator : Sailor's baptism and other initiation rites . Copenhague : Munks-

gaard, 1961. 256 p. Jal, A. Scenes de la vie maritime. Paris : s.n ., 1832. 365 p. Jannequin, Cl., Voyage de Lybie au royaume de Senega . Paris : s.n., 1643 . 190 p. Lecomte, J. Dictionnaire pittoresque de marine . Douarnenez : Ed . l'Estran,1982, r6edition du texte de 1835 . 327 p.

L6vi-Strauss, Cl . a Introduction a 1'ceuvre de Marcel Mauss », dans Mauss, M ., Sociologie et anthropologie. Paris : PUF, 1950, r6ed . 1978 . P. IX-L11 .

Roug6, J. La marine dons 1 Antiquit6. Paris : PUF, 1975 . 215 p. Smith, P. « Aspects de 1'organisation des rites », dans Izard, M. et P Smith (textes r6unis par), La fonction symbolique : essais d'anthropologie . Paris : Gallimard, 1979. P 139-193. Turner, VW. Les tambours d'affliction : analyse des rituels chez les Ndembu de Zombie . Paris : Gallimard, trad . 1972 . 368 p. Texte original datant de 1968 . Veyne, P. « Conduites sans croyance et oeuvres d'art sans spectateurs », Diogene, n° 143, 1983 . P.14-40 .


169

Voyagers in the Vault of Heaven : The Phenomenon of Ships in the Sky in Medieval Ireland and Beyond MICHAEL MCCAUGHAN Resume

Abstract

L'article se penche sur le phenomene des navires se deplaVant dans le ciel . Ces visions surreelles sont d'abord et avant tout examinees dans ]e contexte de I'Irlande medievale, mais 1'auteur presente aussi des observations aussi distantes dans le temps et 1'espace que 1 Angleterre du xizF siecle et le Canada du xv11F siecle. La plus ancienne representation d'un currach (bateau de peau) irlandais voguant dans le ciel orne une colonne en pierre du vine siecle. En reliant cette preuve iconographique d 1'apparition de navires dans le ciel d'un monastere celte, on dispose d'un cadre permettant d'etudier la legende de ces embarcations . La comprehension du concept des « navires celestes » n6cessite que 1'on comprenne ]e gouffre culture] qui existe entre la pensee medievale et la pensee moderne. L'artic]e examine et confirme la signification du navire en tant que metaphore culturelle et symbole religieux persistant .

This paper explores the phenomenon of ships voyaging in the sky. Such fantastical sightings are considered primarily in an early medieval Irish context, but evidence from places as widely separated in time and place as thirteenthcentury England and eighteenth-century Canada is also addressed. The earliest material representation of an Irish currach (skin boat) being rowed heavenwards is on an eighth-century carved stone pillar. By connecting this iconographic evidence to the appearance of ships in the sky above a Celtic monastery, a framework is established from which to investigate the "airship" mirabilia. Understanding the cultural gulf that exists between medieval and modern thinking is central to the concept of "ships in the air." The paper addresses the significance of the ship as an enduring cultural metaphor and religious symbol and affirms these meanings .

The glories of early Christian Irish art are manifest in preserved illuminated manuscripts, intricate metalwork and the monumental carved stone crosses, pillars and slabs that still survive today in the countryside, churchyards and monastic ruins of Ireland. While the richly carved high crosses of the ninth and tenth centuries, with their emphasis on figuration, are the fullest expression of representational art, earlier carved and incised stoneworks are no less significant in terms of their iconography, decoration and symbolism.' The eighth-century Kilnaruane pillar stone (Fig . 1), overlooking Bantry Bay in County Cork, is of particular interest to maritime archeologists, historians and ethnologists, because its Christian-theme carvings include a unique preViking depiction of the Irish skin-covered boat known as a "currach . "z Prior to the arrival of the

Vikings in the ninth and ninth centuries with their advanced wooden boatbuilding technology, the skin-covered currach was the common seagoing craft of Ireland. It was of key importance to the sea-connected Celtic Church and figured prominently in the "immrama" or mystical voyage tales of early Christian Ireland, together with the story of St Brendan's voyage to the Promised Land, which achieved great popularity in medieval Europe . Today the currach, in its canvas-covered derivative form, is still in use on the Atlantic seaboard of western Ireland, where material remnants of the European past often have found their last resting place (Fig. 2) .3 Carved in relief, the Bantry currach points skywards in an upright panel measuring 88 .0 x 18 .0 cm on the south-eastem face of the 2.31 m high sandstone pillar .4 Clearly mod-


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Fig. 1 "Ship of the Church" carving on the south-east face of )Glnaruane pillar stone, Bantry, County Cork, Ireland (Courtesy The Ulster Folk and 7Yansport Museum)

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elled on reality, it is depicted in lively profile with four men pulling hard on their oars, while a fifth figure sits in the stern with a steering oar. A small cross is mounted at the stern behind the helmsman . Three larger crosses are carved in the panel outside the boat, one beside the bow and two beside the stern. Significantly the orientation of these three external crosses is conventionally upright and at right angles to the cross in the currach and indeed to the currach as a whole. They combine to affirm the overall meaning of the panel, that representationally the currach is being rowed heavenwards by its crew and that symbolically, as the Ship of the Church, it is voyaging through the heavens to salvation. FranQoise Henry, almost sixty years ago, was the first to recognize the remarkable boat depiction on the Bantry or Kilnaruane stone pillar, which she ascribed to the eighth century. Following a brief description of the boat, she observed that "the unexpected thing about it is that it shoots straight upwards amidst a sea of crosses . . .The little cross over the rudder can leave little doubt that we have a representation of the boat of the Church . . .here it seems to be very literally portrayed as sailing to Heaven . "5 In 1964 the boat was specifically identified as a currach by Paul Johnstone6 More recently, Colum and James Hourihane, in a detailed analysis of the complete iconography of the pillar, again recognized the boat carving

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as "a representation of the Ship of the Church. "' However, their developed interpretation that "the symbol of the church as the ship is seen, surrounded by crosses, travelling through a storm," is disputed here . Primarily this is because the orientation of the three external crosses has been overlooked as evidence that clearly implies the heavenly location of the vessel . However, the material evidence alone is insufficient to comprehend the full significance of this enigmatic image. Different kinds of evidence, as in all investigations of the past, need to be adduced in order to locate the material depiction of the celestial currach in a wider historical-cultural context and so better understand its contemporary resonances . That the "skyborne" iconography of the carved Bantry currach was well within the frames of cultural comprehension of eighthcentury Irish people is demonstrated, and indeed reinforced by an eighth-century textual reference in the Irish annals to the actual appearance of ships in the sky as an observed event. Under the year A.D . 749, the Annals of Ulster laconically record that "Ships (naues) with their crews were seen in the air above Clonmacnoise ."8 The evidence of this report of vessels sailing in the heavens above the important Celtic monastery of Clonmacnoise, makes for an imaginative and significant linkage with the contemporary iconography of a heaven-bound currach, and both provide


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Fig . 2 Aran Islanders in their canvas-covered curnmchs, west of Ireland, circa 1900 (Courtesy The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum)

compelling reasons for exploring further the remarkable phenomenon of ships voyaging in the air, as witnessed at Clonmacnoise and beyond . The monastery of Clonmacnoise was founded by St Ciaran in the mid sixth century and subsequently became one of the most important monastic sites in Ireland.9 Between circa A.D . 700 and 1200, it was a major ecclesiastical centre of religious life, culture, learning, craftsmanship and trade. The growth of Clonmacnoise's power and prestige was in large measure due to its geographical location in the centre of Ireland and to its physical position on a ridge rising above the River Shannon and surrounding boggy lowlands . Significantly the monastery was at the communications heart of the island, situated at the major junction of north-south river traffic and the main east-west land route. Because of its wealth and ease of access, Clonmacnoise repeatedly suffered the depredations of both Viking and native Irish raiders . Their burnings and plunderings, together with other notable events at Clonmacnoise, are recorded in the Irish annals, those remarkable year-by-year chronicles of early and medieval Irish history. In 1179, for example, the Annals of the Four Masters record that "one hundred and five houses were burned at Clonmacnoise during a predatory excursion."'°

Clonmacnoise declined dramatically from the thirteenth century onwards and was in ruins by the late seventeenth century. Nevertheless, Clonmacnoise still remains a sacred site and place of pilgrimage . Today the tranquil ruins of the monastery, with its nine churches, round tower and stone crosses, encourage an imaginative engagement with the past . For the empathetic visitor this is a place redolent with otherness, a place for reflection on mortality and external verities . In the flat lands that it commands, Clonmacnoise is also a place of enormous skies where the natural gaze is heavenwards. Staring upwards on an autumn day from within the stone walls of the decayed monastery, vapour trails of transatlantic jets can be seen fusing the clouds and in a leap of fancy it is possible to envisage a celestial vessel sailing in the heights above. In such a moment past and present, time and place are in alignment with imagination and intellectual curiosity. Through the azure of this Clonmaonoise skyscape, twentieth-century sensibilities begin to mesh with the numinous thought of eighth-century ships voyaging in the vault of heaven . .o.

In charting the Irish phenomenon of "ships in the air," the first task is to assemble core accounts and descriptions from documentary sources. References in the Annals of Ulster

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(quoted above) and the Annals of Ireland, otherwise known as the Annals of the Four Masters, are characteristically brief. The latter records that in "The Age of Christ 743 ships with their crews were plainly seen in the sky this year."" Allowing for historical disparity this entry may well be referring to the same event that the Annals of Ulster record as having occurred over Clonmacnoise in 749. Early Christian and medieval Ireland was particularly rich in miraculous happenings and the appearance of airships was only one example of a large number of wonderful events recorded in the annals and other primary sources. Many of these "wonders" of Ireland, or "mirabilia," were sky-related and included a steeple of fire in the air, a cross raised up in the air, together with showers of silver, honey and blood. 12 In the ninteenth century and early years of the present century, Kuno Meyer and other Celtic scholars researched the primary sources of the Irish "mirabilia" and published annotated translations of these accounts of wonders, including the sighting of ships in the air. 13 It is clear from this material that airships made appearances at two key locations, namely the monastery of Clonmacnoise and the important gathering fair of Tailltenn, now Teltown, in County Meath. Here follow the stories as published by Meyer.14 Ship in the air at Teltown - translated from Irish mirabilia in the late fourteenth-century Book of Ballymote and originally based on ninth-century Latin text by Nennius. Conga]ach, son ofMaelmithig (+A .D . 956) was at the fair of Teltown on a certain day, when he saw a ship (sailing) along in the air. One of the crew cast a dart at a salmon . The dart fell down in the presence of the gathering, and a man came out of the ship after it. When he seized its end from above, a man from below seized it from below. Upon which the man from above said : "I am being drowned," said he . "Let him go," said Congalach ; and he is allowed to go up, and then he goes from them swimming.

Meyer further identifies a reference in the manuscript Book of Leinster in which the appearance of three ships in the air is mentioned as one of the wonders of Teltown, when King Domnall mac Murchada (A .D . 763) was at the fair. Additionally he gives an incomplete versified Latin account of the Teltown event from an unidentified Paris manuscript. Literally translated it is as follows:'5 A/The king of the Irish was in an/the open-air exercise ground [for martial games] at a cer-

tain time with diverse crowds, with soldiers admirable in their arrangement. Lo! suddenly they see a ship racing through the air from which, at that moment, a man had thrown a spear after a fish which [spear] rushed to the earth, but the man swimming [after it] drew it back . Who is going to hear these things . . .

Ship in the air at Clonmacnoise-translated from the Norse book Kongs Skuggsjo or Speculum Regale (Royal Mirror), written circa A.D . 1250 . Significantly Meyer concludes that the accounts of Irish mirabilia in the Speculum Regale were not derived from any written sources, but were entirely based on oral information obtained in Ireland itself 16 There is yet another thing that will seem most wonderful, which happened in the city that is called Cloena (Clonmacnoise). In that city is a church which is sacred to the memory of the holy man )Uranus . And there it thus befell on a Sunday, when people were at church and were hearing Mass, there came dropping from the air above an anchor, as ifit were cast from a ship, for there was a rope attached to it . And the fluke of the anchorgot hooked in an arch at the church door, and all the people went out of the church and wondered, and looked upwards after the rope . They saw a ship float on the rope and men in it. And next they sawa man leap overboard from the ship, and dive down towards the anchor, wanting to loosen it . His exertion seemed to them, by the movement of his hands and feet, like that of a man swimming in the sea . And when he came down to the anchor, he endeavoured to loosen it. And then some men ran towards him and wanted to seize him . But in the church, to which the anchor was fastened, there is a bishop's chair. The bishop was by chance on the spot, and he forbade the men to hold that man, for he said that he would die as if he were held in water. And as soon as he was free he hastened his way up again to the ship; and as soon as he came up, they cut the rope, and then sailed on their way out of the sight of men . And the anchor has ever since lain as a witness of the event in that church .

Another account, shorter and differing in detail, but perhaps expressed more dramatically, is published by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson in A Celtic Miscellany. 17 The original Irish text is translated by Jackson from a fourteenth to fifteenth-century manuscript source, author unknown."' One day the monks of Clonmacnoise were holding a meeting on the floor of the church, and as they were at their deliberations there they saw a ship sailing over them in the air,


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going as it were on the sea. When the crew of the ship saw the meeting and the inhabited place below them, they dropped anchor, and the anchor came right down on the floor ofthe church, and the priests seized it. A man came down out of the ship after the anchor, and he was swimming as if he were in the water, till he reached the anchor; and they were dragging him down then . "For God's sake let me go!" Said he, "for you are drowning me ." Then he left them, swimming in the air as before, taking his anchor with him .

Despite their variations, these chronicles have common characteristics and share a number of features that are readily identifiable : " Extraordinary happenings are regarded as actual historical events and are transmitted during the Middle Ages as fact, not fiction, despite their supernatural dimension. " The events are witnessed by numerous people, both secular (Teltown) and religious (Clonmacnoise) . " Seen from the ground, vessels are floating in the air above. Seen from the vessels, the air between them and the ground below is perceived as water in which fish swim and which enables the vessels to float above a submarine world. " This air/water is life-giving oxygen to the people on the ground, but is lifethreatening water to the swimming aircrew who almost drown. " Air/water is the common element, which envelopes both ground people and sky people, as the heights above and the depths below. Essentially the central theme of the "airship" mirabilia is that, not only is an inversion of the natural order of things possible, but that the natural order of things can be perceived from complementary perspectives and that simultaneously the marvellous is both in the world and out of the world. A modern Irish reworking of this medieval wonder theme can be located in the luminous poetry of Seamus Heaney, who draws on the experience of living in Ireland, past and present, and imagines it into the universal. More than twenty years before he was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize in 1995, Heaney wrote: "I have always listened for poems, they come sometimes like bodies out of a bog, almost complete, seeming to have been laid down a long time ago, surfacing with a touch of mystery . . .my quest for definition, while it may lead backward, is conducted in the living speech of the land-

scape I was born into. "19 The dualism of much of Heaney's poetry, the imaginative tensions between what is and what might be, is manifest in a wonderfully fluid poem that navigates the marvellous encounter between the monks of Clonmacnoise and the airship that appeared above them while at their prayers .20

After telling how the ship's anchor hooked itself by accident into the altar rails of the oratory and "the big hull rocked to a standstill," a crewman came down from the ship to free the anchor, but it was no good . The abbot said "this man can't bear our life here and will drown," so the monks helped to release him and the ship . As the fantastic ship resumes its aerial voyage, our world view is transfigured by the poet, for "the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back/Out of the marvellous as he had known it ." The twentieth-century mindset, cultured in post-Enlightenment quasi-rationalist and scientific thinking, often has difficulty in comprehending the cultural frames of older, simpler societies, where the distinctions between reality and the marvellous are blurred and where transitions between them are normal and natural. In a recent investigative journey through the European Middle Ages, Christopher Frayling has delineated the great gulf between modern and medieval thinking. "Today," he writes, "there is an assumption that beneath the surface things are fundamentally incoherent (part of a chaosmos), whereas then there was an assumption that beneath the surface things were fundamentally coherent (part of a cosmos) - a reflection of the will of God. 1121 In this earlier world, a symbolic framework of order and structure was predicated on belief and faith in the transcendent God . The medieval view of the universe was essentially Platonic and Biblical in origin . In it the heavens, the earth and all creation were ranged in an unalterable, hierarchical and interlocking system of order, from the angels down to man - for whom the world existed - and thence to the flora and fauna and all living things .22 This view of the cosmos survived in modified forms into the post-medieval world and beyond . Indeed remnants of it still can be located in twentieth-century religious devotion and expression . For example, the present Hymnal of the Church of Ireland includes a threeverse hymn by the English poet and essayist Joseph Addison (1672-1719), which, in a simplified way, essentially reflects the medieval concept of a divinely created cosmic order.23 V1 The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky,


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And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their Great Original proclaim. The unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his Creators power display, And publishes to every land The work of an almighty hand .

Within the highly structured theological framework of the Middle Ages, various events and happenings, including the miraculous, could be explained by reference to "providence" or the direct intervention of God in the affairs of everyday human life . All history could be regarded as the inevitable unfolding of God's providential plan for humanity.24 Historical writing and literature of the time reflected the prevailing teleological Christian belief in heaven and hell, repentance, redemption, resurrection and eternal life made possible by God through the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ, who intervened in history for the salvation of humanity. The miraculous and marvellous were integral elements in this medieval world picture, for through such wonderful and inexplicable occurrences, the presence of divine ordering on earth was revealed and made manifest . While, over time, the Irish shared this medieval conception with the rest of Europe, Ireland's distance and separation from continental Christianity had earlier resulted in the development of a distinctively Celtic form of Christianity, the glory of which was expressed in robust spirituality and in a flowering of literary and visual arts of remarkable brilliance . It was also because of Ireland's geographical remoteness that early Christian religious traditions and practices survived in the decentralised monastically structured Irish church, long after they had died out elsewhere. Indeed it was not until the twelfth century, with the coming of the Normans and their continental customs, that the Irish church was assimilated to the Roman, and even then the process was not complete. Hence, early and medieval Irish oral and written literature, which was constantly being retold and recopied in manuscript versions, is full of all sorts of fascinating religious stories, real and imagined, which in continental Europe were known only in very early Apocryphal sources or in the oldest practices of the primitive Church .z5 Compared with other contemporary European literature, the most outstanding characteristic of early medieval Celtic Irish literature is its imaginative power and inventiveness. It speaks to us over the centuries in narratives of poetic vividness and freshness and reflects a

world in which the ordinary is suffused with the extraordinary, the real with the fantastic. Here, as the following story illustrates, the natural and the supernatural coexist without incongruity, for in Ireland, as elsewhere in medieval Europe, their spheres overlapped and the distinction between them had not yet been fully drawn .26 How St Scoithin Got His Name Once upon a time he met Barra of Cork, he walking on the sea and Barra in a ship. "How is it that you are walking on the sea?" said Barra . "It is not the sea at all, but a flowery blossomy fie]d,"said Scoithin, and he took up in his hand a crimson flower and threw it from him to Barra in the ship . And Scoithin said, "How is it that a ship is floating on the field?" At those words, Barra stretched his hand down into the sea and took a salmon out of it, and threw it to Scoithin . And it is from that flower [scoth] that he is called Scoithin . 'lYanslation from a tenth to eleventhcentury Irish text, author unknown .2'

This perplexing but strangely believable maritime encounter between two Irish saints is, like the mysterious appearance of ships in the air, a reversal of normal experience and expectancy. Further examples of miraculous inverted reality are found in the early Irish "immrama" or voyage tales, and in particular in Immram Brain or the Voyage of Bran . Composed in Irish, perhaps as early as the latter part of the seventh century, it has been persuasively argued that Immram Brain, despite its apparently pagan text, is in fact a thoroughly Christian allegory of Man setting out on the voyage to Paradise.z8 After two days at sea in their currach, Bran and his companions encounter the sea god Manannan Mac Lir coming over the ocean in his chariot. What seems to Bran to be the swell of the sea is to Manannan a flowery plain where his chariot can drive; and -what to Bran are leaping salmon are to Mananndn gambolling calves and lambs. Mananndn sings to Bran : The colour of the ocean on which you are, the bright colour of the sea over which you row: it has spread out yellow and green ; it is solid ]and.z9

Implicitly Bran's currach has become a ship in the air, for Manannan goes on to reveal that Bran and his crew are really sailing over a beautiful wooded plain, a fruitful paradise where the ageless people of Mananndn's land live without sin or transgression .


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It is along the top of a wood

that your little coracle (currach) has sailed over ridges, there is a beautiful wood offruit under the prow ofyour little ship .3o

In his translation notes for this quatrain, S6amus MacMathuna points out that this metaphorical description of a ship sailing over a wood is found elsewhere in Irish literature and as a wonder motif has been given the name "1'aerone£" As an example, he quotes the "echtra," or adventure tale, in which Orlando enters the Forest of Wonders. He hadn't gone far "when he saw a well-laden and very large ship with four different sails . . .and she sailing over the top of the trees and the wood more rapidly than any ship at sea." MacMathuna recognizes that the motif is not confined to Irish literature and suggests that it is of considerable antiquity. He identifies it in the work of the second century Roman writer Lucian, who, in his True History describes how a ship sailed over a sea forest by means of the wind filling the sails and pushing the vessel across the branches of the trees, just like sailing through water, but of course rather slower.31 Essentially all of these wonders and stories of wonders are a challenge to absolutism of knowledge. They imply the relativity of all human knowledge, that is, the distinction between the unknown and unknowable (noumena) and things perceived or apprehended by our senses (phenomena). These wonder stories represent, in a particular way, one of the defining characteristics of Celtic literature that Nora Chadwick has described as "the complete ascendancy of the imagination and fancy over the world of logic, and over our normal ideas of cause and effect, of the way things happen in the world." Furthermore she has emphasised the modern difficulty for us, "as the products of centuries of classical education and scientific outlook, to realize the naturalness with which the early Irish mind passed from the reality of the known to the realm of the fancy."3z Of course it would be foolish to suggest that fascination with the fantastic was a monopoly of the Celtic world. Rather it is something deeply embedded in universal human experience and takes different forms across time and space. A useful indicator of the range and scale of past preoccupation with the magical and the marvellous is Stith Thompson's monumental Motif-Index of Folk Literature .33 This classification of narrative elements from international

sources includes, for example, dozens of story references to miraculous transportation and magic conveyances, such as boats, canoes, chariots, sleighs, carpets and flying bedsteads. Because of its wealth of folk and early Celtic literature, Ireland is strongly represented in this world cultural index. Tom Peete Cross's MotifIndex of Early Irish Literature14 was designed to complement and supplement Stith Thompson's six-volume work and so it follows his method of classification and enumeration. For example, under the category heading `Magic object affords miraculous transportation,' Cross tabulates thirty sub-sections, ranging from "selfpropelling boat (ship)" to "Saint's bachall [staff or crozier] permits him to walk on water. 1135 Magical air travel is a significant motif in the fabulous tales of Norse mythology.36 The marvellous ship Skidbladnir was crafted by the dwarf Dvalin for the weather god Freyr, who belonged to the race of the Vanas, the divinities of water and air. Skidbladnir was endowed with powerful magic qualities, so that it could fly through the air as well as sail on the sea, always driven by favourable winds. The ship could also assume great size to carry all the gods and their equipment, yet when required it could be folded up into the smallest size and pushed into a pocket . In the Norse pantheon, the wind god Odin was pictured as rushing through the air on his eight-footed steed. As the souls of the dead were thought to be wafted along on the wings of the storm, Odin was worshipped as the leader of all disembodied spirits. In this character he was most generally known as the Wild Huntsman and originator of the widespread European folklore belief in the Wild Hunt. Chasse-Galerie is a French Canadian variant of the Wild Hunt theme, in which hunters, wanting to return home quickly, make a pact with the devil to fly their canoe through the air at great speed. They must not invoke the name of God or carry any religious objects, otherwise the canoe will crash to the ground. This story was powerfully visualised by the nineteenthcentury artist Henri Julien in his painting "Chasse-Galerie," where the devil is depicted pulling down a sky-borne canoe full of madly paddling hunters !37 Reports of sightings of ships in the sky encompass a thousand years of history. They occur in Canada and in Ireland as late as the final decade of the eighteenth century. In 1796 Simeon Perkins, a merchant and town official of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, recorded in his diary that a fleet of ships had been seen in the air over

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the Bay of Fundy. Perkins was a down-to-earth individual and his diary is regarded as an authoritative source of information about life and business in colonial Nova Scotia.38 Wednesday, 12 October 1796 A strange story is going that feet ofships have been seen in the air in some part of the Bay of Fundy. Mr Darrowis lately from there by land . I enquired of him . He says they were said to be seen at New Minas, at one Mr Ratchford's, by a girl, about sunrise, and that the girl being frighted, called out, and two men that were in the house went out and saw the same sight, being 15 ships and a man forward of them with his hand stretched out. The ships made to the eastward . They were so near that the people saw their sides and ports. My own opinion is that it was only in imagination, as the cloud at sunrise might make some such appearance, which being improved by imagination, might be all they saw.

The ascribing of visionary ships in the sky to unusual cloud formations, atmospheric conditions, or other circumstances linked to the powers of imagination and suggestion are rationalist, reasoning forms of explanation of long-standing . In 1798, two years after the Nova Scotian airships sighting, a similar phenomenon was observed by hundreds of people in, the west of Ireland. James Hardiman, a noted nineteenth-century Celticist and historian, witnessed the event as a young boy and later recalled seeing, a well-defined aerial phenomenon of this kind [fantastical ships] from a rising ground near the mountain of Cruach-Patrick in Mayo [a holy pilgrimage mountain on the west coast of Ireland] . It was a serene evening in the autumn of 1798. Hundreds who also witnessed the event believed it was supernatural; but it was soon afterwards found to have been caused by the fleet ofAdmiral Warren, then in pursuit of a French squadron, off the west coast of Ireland .39 The Irish and Canadian sighting dates of 1798 and 1796 are significant. The former was the year of armed risings by the republican United Irishmen, supported in Mayo by an army of revolutionary France, while in Nova Scotia in 1796 there had been considerable anxieties over French privateering raids and the possibility of attack by a French naval squadron .40

While remarkable cloudscapes could be a natural explanation for aerial visions, it is important to note that clouds are important elements in Christian symbolism and had particular significance for the deeply religious

culture of the Middle Ages . Essentially, as clouds in the heavens were the natural veil of the blue sky, they became a symbol of the unseen God. By extension, in Christian art, the halo or disc of light encircling the head of a holy personage is known as a nimbus, the Latin word for cloud. A hand emerging from a cloud is perhaps the most common symbol of Divine Omnipotence. 41 When Jesus was taken before the Sanhedrin and questioned, he affirmed his Divinity and said, "And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven . 1142 Medieval religious literature and iconography are richly infused with cloud symbolism and reflected, for example, in the title of the fourteenth-century English mystical treatise, The Cloud of Unknowing. Here the anonymous author insists that the "cloud of unknowing," which lies between God and man, cannot be pierced by the human intellect, but only by "a sharp dart of love. 1143 Cloud imagery and symbolism have remained part of post-enlightenment religious vocabulary and while given particular expression in hymnody, they are also found in poetry, such as Wordsworth's famous lines "But trailing clouds of glory do we come/ From God, who is our home . 1144 With the growth of interest in Gregorian chant and early church music in recent years, an Irish recording company GaelLinn, produced in 1989 a CD entitled Vox De Nube (Voice from the Cloud) . The cover booklet notes that "In our Judaeo-Christian tradition God has always remained in a cloud of unknowing . . .the Word reverberates to this voice of praise inviting us to link Earth with Heaven . Under the light of the Voice from the Cloud we are drawn into God's own time . 1145 Most recently, in 1998, a remarkable cloud phenomenon was seen in Northern Ireland during the Stormont talks for a political settlement . In the tension-filled hours before politicians finally reached their historic agreement at Castle Buildings late in the afternoon of Good Friday, it was reported that : An RUC woman guarding Castle Buildings was astonished when she looked into the afternoon sky. "Isn't that strange, " she exclaimed, "Look at that cross-it's Good Friday and it's nearly three o'clock. "Two thin streaks ofcloud had formed a very large white cross in the sky over Castle Buildings . Easter Week had seen the mood at the talks swing between hope and despair. Belfast Telegraph, 11 April 1998

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In the Middle Ages, the visionary appearances of clouds were also regarded as portents or forewarnings charged with both religious and secular meanings . However, whilst medieval culture was permeated with visionary imagination and belief in an other world reality, this is not to suggest that people were incapable of critical judgement in distinguishing between the natural and the supernatural, between wonders and illusions. In The Medieval Vision, Carolly Erickson's central theme is the complex nature of perceived reality in the Middle Ages and the difficulties for the modern mind in comprehending the medievals' flexibility of perception .41, "Their perceptual range was broader than ours. They were aware of more possibilities because they were less inclined to dismiss any of them as unimaginable."" She aptly illustrates this point by quoting from a thirteenth-century English account of the supposed appearance of an airship to the monks of St Alban's. However, in the end the monks decided that what they had seen was not a supernatural apparition, but a "wonderful and extraordinary" cloud. About midnight of the day of our Lord's circumcision, the moon being eight days old, and the firmament studded with stars, and the air completely calm, there appeared in the sky, wonderful to relate, the form of a large ship, well-shaped, and of remarkable design and colour. This apparition was seen by some monks of St . Alban's, staying at St. Amphiba]us to celebrate the festival, who were looking out to see by the stars if it was the hour for chanting matins, and they at once called together all their friends and followers who were in the house, to see the wonderful apparition . The vessel appeared for a long time, as if it were painted, and really built with planks; but at length it began by degrees to dissolve and disappear, wherefore it was believed to have been a cloud, but a wonderful and extraordinary one 48

Though the St Alban's monks concluded that the cloud ship was an extraordinary but natural phenomenon, it was completely characteristic of the medieval way of thinking that their minds were open to supernatural possibilities and miraculous explanations . Because of the multifold and all-encompassing nature of their cultural world, where the visible and invisible, the finite and the infinite were inextricably linked, the monks had an inclusive concept of simultaneous realities that accepted the possibility of their witnessing a superphysical event, a corporeal or even an incorporeal ship in the sky. Thus, Erickson suggests,

the monks, in common with their medieval contemporaries, were capable of "seeing more" than we do because of the significance attributed to vision as a "creative force and as a mode of human understanding. 1149 In short, the acuity and quality of medieval visual perception was different and more holistic than ours . "Here it is our habits of mind which hamper us, accustomed as we are to equate realness with materiality ; for us, what is unseen and immaterial is assumed to be unreal until its existence is proved by the verifiable data of the senses ."5° She further declares that "our lexicon associates visions with mysticism, irrationality, occultism, impracticality and madness. From our point of view, the visionary is a person who sees what isn't there; his visions separate him from reality. In the Middle Ages, visions defined reality . . .The medieval past is full of visions. Extraordinary appearances-unusual natural configurations, visual portents, dream messages from the dead, divine and informal warnings, intellectual illuminations, visions of the future - everywhere complemented ordinary sight. 1151 In conclusion Erickson argues powerfully and eloquently that "Medieval men and women blended the evidence of their senses with firm convictions about the presence and power of unseen creation. Their concept of the real embraced much that we would now call imaginary; planes of truth we perceive as distinct and clashing they saw as concurrent parts of a harmonious whole. 1152 In medieval Europe, there was no clear distinction between the real and the imaginary. For the people of the Middle Ages, as the Russian medievalist Aron Gurevich has pointed out, "the border between this world and the other was permeable in both directions. "53 In a world permeated by symbolism, voyaging ships and boats were loaded with spiritual meanings from the currachs of Irish monks seeking deserts in the ocean, to vessels in distress being saved by St Nicholas the patron saint of seafarers. It has been suggested that of all medieval clich6s, few were so popular as that of the ship in the storm and no miracle was more widespread than that of an intervention by a saint to calm the tempest and save the seafarers.54 The potency of the sea lay not only in its real dangers, but also in its symbolic significance, for the sea was emblematic of the world and its temptations. It was perceived as a place of passage for the human soul and could be crossed safely with guidance from God, but could engulf those who ignored the Divine Purpose.55 The Ship of the Church, steered by Christ, was of course the


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symbolic vessel for bearing the cargo of souls over the sea and navigating the waters of life to salvation. The symbolic connections between ship, church and salvation keyed directly to the powerful maritime symbolism of the Scriptures, from Noah's ark and the story of Jonah, to Christ and the fishermen, boats and storms of the Sea of Gallilee . As a ship's mast and yard was a symbol of the Cross, so the hull of a ship corresponded to the shape of a church building, where the central aisle or nave took its name from the Latin word navis, meaning ship . Other material and symbolic connections between ships and the church include the numerous sailor-made models or `votive ships' suspended or displayed in the churches of maritime Europe . The oldest one, now preserved in the Maritiem Museum Prins Hendrik in Rotterdam, is thought to have originated in the middle of the fifteenth century. In northern Europe, votive ships are found in almost every church in the coastal towns of Scandinavia, together with the towns of the Baltic and North Sea coasts of Germany. Different and often more recently made votive ship models, together with votive ship paintings, are to be seen among the offerings in churches of southern Europe, especially around the shores of the Mediterranean. In contrast, votive ships and pictures are not generally features of churches in Ireland.56 In contrast to the terrestrial earth and sea, so the heavenly world of salvation was symbolised by the blue sky. In Categories ofMedieval Culture, Gurevich describes the religious and ethical significance of earth and sky as a contrasting pair : "The sky was the seat of higher, eternal, ideal life, while the earth, in contrast, was the vale of tears, where sinful man eked out his earthly span . The world beyond the grave was imagined as being just as substantial as the earthly one -more so, indeed, since it was imperishable . 1151

Conceptions of the nature of the heavens varied over time and space. In the early Middle Ages, especially, it was widely considered that the earth was surrounded by seven heavens -

hence today's common phrase, to be in seventh heaven - and their zones included different waters of sea around the world. A homiletic vision of the creation of heaven and hell, The Evernew Tongue 58 written in Irish in the tenth or eleventh century, describes these waters and the many kinds of seas flanking the earth on every side . They included a "black waveless sea, with the colour of a stagbeetle, so that no ship that has ever reached it has escaped from it, save only one boat by the lightness of its course and the strength of its wind . "59 Clearly the idea of sea or water in the sky, even as a sort of watery . black hole, was something the medieval mind could envisage without difficulty, for of course it was the work of God revealed in the biblical account of Creation . "God said, `Let there be a vault through the middle of the waters to divide the waters in two.' And so it was. God made the vault, and it divided the waters under the vault from the waters above the vault, God called the vault heaven . "60 Returning now to the material representation of the eighth-century Irish currach carved on a stone pillar overlooking Bantry Bay in south west Ireland, it is clear that the symbolism of the image can be interpreted in two overlapping ways . Simultaneously and ambiguously it is a Ship of the Church sailing the heavenly seas, which the medieval mind thought of as surrounding the earth, and a Ship of the Church voyaging heavenwards in marvellous flight through the air and the sky. -~Beyond Christian symbolism, ideas of the ship have always occupied a significant locus in water-connected world cultures. From womb ship to death ship, it is a remarkable carrier of manifold messages and meanings in the past and in the present. Whether as a titanic microcosmic machine, a medieval ship of fools, or a starship voyager boldly going where no one has gone before, the ship is both at the centre and at the margins of our world. It is an enduring cultural symbol and metaphor, deeply embedded in human consciousness .

NoTEs 1. 2. 3.

Fran~oise Henry, Irish Art in the Early Christian Period (London: Methuen,1940) . Also, Irish Art During The Vking Invasions (London: Methuen,1967) .

Paul Johnstone, "The Bantry Boat," Antiquity 38 (1964) : 277-284. Michael McCaughan, "Ethnology and Irish Boatbuilding Traditions," in O.L . Filgueiras (ed.), Local Boats: Fourth International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology (BAR International Series 438, Oxford, 1988), 101-117.

4.

5.

Colum P. Hourihane and James J. Hourihane, "The Kilnaruane Pillar Stone, Bantry, Co . Cork," Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 84 (July-December 1979): 65-73. Henry, Irish Art in the Early Christian Period, 108. For discussion of "Ship of the Church," see Peter and Linda Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford: University Press, 1996), 488.


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6.

7.

8.

9. 10 .

11 . 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 .

16 . 17 . 18 . 19 .

20 .

21 . 22 . 23 . 24 . 25 . 26 . 27 . 28 .

29 . 30 . 31 . 32 . 33 .

34 . 35 .

Johnstone, "The Bantry Boat ."

Hourihane and Hourihane, "The Kilnaruane Pillar Stone, Bantry," 70. SeSn MacAirt and Gearbid MacNiocaill (eds .), The Annals of Ulster. (Dublin: Institute For Advanced Studies, 1983), Part 1, 205, A.D . 749.

The Office of Public Works, Clonmacnoise (Dublin : The Stationery Office, 1994) .

John O'Donovan (ed.), Annals of The Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, second edition (Dublin: Hodges, Smith, 1856), vol. 3, 51, A.D . 1179 . Ibid., vol. 1, 347, A.D. 743. Ibid., vol. 2, 867, A.D . 1054 ; vol. 1, 479, A.D. 847; vol. 1, 315, A.D . 716. See, for example, RW. Joyce, The Wonders of Ireland (Dublin: Gill, 1911), 30-32. Kuno Meyer, "The Irish Mirabilia in the Norse Speculum Regale," Erin, 4 (1910) : 12-13. Ibid.,13 . For this translation from Latin to English, I am indebted to Jim Peden, Head of Latin Dept ., Regent House School, Newtownards, Co. Down, N. Ireland, 1997 . Ibid., 12-13 and 16. Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson, A Celtic Miscellany (Hammondsworth : Penguin, 1971), 165. Ibid ., 314; source note 138 refers to Kuno Meyer, Anecdota firmm Irish Manuscripts lQ(Halle :1908), 8-9. Seamus Heaney, Preoccupations, Selected Prose 1968-1978 (London : Faber and Faber, 1984), 34 and 36-37. Seamus Heaney, "Lightenings viii" in Seeing Things (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 62 .

Christopher Frayling, Strange Landscape (London : Penguin and BBC, 1996), 10.

For useful insights and comparisons see E. M. W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (Hammondsworth: Peregrine, 1963). Church Hymnal (Dublin and Oxford : APCK and University Press, 1960), 155, No. 356. Beverley Southgate, History: What & Why? (London: Routledge, 1996), 40-42. Jackson, A Celtic Miscellany, 277. Ibid., 141. Ibid., 296. James Carney, Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin: Institute For Advanced Studies, 1955), 280-289. Kim McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present (Maynooth: Maynooth Monographs 3, 1990), 79-83 and 157. S6amus MacMathuna, Immram Brain (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1985). MacMathiina, Immram Brain, 52, quatrain 37 . Ibid., 53, quatrain 42 . Ibid., 187-189. Nora Chadwick, The Celts (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1970), 235 and 264. Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, 6 vols . (Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1955-1958) .

Tom Peete Cross, Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature (Bloomington : Indiana University, 1952) . Ibid., 163-165.

36 . 37.

38.

39. 40.

41 . 42 .

43 .

44 .

45 . 46. 47 . 48 . 49 . 50 . 51 . 52 . 53 .

54 . 55 . 56 .

57 . 58 . 59 .

60 .

H. A. Guerber, The Norsemen (London : Senate, 1994). The Canadian Ency]opedia, vol . 1, second edition

(Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), 398. 1 am indebted to Garth Wilson, National Museum of Science and Technology, Ottawa, and guest editor of this special maritime issue of M-IR, for drawing my attention to Chasse-Galerie and providing this reference. Diary of Simeon Perkins, vol. 3 (Toronto : Champlain Society, No . 39, 1961), 430. 1 am indebted to Dan Conlin, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, N.S ., for this reference and for providing background information on Simeon Perkins. See also Note 40.

James Hardiman (ed.), A Chorographical Description of West or H-Iar Connaught (Dublin : Irish Archaeological Society, 1846), 31-32, note h.

Dan Conlin, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax N.S., in personal letter to author, 16 September 1997 . See Note 38 . George Ferguson, Signs & Symbols in Christian Art (New York : Oxford University Press, 1961), 41 . "The Gospel of Mark," 14 : 62, The NewJerusalem Bible, Reader's Edition (New York : Doubleday, 1990), 1202 . Elizabeth A. Livingstone (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: University Press, 1977, reprinted with corrections 1990), 116. William Wordsworth, "Ode : Intimations of Inunortality," in Concise Dictionary of Quotations (London: Collins, 1986), 352: 7.

Nbirin Nf Riain and Monks of Glenstal, Vox De Nube (Dublin : Gael-Linn, 1989), CEF CD144 . Carolly Erickson, The Medieval Vision (New York : Oxford University Press, 1976) .

Ibid ., 32 . Ibid ., 31 . Ibid ., 27 . Ibid ., 6. Ibid ., 30 . lbid ., 214. Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception (Cambridge : University Press, 1988), 124. Jacques Le Goff, Medieval Civilization 400-1500 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988),137-138 . John Baldock, The Elements of Christian Symbolism (Shaftesbury : Element, 1990), 112. For a discussion of votive ship models and votive pictures of ships, see Hans Jiirgen Hansen (ed.), Art and the Seafarer (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), 50-52 and 152-164.

A .J. Gurevich, Categories ofMedieval Culture (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 74 .

See Kathleen Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (London: Methuen, 1966), 231-232. Whitley Stokes, "The Evernew Tongue," triu, 2 (1905) : 96-162 .

"Genesis," 1 : 6-8, The New Jerusalem Bible, Reader's Edition (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 5 .


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Media Review Compte rendu de media Recent Media Treatments of the Titanic Tragedy JOHN WII.SON FOSTER

Titanic: Class and Culture

It is reported that a South African company intends to build a replica of R.M .S . Titanic that in late December 1999 will duplicate the great liner's maiden voyage from Southampton. Thanks to the most up-to-date detection equipment on board that will remove the threat of ice, duplication will cease at the fiftieth meridian (which Titanic had just crossed when she had her fatal rendezvous with an iceberg), and the replica will finish the trip to New York, having in some fanciful sense become the original vessel in the first hours of what most of us will wrongly regard as the first year of the third millennium. In April 2002 the feat - or stunt will apparently be repeated by another replica Titanic, built this time by a Swiss-American business alliance calling itself - with appropriate mimicry - White Star Line . These projects will go one better than the Japanese company's plan to build a full-scale Titanic-but sans engines and other innardsto function at its mooring as a conference centre and "floating hotel," as the promotion has it, echoing contemporary praise and criticism of R.M .S . Titanic. Tickets for the millennial voyage will no doubt be themselves replicas, and the cheapest will probably cost rather more in equivalence than a second-class transatlantic passage on board a luxury liner in 1912 . Thereafter, one can suppose, tourism will provide the customers, and Alexander Wilson in The Culture of Nature : North American Landscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez (1992) has wittily defined tourism as "the mass circulation of the middle classes around the globe." It is the middle classes, in their touring and conferencing guises, who are the chief consumers of "theme park" culture, the commercial reconstructions of our material history for leisure purposes, of which the two projected replicas of Titanic will be floating

examples . This is ironic since the middle class is rarely depicted as a participant in the 771tanic affair and no longer sees itself reflected in it . Titanic "2" and Titanic "3" will be the ultimate cruise ships, a now ubiquitous class of vessel that both mimicked (in a rudimentary postmodern fashion) and superseded the working luxury liner when jumbo jets rendered it obsolete . The middle class, like the wealthy, are assumed to want their anachronistic creature comforts when they re-live history, and so the cabins of the Japanese replica will be brought up to modern standards: "none will be thirdclass," we are assured; there must be no echoes of steerage and poor emigrants . If this is achieved on Titanic 2 and 3, it will not only be because of shipboard regulations : it will also be because unpleasant historical reality must be discountenanced . There is some hypocrisy at work in these revisions of material history. We affect distaste at the rigid class inequities practised on board Titanic and other liners of the time, end the preFirst World War English class system generally. Yet we are comfortable with the identical threeclass system on transatlantic jets, and those in "hospitality" or "world traveller" class (the lower the class the more extravagant the euphemism) wait patiently while first and business class passengers board and deplane ahead of them . And like the ship's contemporaries, we are interested chiefly in the rich and famous on board Titanic: to this day we fasten on the names Guggenheim, Astor, Widener, Straus, Rothschild, Dodge, Rothes, and even Vanderbilt and Morgan (who cancelled their plans to make the maiden voyage). We indulge the imagery of a luxuriant first class: jewels, tuxedos, brandysnifters, cigars, evening gowns, and feather boas . In our own era of belt-tightening, downsizing, and retrenchment, we have begun to daydream once more of sumptuousness and

Material History Review 48 (Fall 1998) /Revue d'histoire de ]a culture matErielle 48 (automne 1998)

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glamorous wealth, and Titanic, first class, is such stuff as these dreams are made on. We lump steerage, as the aggregate form implies, into anonymous victimhood, but sweeten our perception of them as jolly, musical, venturesome, bibulous . This is how, even in 1997, James Cameron depicts steerage in his movie, Titanic; in his screenplay, the "third class general room" is described as "rowdy and rollicking." He is following 77itanic cinematic tradition in this, but he is more economical with the truth than his predecessors by omitting second class entirely, rendering his two depicted classes, first and third, crudely emblematic, and his class "analysis" of the ship's tragedy crudely unhistorical. For it is the presence of the second class that is, of the middle class - that is the buffer between warring simplifications, and a measure of our ability to see pre First World War life steadily and to see it whole . I borrow Arnold's dictum because it was repeated verbatim by the advanced figures at the time - T. S. Eliot, Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf. Woolf and her husband attended the British inquiry into the loss of 7-itanic and the tragedy reinforced - if it did not initiate - the imagery of water and drowning that pervades Woolf's novels ; the fate of Titanic and her passengers were incorporated into Woolf's painstakingly steady and whole vision of life . I lose respect for any treatment of the tragedy that sees it chiefly and at second hand as the predation of an idle first class (with a complicit officer class) upon a corralled and transported peasantry. Social class has always been central to our interest in Titanic and still is, in an increasingly lazy and shorthand way. The first wave of Titanic fever preceded the sailing, rose with rumours of disaster, and peaked between confirmation and the official hearings ; it was generated by shock, grief, anger, and disbelief. The chief cultural reaction took the diverse form of memorial and the narrower form of inquiry. The first revival began in the 1950s and lasted a decade, and it was stimulated by Walter Lord's marvellously readable book, A Night to Remember (1955), and boosted by the film of the same name released three years later. The earlier memorial culture of 7-itanic was replaced by a commemorative culture (though Lord also updated the earlier inquiries), but social class remained as important to him as it had been in 1912 when the presence on board of so many grandees and industrial captains gave boost to the American and British investigations .

Although fast-paced (a "rattling good story," a "gripping yarn," as the outmoded phrases had it), Lord's book is also elegiac and if there is a thesis in it, it is this : "The Titanic somehow lowered the curtain on this way of living. It was never the same again. First the war, then the income tax, made sure of that." A Night to Remember commemorates the Edwardian way of life . Lord pays attention to second-class passengers, and he is disturbed that no one, reporters or inquiry members, were interested in what third-class survivors had to say, but one senses that to Lord what matters is the end of noblesse oblige and masculine chivalry and courage that for him the tragedy spelled. First class for Lord is an honorific, not just a socioeconomic category. We are wholly impatient now with the English upper class, but it still makes good costume drama to which we are addicted; and it is an easy ethnic (as well as class) target, which political correctness and multiculturalism give us permission to attack . Lord's anglophile elegy has given way to Cameron's anglophobe caricature . It is virtually a tradition in American 7-itanic representation to turn wealthy Americans in first class into honorary English upper crust : the hated Old World hereditary wealth and position . It is true that there was an internationalism to the Euro-American industrial elite and financier class, which Lord draws attention to and Beryl Bainbridge exploits in her recent novel (see below) ; according to Lord, "Titanic's trip was more like a reunion than an ocean passage." Still, this has often been given an anti-English twist. In Herbert Selpin's film 7-itanic (1943), John Jacob Astor becomes Lord Astor, albeit for purposes of German wartime anti-British propaganda . In Cameron's movie, Caledon Hockley, the cartoonish villain, is as close as Cameron can get him to an effete, swinish English gentleman, while still being an American. (Molly Brown is the "true" American and of course is goodhearted, brave, anti-establishment - a frontier rough diamond and very definitely "New World" and "New Money.") I will say more about Cameron's movie later; my points here are, one, that erasure of the middle class reduces history to easily depictable and politically correct simplicity and, two, that the concept of culture that the real middle class consumes - culture as easily packageable selfrepresentation - are major features of the second revival of Titanic enthusiasm ignited by Robert Ballard's discovery of the wreck in 1985 through technical wizardry. In short, Titanic is


183

now commonly doctored history and "lab-bred" culture . As for the second of these features, it is, after all, a short step from Cameron's impressive special effects and set-construction, stopping just short of a full-scale rebuilt ship, to the project of total, functioning re-construction. We have passed from memorial to commemoration to what I want to call "rememoration" (I am adapting the dictionary - Oxford English - of to remember. "to put together again"). We want to enact the past ; even exhibitions now aspire to go beyond mere display into replication and virtual experience ; the exhibit may be the type form of our cultural reaction to Titanic today, and Cameron's movie in its art of ostentation betrays the influence of exhibition . I could hastily add other major features . One, the debunking of received wisdom about the ship and its fate dating from 1912 and the 1950s (including, with some ambivalence on our part, Lord's nostalgia) . Two, the insistence on secrets still to be revealed, questions still to be answered, mysteries still to be solved . Three, our renewed emulative fascination with the technology of Titanic. The first suggests that the ship means something different to each generation; the second that (besides those of us who are intrigued and curious), there are those who profit from the ship and require the phenomenon to be unfinished business ; the third that we wish to re-create, by discovery, salvage, or replication, the ship and its milieu since many of us now believe this is what culture is : recovery of the already accomplished and the already occurred ; our technology may be advancing with vigour, but many of use have a tired sense of culture, it seems, and are lazily and literally (that is, without imagination) turning back upon our past .

Cultural History : Biel and Beyond

The two millennium replication projects will keep the engines fired in this astonishing phenomenon until we spy on the horizon the coastline of the Titanic centenary. In the meantime, there is much material to be going on with, a good deal of it produced since 1985 . "Jim's Titanic Bibliography" and "Bibliotheca Titanic," both available on the internet, list hundreds of books, videos and CDs, and in the remainder of this article, I can treat only a fraction of the more interesting among the newcomers. There are scores of book-length discussions of the Titanic affair, including survivors' accounts . An important recent book, Steven

Biel's Down vvith the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster (1966), joins Wyn Craig Wade's The Titanic: End of a Dream (1979) to furnish in tandem a comprehensive American cultural history of the tragedy. Wade analyses the American hearings, and though he ends with a chapter that discusses the contemporary women's suffrage movement and Black street reaction to Titanic (he subscribes to Lord's idea that the sinking was the end of a complacent, caste-structured, and materialistic era), Wade stays close to the nautical and technical realities of the tragedy and the narrow political context in which they were investigated at the American inquiries . Almost half of the Biel's book (the first part is entitled "Meanings") is devoted to rejection of the end-of-an-era proposition : "In my opinion the disaster changed nothing except shipping regulations ...the Titanic seared itself into American memory not because it was timeless but because it was timely." The meanings of the tragedy, like the era itself, was he insists "contested terrain." Biel is at pains to dispute what he regards as our shallow notion of what happened : "In the conventional narrative the story of the Titanic functioned as a parable of the natural goodness of class, racial, ethnic, and gender hierarchies ." Drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts and concurrent events, he deals with each hierarchy in turn, first the received conservative or establishment notions of the time, then the contemporary reality. In Biel's loosely Marxist revisionism, either the value system enacted on board the ship was one of damaging and discriminatory stereotypes of the powerless groups, or the fine-sounding values apparently enacted on board were not in fact so enacted. Clearly it is Lord's elegiac account he wishes to revise (while paying tribute to its modernist vitality), but though he wishes to rescue Titanic from "popular history" and retrieve it for academic history (the author teaches writing at Harvard), he can't himself resist seeing the Ttanic affair as "an event of deep and wide resonance in Edwardian England and Progressive Era America .. .one of the great mythic events of the twentieth century." Surely this loose use of "myth" implies the very timelessness he repudiates, and it is herd to accept that this m ic event had no issue other than shipping regulations . If nothing else, this event has been variously interpreted down the century. Besides, Down with the Old Canoe is itself popular history, as its journalist style, range of subjectmatter, and success in the marketplace show.


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In its amassed data, however, Biel's book (with its forty pages of endnotes) will be extremely useful to popular and academic historians alike, and Biel's workaday, even slack prose keeps portentousness at bay. He shines a useful light on the position of black, female, and working-class Americans in 1912 society, and on Protestantism and its uneasy relations with capitalism . One way or another, Titanic was in the thick of it, and reaction to the tragedy implicated the fundamental questions of race, gender, class, religion, and economics. The rest of Biel's book (the second part is entitled "Memories") is no less instructive, and he is particularly good on 1950s America and why Titanic appealed to it - "it provided a nostalgic alternative to a world in `rude transition' to the atomic age," and chimed with the disaster research begun after the Second World War, and continued into the most frigid years of the Cold War. He is entertaining as well as instructive on the motives of 7-1tanic societies, seeing buffs as mostly white male conservatives who cleave to the values Biel believes did not exist on board - or if they did, they oughtn't to have, being right-wing. If he is correct, then in a sense TStanic indeed changed nothing for her generations of enthusiasts, who have preserved in the amber of commemoration the value system they perceive her as representing . After dealing with the buffs, I'm not sure how welcome Biel would be in their earnest company. In his book he rather resembles a sheriff sent into town to clean it up before riding off to his next assignment; he doesn't appear to be particularly interested in Titanic other than as a remarkable social history case study. His discussion of the enthusiasts is a reminder to me that Titanic studies, Titanic memorial societies, and the Titanic salvage-and-exhibition industry are uneasy allies and also overlap. Sometimes roles are ambiguous. And in the bustling and fractious Titanic fraternity there are individuals and societies whose names recur and who seem to act as culture-givers or gatekeepers, something of a Praetorian Guard; they crop up time and again in television documentaries and newspaper interviews, and some of them wield real power in a scene in which serious money can be made . Biel has occasion to mention briefly the countless cartoons, posters, model kits, video games, books, movies and television programs inspired (though this is usually not the mot juste) by Titanic . He is to be commended on his lingering attention to T1tanic songs (over a hundred were published before the end of 1913),

many of them shamelessly sentimental, some presumably heartfelt, others tin-pan alley exploitations. Most interesting were the Christian, Black, and worker songs that used the fate of the ship as a vehicle for grievances and recriminations . Biel is not much interested in the contribution of Titanic to "high" culture, and the novelists Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf, the poets Thomas Hardy, E. J. Pratt, Anthony Cronin, Derek Mahon, and Hans Magnus Enzesberger, the playwrights St John Ervine and Stewart Parker, the choreographers Cornelius Fischer-Credo and Plan K Company, and the painters Max Beckmann and Charles Dixon, are absent from his index. This is partly because the American context is Biel's focus, and in my own book, The Titanic Complex (1997), I have sketched in the British context, to which the writers H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, E. M. Forster, Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as Conrad and Woolf, contributed. In any case, two recent novels, Psalm at Journey's End by Erik Fosnes Hansen and Every Man for Himselfby Beryl Bainbridge, both 1996 (Hansen's originally appeared in Norwegian in 1990), appeared too late for Biel . So too did a couple of serious musical compositions . None of these works is kitsch or replication, but are genuine artistic attempts to realize their inspiration . Biel mentions the Englishman Gavin Bryars' 1969 work, The Sinking of the Titanic. This composition was transformed into a performing version in 1972, reworked and re-recorded in 1990, and released on a CD in a composite form in 1994 ; the executive producer is Philip Glass, whose minimalism it is tempting to hear as an influence on this elevenpart work for instruments, keyboard, and choir. But Bryars has been called a Romantic and mystic (any mysticism of Glass's - for example, his recent Kundun - is altogether more severe) and indeed The Sinking of the Titanic is a ghostly subaqueous music, through which appears and reappears the Protestant hymn "Autumn," said by some to be the last tune played by Wallace Hartley's band on board. I cannot imagine the work would improve in live performance, since the experience of the listener at home better honours the stimulus of the composition. We are told that Bryars borrows a theory from Marconi, the inventor of electromagnetic waves : that sounds never completely die but merely grow fainter and fainter. What if the music of the Titanic's band might still be playing 2,500 fathoms under the sea? Using underwater recordings, hymn tunes,


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morse code messages, recorded reminiscences of survivors and a child's musical box, Bryars' realisation of this theory has become one of the legendary events of twentieth-century musical experimentalism .

In one haunting section of what he called on a recent CBC radio interview "a mysterious collage piece of music," Bryars exploits the fact of there having been a Scottish bagpiper on board by writing what he calls a "Titanic lament," a "pibroch piece" for bass clarinet . We hear a muffled voice, as though one of the drowned were giving testimony from beneath the waves, and the swaying music of the water, and at the section's end the ominous drips as of water that magnify into depth-soundings, the voice now silent or merged into ocean, abyss, the underwater echoes of our fate. Bryars has said he needs his music to be referential (that is, programmatic) but this is satisfactorily disguised by his resistance to melodrama, climax or crescendo, and we have instead the flat seabed of impersonal lament that begins with the weird sound effect of the ship's halves dropping to the ocean floor and ends with two elongate "amens," leaving only dying echoes, as if we leave the wreck in peace as one might depart a graveyard . (There is mild irony, then, in Bryars' thanks to R.M .S . Titanic Inc., salvors in possession of the ships' remains who have been bringing objects from the ship and debris field to the surface.) The Sinking of the Titanic is an unforgettable work . Music from the Motion Picture Titanic (1997) by James Horner is a fair example of music composed as a score for a Hollywood megamovie. Some of the spacious open-arm choral passages (e.g . "Southampton") echo Morricone's score for The Mission (itself sometimes echoing Carl Orff). There is a recurring and infuriatingly hummable "love theme" ("My Heart Will Go On") that is varied throughout the score before climaxing in Celine Dion's "inspirational" rendition - High Sentimentality to the Low Sentimentality of those songs in 1912 provoked by the sinking that were in the Edwardian parlour tear-jerker tradition. Like the script, the score appropriates Titanic for a kitsch lrishness: melodies for penny whistle or pipes are "identikit" Celtic revivalism, with a recurring line that echoes the first line of "The Cliffs of Dooneen." The fifteen sections have programmatic titles ("Leaving Port," "Take Her to Sea, Mr . Murdoch," and so on) but the reference in music is a tenuous swirl that uncommonly tries to do other than capture the movement of a ship, as the theme music of

the television program The Onedin Line did years ago. One of the sections, "Hard to Starboard," is of genuine worth, a richly textured and dramatic seven-minute piece that re-lives the collision and is mercifully un-Irish . If Homer was writing to Cameron's script, then this successful piece suggests that Homer's musical talent was constricted by Cameron's weak dramatic vision as a script-writer. Anyway, those who loved the film almost certainly loved the music, so here it is ; musically it is to my taste mostly decaffeinated and de-alcoholized Irish coffee . Ronan Magill, a one-time student of Benjamin Bitten's, is a Sheffield man of Irish extraction, but there is no facile Irishness in his Titanic 10th-15th April 1912 : An Atmospheric Poem in Five Pictures for Piano Solo (1997) . Its twenty sections are grouped under the five pictures entitled "Lamentation for the Sea Dead," "The Departure," "The Voyage," "The Iceberg" and "Return to the Sea." The music ranges from the fairly programmatic (treble repetition in "The Wireless Room," bass massiveness and treble highlights in "The Iceberg," for example) to the open-endedly suggestive . Only a musician could properly assess the technical achievement of composition and execution (I am reminded occasionally of Satie and tone-poetry), but the work impresses me greatly. There is a charming original waltz in memory of Wallace Hartley and his band, and Magill's arrangement of the Irish melody "The Lass of Aughrim," which is fitting in a way Magill may not realize : it is the song Gretta Conroy hears Bartell D'Arcy sing in James Joyce's great Edwardian story, "The Dead" (1907) ; listening to it she is lost in the memory of the dead young man who courted her; unheard by the reader, it becomes the "distant music" of a vanished past, and distant music is what Magill has essayed here . Picture Five also includes renditions of "Remembrance" (1908) and "Songe D'Automne" (1909), both by Joyce's contemporary and namesake, Archibald Joyce, and the latter a contender for Last Song Played on Tftanic. The fifth Picture concludes with a larger version of the waltz for Hartley and his band, and the whole Picture raises middlebrow music of the Titanic era to art, at once softening and strengthening it in Magill's versatile tonalities . It is that contemporary music that the English-born, Californian-based composer Ian Whitcomb has given us in Titanic: Music as Heard on the Fateful Voyage (1997), re-arranged and performed by the White Star Orchestra (a fivepiece nonce ensemble, I assume). The tunes are


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those of songs played either by Hartley's band for first and second class passengers or by the steerage passengers for their own amusement. They range from Elgar's "Salut d'Amour" through "The Merry Widow Waltz" to "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Frankie and Johnny" and, of course, "Songe d'Automne" - over a score of tunes in all, together with Whitcomb's fine reading of Hardy's chilling poem, "The Convergence of the 'Iiwain" above an ominous bass line and piano notes like glints of oncoming danger. There are medleys of marches and waltzes end a selection from The Arcadians, a musical comedy of the time . In composing the soundtrack of an era, the compilation is larger than the sum of its parts, and is ideal for the unstoppable Titanic gatherings (dinner, dance, party) - or home listening, since there is a diversity of colour in the assemblage, sentimentality vying with an oblivious glee that is to us ironic, elegy with carefree insouciance. There is a musical attentiveness that allows the enterprise to escape the charge of opportunism. The music is played with confident verve: the delightful produce of research by the author of Irving Berlin and Ragtime America, and highly recommended.

Celluloid Titanic

One artistic challenge in responding to Titanic, whether in music, literature, or film, is to acknowledge the program composed by its extraordinary career and yet achieve art through it, not around it . In this ongoing choice between historical fidelity to the given and creative fidelity to the imaginable, the artist does not want literalism, mere transcript or imitation (the equivalent in art's "software" to the "hardware" of the ship's replication), but neither does he want to substitute egregiously his own stories for the stories we know so well or the stories that still lie on the seabed of both history and the imagination, waiting to be told ; if he does they had better be good. I myself - in the teeth of our contemporary reflex egalitarianism - believe a great Titanic story remains to be told that would place John Jacob Astor (inheritor of vast wealth, American of German immigrant stock, decorated soldier, suitor of technology, writer of science fiction) at its epicentre, as at the heart of an Edwardian Europe and America soon to feel the earthquake of the Great War. Hansen in his novel has met the challenge in his own impressive way. He substitutes his own fictional members of Hartley's band but

with such integrity and high seriousness that he honours the band and the ship more in the breach than another novelist might in the observance . Movie-makers face an additional challenge: what we might call titanism, the problem of depicting a gigantic ship and its sinking. This is a problem of effects and set-construction, of course, but because it tempts the maker towards literalism, it is a problem too of directorial imagination. I have seen six full-length screen narratives of the Titanic tragedy: Titanic (Germany, 1943); Titanic (USA, 1953); A Night to Remember (UK, 1958) ; S.O .S . T;tanic (USA, 1979); Titanic (USA-Canada, 1996); Titanic (USA, 1997). (There was a lost 1912 movie in which the surviving film actress, Dorothy Gibson, starred: Saved from the Titanic; and I have heard tell of a 1929 British movie.) They have all met the challenge of titanic representation within the limits of contemporary film technology, of the medium itself, and of their budget. A television movie such as Titanic (1996) shown in two parts, each almost two hours long, the whole therefore somewhat longer than James Cameron's epic - compensates for smallscreen limitations remarkably well, with a moving and imaginative depiction of the sinking through a series of muted, overlapping, slow-motion vignettes with a choral accompaniment . Directed by Robert Lieberman, this film has George C. Scott as a suitably troubled and thoughtful Captain Edward Smith. The films for cinema, from Jean Negulesco's Titanic of 1953 to Cameron's, all depict the catastrophe creditably, Cameron's perhaps too creditably . Films for the American market require a love interest, the shipboard romance, and this narrative temptation to infidelity (sometimes in both senses, as it turns out) is hard to resist . S.O.S. Titanic is rather chaste in this regard, and Lawrence Beesley's potential relationship with an American teacher is realistic and inoffensive. Beesley, played by David Warner (who survives the film to sail again on Titanic as the odious Lovejoy in Cameron's movie), was a second-class passenger who survived to write a fine book on the subject, and this somehow calms the fever in which shipboard romance in other movies is portrayed. A Night to Remember stays close to Lord's account and manages its drama without a foregrounded love story, and seems the better for it . Titanic (1953) offers a blossoming young love, and an unravelling mature one, both in first class; Titanic (1996) offers a steerage love story and a first class love story (of infidelity) -


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again, the missing second class; while Titanic (1997) assails the class barriers by insisting on a young steerage hero literally leaping them the young heroine reverses his direction and `descends' to the lower class for sexual and romantic fulfilment (like a pale Lady Chatterley), and when she survives without her young lover, she does so as a classless (that is, middleclass `bohemian') woman which, really, her young lost lover was in embryo . Cameron therefore economically combines the love and class themes associated with 71tanic. I think it worthwhile to draw attention to two thematic cultural motifs that recur. One is the notion of redemption : the tragedy offers selected characters the chance to redeem themselves the vindictive husband (Clifton Webb) in the 1953 movie, for example, or the young steerage thief in the 1996 television movie. In the latter, the adulteress is `redeemed' into a moral life when her lover is lost and her husband and daughter greet her at New York. In all the film treatments, J. Bruce Ismay, President of the White Star Line, is the Great Unredeemed, and alone among artists, Derek Mahon has extended compassion to this reviled figure, in his poem "Bruce Ismay's Soliloquy." In the midst of so much loss, it is not surprising that redemption should appeal to artists who approach Titanic, especially those required by the marketplace to have a reasonably happy ending up their sleeves, for redemption is a way of snatching a measure of victory from the jaws of historical loss . The married woman in T1tanic (1996) reveals to her lover before the ship goes down that he is the father of her daughter; revelations of one kind or another are a firm formula in Titanic retellings . Barbara Stanwyck tells her husband (Clifton Webb) that their son is not his, which launches his vindictiveness and rivets their marriage (heading for the rocks) to the sinking vessel ; but his bravery at the end symbolically saves the marriage and salvages the husband's character. The American playwright Christopher Durang took the Stanwyck-Webb situation as a starting point for his absurdist, one-act play 7-itanic (1974) and reduces it to disturbing and comic nonsense as if the children in the 1953 film were to wreak revenge on their parents amidst an ocean of revealed identities : the Captain's daughter Lidia reveals herself as Harriet, the Stanwyck figure's lover, and therefore the mother of the non-existent daughter Annabella, and so on . Titanic as a venue for the revelation of secrets among passengers, under the pressure of its

unusual circumstances - on this floating island, thrown together in peculiar intimacy, passengers must `face themselves' and the truth - extends to the perception of the sunken ship as a repository of secrets it is reluctant to `yield up.' The wreck itself was a secret, of course, until Ballard's location of it, and the documentary video Secrets of the Titanic (1997), is subtitled A Legend Surrenders HerMysteries . Exterior footage of the ship quickly gave way to the irresistible temptation to penetrate her, and `secrets' in the least contentious sense meant the first views of the interior in seventy-three years and after the ravages of time. Quickly, too, in the wake of Ballard, `secrets' came to mean objects and ship's pieces (mementos and souvenirs dignified as "artifacts"), and, better still, closed suitcases and bags and, best of all, locked safes (the tabernacle, as it were, of the sacred "building" the wreck constituted) . `Secrets' also means solutions to questions, and one such question is posed in the television documentary, Titanic: Secrets Revealed (1998) : could Captain Smith have prolonged the life of the ship by re-opening the bulkhead doors and letting the ship flood evenly? The answer after a test with a model is "no" ; Smith is exonerated, but poor Ismay is hammered mercilessly, still the incontrovertible culprit: "While Ismay sat in his self-made hell, others raised themselves to their finest hour." . (This possibly unwitting allusion to Milton's Paradise Lost- Satan carries his self-made hell within him - has the effect of demonizing the White Star President. Really, this vilification has gone too far.) But the real secrets in this post-Cameron, "spin-off" program, narrated by Bernard Hill who, not coincidentally, plays Captain Smith in the movie, are the artifacts either already brought to the surface by R.M.S . 73tanic Inc. (paid respectful tribute by the script-writer) or awaiting their robot hands. May I say that the spin-off is a side-kick in theme-park culture ; and so Cameron's movie has been accompanied by the best-selling book, James Cameron's Utanic (1997), which tells us, of course, how to get the soundtrack as well: the synergy of capitalist sellerdom. And we can extend the notion of spin-off to include the "book-making" phenomenon in publishing ; it is brought to a fine art by Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley in their bestselling Last Dinner on the Titanic : Menus and Recipes from the GreatLiner (1997, Foreword by Walter Lord), which is reprehensibly enjoyable despite being an arrant act of cultural "salvaging" from the tragedy. The small discography reveals that the authors are not

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aware, alas, of Whitcomb's album, which would be ideal for the chapter entitled "Choreographing a First-Class Titanic Dinner." A locked safe and treasures (a diamond necklace, a drawing) feature prominently in Cameron's 7-itanic, and the depiction of their retrieval resembles footage from either Stephen Low's remarkable IMAX® Corporation film Titanica (1993) or Ballard's Secrets ,of the 7-itanic ; the retrieval is the frame story around the inner story, one of human "secrets" - that a centenarian woman in California was a Titanic survivor, that Rose Dawson was Rose DeWitt Bukater, that she loved a lost lover on Titanic, that she has the necklace and precious stone in her possession . There are impressive scenes in Cameron's movie though the special effects are triumphal rather than triumphant - scenes in the engineroom, the scene of the stern rising from the water with its three immense dripping propellers (shot 266 in the script), the scene with Fifth Officer Lowe's lifeboat cruising the instant cemetery of the sunk ship's vicinity looking for survivors. But these cannot rescue the movie, about which I remembered Dr Johnson's comment on Paradise Lost: "sir, no man ever wished it longer." If James Cameron is too literal with the ship, he is too liberal with the characters . The fascinating historical characters are stinted and few in the audience can recall them afterwards. Nor do the replacement characters have anything memorable to say: the script is flat and Cameron should have hired a writer . In Titanic (1953), we at least get alive lines like "It's a brand new day that's never been touched" and "If you get a good omelette, who cares whether the chicken likes you or not?" (a cheeky young Robert Wagner gets that one) . And we are treated to A. E. Housman's lovely poem, "When I Was One-and-Twenty." Instead, Cameron's movie is Romeo and Juliet without the language, a melancholy prospect . Some of Cameron's language is anachronistic - "squat" (from diddlysquat"), "horseshit," "like we forget," which is current ironic syntax for "as if we could forget," "to take a shit," not to mention Rose's middle-finger salute. Most of the cast strike me as physically anachronistic; they don't come across as Edwardian types: they are stooges for the ship that looks real enough though in deck scenes it struck me as suggesting weightlessness ; I never quite believed in it except in its sinking. The script borrows from previous scripts: the ashtray sliding off Thomas Andrews' table or the runaway trolley, both from A Night to Remember, as is Wallace

Hartley's release of his band and then starting up "Nearer My God to Thee" by himself, only to see the bend-members return to join him, a liberty to which Walter Lord objected in 1958 . (Or are these borrowings meant to be quotes and therefore tributes?) Other liberties are more serious - Ismay demanding that Titanic make headlines by breaking the speed record, the young steerage hero and the heroine free to cavort around the prow of the ship, and First Officer Murdoch shooting the Irish steerage passenger Tommy Ryan point blank before shooting himself. It is less important that Murdoch's suicide is "contested terrain" : Wade believes it probably happened, but passenger Archibald Gracie, researching his own book after the disaster, could find no direct evidence for it . More important is the irresponsibility against the background of Northern Ireland of showing an effete English officer shooting a broth of an Irish boy. (This is libel - or in a film is it slander? - of the dead .) The Irish in the film are oppressed but happy-go-lucky - and see, they got rhythm! - whose condition is symbolically explained when the "limey bastard" shoots Ryan . James Cameron appears to know little about Ireland. Thomas Andrews speaks with a southern Irish accent, when of course he was an Ulsterman. In S.O.S. Titanic, his home town of Comber, Co . Down is acknowledged, and Andrews, like Helen Mirren as a Belfast maid, speaks with a plausible northern accent . It is unlikely that in 1912, in the midst of the Home Rule crisis - during which Titanic was launched in Belfast - a southern working-class youth would proudly claim Utanic for Ireland, as the script has him do, when the ship as everyone knew was designed and built by northern anti-Home Rule Protestants . As an Ulsterman, I resent the air-brushing out of historical depiction of the northern, Protestant, unionist, industrial culture out of which came all the great White Star liners and much else of interest to the material historian. This is common practice in movies about the Irish Troubles, past and present, but to find it happening in the re-creation of an historical time and place in which this culture played a key role, when Ulster Protestants can be shown accomplishing something fine, is especially reprehensible. I have tried a measure of redress in my book, The Titanic Complex. The easy Titanic questions are briskly if dubiously handled in the film - the Speed Question, the Breaking in Two Question


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(Cameron shows the ship fracturing in half well above the surface, in which case there would have been no question), the Officer Murdoch Question, the Last Song Played Question, and the Lifeboat Question (young Rose presciently spots the shortfall and informs Andrews; Caledon Hockley of course approves the shortage of lifeboats) . The notorious "God Himself couldn't sink this ship" line (which a passenger overheard an anonymous crewman say) is given to Hockley, as an extra burden of hubris for his well-tailored but cowardly shoulders to bear. The tough social and race questions are either evaded - in 1997! - or solved in risk-free, politically correct, infantile equations: English bad, Irish and Other Europeans good ; old money and Old World bad, New World and new money good (not only Molly Brown's, but also Jack Dawson's : Jack wins his ticket aboard by gambling) ; first class bad, steerage good. In each case, "bad" means sexually repressed, authoritarian, smug, effete, cruel, undeserving, "good" their polar opposite . If James Cameron had really cared about class, he would have avoided caricature of steerage and also - first among film-makers, an opportunity wasted - told some of the stories of the brave engineers, firemen, trimmers, and greasers . It is an irony that the grave of J. Dawson in Halifax, Nova Scotia is the destination of misguided pilgrimages by young girls enamoured of Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack Dawson . The real Dawson was a trimmer (whose job it was to arrange cargo in the hold,

I believe), from Britain Street (now Parnell Street) in Dublin ; he did not desert and he died unsung; apparently some pilgrims, hearing of his nonentity, turn away in disgust. In his script, Cameron's direction for a scene in the first-class smoking room reads "the usual fatcats are playing cards, drinking and talking." (Steerage passengers were no doubt engaged in more edifying activities .) This is rich coming from a man who has made millions and will make millions more, courtesy of Titanic, film, ship, and tragedy. (But of course, it is new money and therefore all right.) Hockley, we are told, "never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses" - another irony, since "the stupendous power of money" (that Pip learns in Great Expectations) not only made the film possible, but muted criticism, few critics daring to tell the emperor he has no clothes. In the frame story, the "money guy" (as the script phrases it), representing the limited company subsidizing Brock Lovett's dive to the wreck, complains that "we're running thirty thousand a day, and we're six days over." Several fold, this is the real-life story with the making of 79tanic. It is choice that the most expensive movie in history, one that demonstrates its own opulence by replicating the opulence of Titanic, should be an attack on money and an exaltation of love across social and ship's barriers . In the immortal words of Jack Dawson, finding himself handcuffed to a pipe below decks on a sinking ship : "This could be bad."

RECENT MEDIA TREnTn4ENT8 REVIEWEI)

BOOKS Down with the Old Canoe : A Cultural History of the

73tanic Disaster. Steven Biel . New York : WW. Norton and Company, 1996 . Cloth CDN$25, ISBN 0-393-03965-X. Every Man for Himself.ANovel. Beryl Bainbridge . New York: Carroll & Graf Inc., 1996 . 224 pp . Cloth CDN$29 .50, ISBN 0-7867-0349-0. James Cameron's Titanic . Edward W. Marsh. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1997 . 178 pp ., illus. Cloth CDN$28 .50, ISBN 0-00-649060-3. Last Dinner on the 75tanic : Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner. Rick Archbold and Dana McCauley. Toronto: Madison Press Books, 1997 .144 pp ., il)us. $33.95, ISBN 0-7868-6303-X. Psalm at Journey's End. Erik Fosnes Hansen . Translated by Joan Tate . New York: Harvest Book, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1996. Originally published in Norwegian in 1990 . 371 pp . Paper CDN$18, ISBN 0-15-600527-1 .

©s The Sinking of the 75tanic. Composed by Gavin Bryars.

Markham, Ont. : Point Music . Dist ., PolyGram Group Canada Inc ., 1994 .

75tanic: Music as Heard on the Fateful Voyage. Ian Whitcomb and The White Star Orchestra. Santa Monica: Rhino, 1997 . CDN$18, ISBN 1-56826-833-5 . 7ltanic: Music from the Motion Picture. Composed and conducted by James Horner. North York : Sony Music Entertainment (Canada), 1997 . 75tanic 10th-15th April 1912 : An Atmospheric Poem in Five Pictures for Piano Solo. Composed by Ronan Magill . Albany, New York: Athene Records, 1997 .

MOTION PICTURES

7ltanic. Directed by James Cameron. Beverly Hills and Hollywood : Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, 1997 . 7ltanica . Directed by Stephen Low. Markham: IMAX® Corporation; distributed by David Keighley Productions Ltd., 1993 .


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nLEVISION Tltanic. Directed by Robert Lieberman. n.p . : White Star

Productions Ltd., with executive producers Frank Konigsberg and Larry Sanitsky, 1996 . Made-forTV movie broadcast on CBC, November 1996.

VII)EO Secrets of the 7ltanic. Written, produced and directed by Nicolas Noxon (Robert D. Ballard, co-director) . Washington, DC : National Geographic Society, dist . Warner Home Video, 1997 . ISBN 0-7806-1859-9.

"Tltanic" : Secrets Revealed. 1998 . Narrator Bernard Hill . New York : WPIX Television, 1998 . Television documentary broadcast 4 April 1998 .

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Exhibit Review Compte rendu d'exposition Edu-tainment and the Museum: A Cautionary Tale ROBIN INGLIS Nauticus is a huge battleship-coloured building, constructed as a metaphor for a ship, on the waterfront in Norfolk, Virginia. Opened in 1994 as an "urban theme park" - its theme being the sea and human maritime endeavour - it gained the title National Maritime Center, cost $50 million and projected attendance in the range of 800 000 visitors a year. There was much that was appealing: temporary exhibits featuring such things as 7-itanic artifacts, an award winning film "The Living Sea," virtual adventure games, a simulated battleship command post at the height of a battle, a number of interactive exhibits and the presence on site, on film and in publications of comic book hero "Captain Nauticus" and his "Ocean Force" who "explored and protected the Ocean." This was, seemingly, edu-tainment at its most sophisticated. But with success measured, almost exclusively for financial reasons, by attendance, Nauticus was soon in trouble. A high admission price, combined with a preference for tourist dollars over community involvement and support in an area full of other well established visitor attractions, soon meant that the economics were not working out. Nauticus essentially collapsed; "Captain Nauticus" went the way of his Director, whose theme park experience had not delivered the goods, that is, enough people through the gate, and the City of Norfolk was obliged to take over from the Board of Directors to make the institution an agency of the municipality. Nauticus, nevertheless, remains a multifaceted experience and the eclectic nature of its various presentations is certainly not without interest . The virtual adventure, however, in which the visitor rides a submersible in search of the eggs of the Loch Ness monster has now definitely taken a back seat to the concept of big, and if possible blockbuster, exhibits and permanent displays upon which educational

programming can be based. The varied nature of the permanent exhibit subject matter-from didactic exhibitions on ship design, mining the sea, oil spills, port loading, weather and naval warfare to an aquarium section that includes a "shark petting" pool and a "touch tank" - can now be considered as important complements to the temporary exhibits, the visiting ships and the AEGIS theatre where actors play out a battle situation and lead one to appreciate the incredible sophistication of the U.S . Navy's integrated surveillance and weapons systems. A visitor's understanding of the latter experience might be superficial but, despite the jingoism, it is entertaining and full of action . Today, having large temporary exhibitions for repeat visitors is clearly recognized as an important component of the visit to Nauticus . Whether or not artifacts are involved (they were absent from the recent Antarctica exhibition) is not seemingly important and certainly, as demonstrated by the willingness to show items from the Titanic or the booty of treasure hunters, there is little obvious concern for the principles surrounding underwater archaeology that maritime museums are obliged to acknowledge and honour. Although outwardly much remains the same from a few years ago (obviously one cannot replace a multi-million dollar infrastructure that easily) there has been a subtle shift in emphasis . The concept of the "urban theme park" has given way to that of "science centre" and one senses that Nauticus will increasingly commit itself to the presentation of science and technology in the context of man's relationship with the ocean. Against a backdrop of the natural wonder and power of the sea, Nauticus will subscribe to the idea of fun and learning . Certainly, once the two university-sponsored science laboratories are fully part of the visitor


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galleries, there will be the potential for some real learning about the ecology of the sea .

Nauticus is not a museum and does not aspire to be one. A direct comparison with maritime museums therefore is necessarily subject to some important limitations . However it does use a wide variety of museological conventions in its display and interpretation techniques, is in direct partnership onsite with a naval museum (The Hampton Roads Naval Museum) and a Tugboat Museum, presents visiting exhibitions and offers educational programming . Like all museums it is also concerned with the details of effective visitor service and naturally offers a restaurant and a well stocked gift store. While seemingly simplistic therefore, the question is a little more complicated: Does the Nauticus experience offer any useful insights for maritime museums in their quest to encourage learning and an appreciation of maritime history and material culture? First, it must be re-emphasized, there can be no substitute for the power of collections backed by curatorial research . Intrinsically, museums have an advantage over display/interpretation centres. Within a few miles of Nauticus is The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, widely considered to be one of the most important institutions of its kind in the United States . The issue is not so much the richness of its collections and the research potential of a great library and archives; rather it is the ability to use the power of artifacts in exhibitions based on that research, and as the central elements in an exhibit not as mere illustrations for a story being told in words, photographs, or film . While a number of the galleries at the museum are in need of renovation, the objects themselves remain magnificent and come into their own in the Chesapeake Gallery where not just the objects themselves make for a fascinating experience, but the all-important human presence is strong throughout the complementary interpretation. At Nauticus there is a wealth of information, much of it basically interesting and colourfully presented, but there is a textbook dryness about the "Principles of Ship Design" and "The Modern Navy" that cry out for the presence of objects to give the displays an extra meaning and another dimension to both the technology and the human stories involved . We often fall short of presenting our collections in more than a single dimension. The fishing skiff is more than the reality of an image in a photograph or a film; it represents the tools and genius of its maker, the activities of the

different seasons, a social and commercial dynamic. Likewise our museums are full of wonderful navigational instruments. But the chronometer, for example, is rarely interpreted as more than the instrument that "solved the problem of longitude" rather than as a multidimensional object of material culture and metaphor for an age in which the visitor is engaged by questions surrounding inventiveness and design, the materials used, the drama of solving the longitude riddle and the circumstances of how the earliest clocks went to sea. However short we fall in doing justice to our artifacts as objects to be read, appreciated and understood, there is no dispute that the core value of the museum are the things that give it its raison d'etre and fundamental attractiveness . For this reason what might have been just another Titanic exhibit at The Mariners' Museum was unusually special because it featured not artifacts from the deep but a host of simple passenger artifacts - things that had obviously been tucked into a pocket or a bag as their owner scrambled into one of the lifeboats. The context was one of social history made all the more intriguing as each visitor was given a replica ticket ; at the end of the exhibit one could check on the fate of one's alter ego. Secondly, it needs to be understood that "interaction" is not synonymous with engagement . From the moment when buttons were first pushed to start a film clip or to activate a model, museums have taken pride in themselves as "hands-on" and interactive ; it was as if we felt the need to apologize for our artifacts being "hands-off." In fact these early "interactives" - and many of their successors today were nothing of the sort, being actually "reactive"; the visitor having pushed a button is left to watch or listen and is invited to interact or engage no further. One of the interactives at Nauticus clearly demonstrates this failure to move beyond the most simplistic of activities and thus to miss a real opportunity for learning to take place, in this case about the interplay of principles involved in retrieving and displaying marine artifacts. The subject of this particular "interactive video terminal" was locating and bringing up treasure from the wreck of the SS Central America. The visitor was invited to activate a number of short video clips about "The Ship," "The Team," "Locating the Wreck," and "Finding the Mother Lode," and these were obviously not without some basic interest . Completely absent, however, was any attempt to engage the visitor, through the posing of questions or


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the offer of choices that would have involved him or her in the great debate that engulfed this story when the wreck was found by a treasurehunting consortium in 1987. There is no inkling of a reference to the fact that through a long series of court cases some vital principles about the "exploitation" of shipwrecks were established, which are crucial to all educational institutions, including Nauticus that, given the chance, will want to display such underwater artifacts. These principles include the fact that original owners still have rights and that salvers cannot ignore their obligations to preservation and education. On this occasion Nauticus played for what could be called the "treasure angle" and missed the opportunity to move beyond that one dimension. Incorporating high-tech equipment and well thought out programs into exhibits is extremely expensive. If the only result is a simple film clip, if "fun" a la arcade is the chief motivating factor rather than some expectation of learning and intellectual challenge, or if the noise and excitement of the setting reduces any learning opportunities to the level of mere play, then the exercise has to be considered largely a waste of time and money. Pushing a button to activate a train going round a port installation or pointing a cursor to activate a film clip is little progress indeed ; Nauticus could learn much from some of the more innovative opportunities being offered in other science centres let alone a number of maritime museums. These two issues - the use of collections and the use of active and interactive interpretation techniques - are inextricably linked in the central dilemma that faces maritime museums, indeed all history museums. This involves the fundamental contradiction of our institutions. History is a record of experience and events - it is a stream, a continuum. The museum, in contrast, is concerned with things it is basically static . The ship, the sail and the engine are all products of extensive human ingenuity and endeavour but as objects they tell little of the work itself: similarly they have had a life of use and motion, but this essential characteristic has been lost. Lost, that is, without that information and interpretation that can attempt at least to challenge the imagination. Maritime museums have made enormous strides in bringing this necessary colour to their exhibits, but

it is not always easy as demonstrated by the reaction of a colleague who, having the opportunity to visit a museum ship upon which he had once sailed, stated that to him it was dead . The fact that it had been lovingly restored and preserved and well interpreted was not enough ; the essential element of motion had of course been lost. The danger of overreacting to the activity, colour end sheer energy of a Nauticus is that we risk relegating our artifacts into the role of mere bystander in the visitor experience . Museums must continue to seek out and utilize all the most innovative techniques in design and interpretation and to make our institutions less sepulchral, but we must oppose one dimensional market driven administrators and their acolytes who would compromise the central reason for our being - the display of objects from which our visitors, if we assist and encourage them, can learn infinitely more then from the purely informative display. Artifacts, curatorial insight and educational inventiveness are the essential trinity of any museum's existence and, if we do it right, "they will come" as has been proven time and time again. The warning bell sounding is that the quantity of the experiences cannot be more important than the quality of the experience ; this is the sombre and incredibly expensive lesson of Nauticus's first few years. We cannot afford to appeal to the lowest common denominator; rather we must aim to explore the widest variety of denominators . In the end museums must succeed as learning centres, displaying and interpreting with pride their unique collections, not as edutainment centres, mildly distracting and superficially fun. Learning can be fun too, but it is not entertainment. That is why in the final analysis Nauticus has little to offer maritime museums about either exhibit technique or learning ; it is, sadly and expensively, rather superficial and shallow. It is also why an experience like that in a small corner of The Mariners' Museum among real artifacts from the Monitor, with an informative video and a costumed interpreter explaining, questioning and yes! interacting - with a small group of youngsters, offers the hope of a lasting and infinitely more rewarding experience.


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Book Reviews ,t3'

14

Comptes rendus de livres Eileen Reid Marcil, Tall Ships and Tankers: The History of Davie Shipbuilders JoHv G. AmsoN Marcil, Eileen Reid. Tall Ships and Tankers: The History of Davie Shipbuilders. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997 . xii + 604 pp ., including appendices, notes, bibliography, glossary, list of ships, and indexes. Cloth $45, ISBN 0-77105666-4 . Available in French under the title Au rythme desmarees. One of the greatest artifacts of our maritime heritage is the shipyard. Eileen Reid Marcil has taken up her pen to document the long history of the Davie shipyard in Levis, Quebec, its family roots, its varied products, its changing management, and some of the people who have worked to keep the yard alive. Tall Ships and Tankers: The History of the Davie Shipbuilders, the result of eight years of research and writing, had its conception at a chance meeting between the author and the marketing vice-president of MIL Davie . Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the primarypurpose of the book appears to be more related to marketing and public relations than to history. According to the book, the yard was then in the midst of major productivity improvement efforts that threatened management's relationship with labour. As a result, the book is given little opportunity to be an incisive historical analysis and interpretation . Instead of painting a detailed and integrated canvas of the complex history of a shipbuilding business, Tall Ships and Tankers endeavours to glorify the distant pest, provide an apologia for the recent past, hold in fair light the efforts of management and work force to build and repair great ships (and oil platforms and other structures), and try to rally internal and external support for future work at the yard. It is no surprise then, that the author, in her preface, identifies the book's mission: "to be a factual

account written primarily for the shipyard's past and present employees and their families." The book is organized largely around the chronology of shipyard managers and owners, beginning with an overview of shipbuilding in colonial Quebec and a description of the development of the South Shore towns of Levis and Lauzon. When Allison Davie married shipbuilder George Taylor's daughter in 1825, a shipbuilding partnership was begun that eventually became Davie Shipbuilding . Taylor's Quebec shipbuilding establishment moved across the river in 1832 to Levis, to begin a long-lasting roller coaster of good and bad times in the ship building and repairing business . Davie family members, including Elizabeth Davie, remained central players in Quebec-area shipbuilding for one hundred and twenty-five years . Interestingly enough, between the Quebec and Levis yards, new ship construction occurred in only about twenty of the firm's first eighty-five years in business . The rest of the time, work came from ship salvage, repair, steamboat, and towing services . After the First World War, Canada Steamship Lines became the owner of the business and operated the yard through difficult times and exciting times, even through the shipping company's takeover by Power Corporation, until 1976 . The book follows the many management and ownership changes, up to the shipyard's present owner, the Dominion Bridge Corporation. While there are long stretches of the book filled with prosaic listings of ships built mixed with resum6s of managers and owners, there are occasionally intriguing pieces of historical reportage. Among them is, for example, the colourful description of the management style of Takis Veliotis, who was skilled in bringing industrial work to the yard and showing inter-


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est in workers' family lives . He was also very difficult to work with, and some of his management style resulted in his skipping the country to take another job at General Dynamics Quincy Shipyard in Massachusetts . Overall, the book carries out its basic mission, and little more . It recounts the ups and downs of shipbuilding work and identifies the company's bright spots over a one hundred and seventy-year history, both among the construction contracts and among those who made the shipyard work. The book is profusely illustrated with images from countless sources. Yet, there are almost no photographs of ships under construction that would tell more about the yard's technical approach to shipbuilding. To the "shipyard's past and present employees and their families," the book is a nice keepsake for the generations who dedicated their lives to building and repairing ships. To the historian, though, To]] Ships and Tankers is a disappointment . Even when compared with other corporate histories, it leaves much to be desired in its dearth of contextual treatment of the historical fabric . Although it focuses on the dealings of upper management, it is far from being a useful business history of the sort provided by Moss and Hume on the Harland and Wolff shipbuilders . Nor does this book have the depth of a general history such as Lin Snow's history of Bath Iron Works. Relatively little political context is provided on both the provincial and national levels . For example, there is no clue given whether the ascendancy of the Parti Qu6becois in 1976 had anything to do with the shipyard's bad publicity and its subsequent sale to a group of Quebec businessmen, organized as the Soci6t6 de construction de navale. And, shouldn't we be surprised that almost nothing is mentioned about the long

hegemony of British Protestants in a shipyard full of French Catholics? Only minimal treatment is given to the politics behind Canadian shipbuilders' long subjection to and eventual freedom from government preferences for British shipbuilders . This reviewer also would like to have seen more detailed history on the organization and application of new shipbuilding technologies . The book falls particularly short, though, in its handling of labour history. Not only was the story of labour given short shrift, the book needed more labour statistics, showing changes in wage rates, employment figures, hours worked, piecework policies, benefits, and the like . Certainly, one important story that is missing is whether or not women ever joined the production force, particularly during the Second World War. It is painfully apparent that Dr Marcil had limited access to corporate archives after the Canada Steamship Lines period, and most of the sources she used for the shipyard's last twenty or so years were interviews and published sources, usually cleansed for public consumption. Despite the fact that the book is replete with notes, few cite sources of information. Corporate histories, commissioned by corporations, are a difficult breed apart from histories coming out of the academy. They usually have very specific missions and limit the freedom of the author to tell the entire story. Considering these typical limitations, Dr Mercil has helped to save a large piece of shipbuilding history that would likely otherwise have been lost forever. Shipyards, like the companies that run them, are artifacts of human endeavor. They ought to be studied and fully interpreted, in context, for the benefit of generations to come.

Jamie Benidickson, Idleness, Water and a Canoe: Reflections on Paddling for Pleasure HALLiE E. Bo1vD Benidickson, Jamie . Idleness, Water and a Canoe : Reflections on Paddling for Pleasure . Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1997 . 299 pp ., 30 illus . Cloth $55 .00, ISBN 0-8020-0945X ; paper $17 .95, ISBN 0-8020-7910-5 .

Jamie Benidickson undertook a very ambitious project, and a very worthwhile one - nothing

less than a "study of the place of the canoe in Canadian life ." His subtitle reveals his general approach, and the reader should keep this approach in mind. While there is a good deal of history in the book (much of it fascinating and not well explored elsewhere) the book is indeed "reflections," rather than a history, since the usual standards of historical scholarship and


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organization have been unevenly applied. This ultimately reduces the value of this work to the historian or student of material culture. While this is nominally a book of reflections, they are not the author's reflections like another recent work on riparian life, John Jerome's extremely well-done Blue Rooms: Ripples, Rivers, Pools, and Other Waters (New York : Henry Holt and Co ., 1997). Jerome develops his own observations, buttressing them with references from human and natural history, and presenting them in his own eloquent and elegant style. Benidickson has used the essayist's random "reflective" way of organizing his work, but he uses other people's observations, sociological studies, recent news items and historical vignettes. The wide variety of sources Benidickson uses will intrigue students of material culture and Canadian studies. He relies heavily on first person published accounts, but also includes biographical material, contemporary advertisements, political cartoons, sculpture and popular literature . An interdisciplinary book like this could have benefited from even more illustrations, and ones that were integrated in the text rather than collected in two sections . Most of the illustrations are well chosen to complement the text, but some, like the ice-canoe photo and the photo of the dragon boat, seem to be only peripherally connected to the story. Benidickson explores three major themes : the attractions of recreational canoe use, the practice of wilderness travel, and the cultural legacy of canoeing . He is strongest on the themes to which his "reflections" style is best suited: why people paddle for pleasure and the experience of canoeing . While none of this is directly about canoes as material objects, the book is useful to the student of material culture in establishing a context for the development and use of canoes for recreation . Why do people paddle for pleasure? Benidickson discusses the attractions of solitude, the spiritual aspects of the wilderness, and the benefits of outdoor exercise to both the body and the character, but he neglects to discuss actual physiological benefits . It is surprising, for example, that he did not explore the scientific claims for the "balsamic vapours" and ozone of the woods that were believed to revitalize the body as the solitude of the woods revitalized the spirit or the "wilderness cure" for consumption. Benidickson's anecdotal style is well suited to exploring the experiences of a wide variety of people who have paddled for pleasure, many

of whom have been neglected by most historians. The discussion of children's summer camps is particularly useful . His chapter about canoeing women is strongest when he discusses women of the late nineteenth century. Nevertheless, he hasn't uncovered any surprises about nineteenth and early twentieth-century women and occasionally uses a somewhat patronizing tone . Exploration of how canoeists paddle, build boats and camp form the weakest parts of the book . The essayist's style leaves large gaps in themes, which the historian would wish more systematically explored . The technology of canoe design and production is perhaps the most significant of these and one of particular importance to the study of material culture. Benidickson's chapters "What Kinda Boat Ya Got?" and "The Craft and the Craftsman" attempt to sort out and establish a chronology for the development of Canadian canoe types (an admittedly murky story) but they almost totally neglect to include the influence of the pressure of the market . For a Canadian book, it is particularly surprising that there is very little discussion of the famed cedar-strip method of construction, the market which brought it about, and its advantages for factory production. Benidickson is not rigorous in his use of the historical method. He often neglects to examine systematically change over time . In many cases, his evidence is solely prescriptive - literature, advertisements, or what people said about themselves ; rarely does he test the conclusions drawn from this type of material with statistics or other, more objective sources. He also makes factual errors throughout the book, as well, which raise concerns (founded or not) about the rest of his work; he confuses the early unplanked type of canvas canoe (which did not take off) with classic cedar-canvas construction (which revolutionized canoe building), and he gives the wrong date for the establishment of the New York State Forest Preserve . He has not used the most up-to-date sources in some cases; his secondary work on the Adirondacks is eighteen years old and has been superseded by several, much more thorough works . It is surprising that Benidickson doesn't define "canoe" until chapter nine, and then he makes no reference to the characteristic narrowness of the type . This seems to indicate a very broad notion of canoes and canoeing . The object-conscious historian will notice that Benidickson often uses as examples anecdotes about decked sailing canoes and open cruising canoes of the cedar-strip or wood-canvas type


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interchangeably, and even occasionally includes evidence from the history of sculling .

Benidickson is also vague on the definition of "pleasure paddler." His examples include early visitors to the wilderness who were under the care of professional guides as well as the members of the ill-fated Wallace-Hubbard expeditions in Labrador in the early part of this century. The former I would not define as "paddlers" since they were passive with regards to the actual transportation . The latter were certainly not in the bush for pleasure or recreation - Dillon Wallace and the Hubbards would have described themselves as explorers. Idleness, Water and a Canoe is an absorbing look at the people who have paddled canoes as canoeing moved away from its origins as utilitarian transportation . The book gives context to the way in which the evolution of paddling paralleled the evolution of thinking about the wilderness from consumable resource to thinking about the wilderness as a repository of spiritual values - a fundamental evolution in the development of outdoor recreation . What Benidickson does not elaborate on, although he includes much evidence of it, is a third phase in the evolution of paddling for pleasure in this century. In the twentieth century, much canoeing has completely lost its connection with destinations. This development began

around the turn of the century when many of the canoes on the water were being paddled by people who rented them at city liveries such as those on the Charles River in Boston and paddled around for an hour or an afternoon. In the late twentieth century, many canoeists repeatedly shoot short stretches of rapids, "portaging" to the head of the run by car. Just being in a canoe is the aim. Jamie Benidickson has given us an overview of the place canoeing has had in Canadian life for a century or more with evidence that almost always assumes a very close connection between paddling a canoe and what many would call "the wilderness experience ." NonCanadian readers may wonder if it isn't just an accident of geography that the wilderness experience in Canada is primarily gained from the quarterdeck of a canoe, for in the United States the reactions to wilderness Benidickson explores have been gained - and philosophized about - not only from a small boat, but from the back of a horse or on foot. What Jamie Benidickson has given us is not only a look at one place of the canoe in Canadian life, but the suggestion that the strong connection between canoeing and the distinctive Canadian landscape has much to do with the place of the canoe in Canadian consciousness .

Richard Hoffinann, Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages WENDY R. CHII,DS Hoffinann, Richard . Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages . Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1997 . xv + 403 pp ., illus . Cloth $60, ISBN 08020-0869-0 ; paper $24 .95, ISBN 0-8020-7853-2 .

Richard Hoffmann's Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art is a book packed with information for the historian, the literary specialist, and the angler. Although it is far less written about than sea fisheries, fresh water fishing is nonetheless well recognized for its importance to the diet and economy of communities so far inland that sea fish came only salted, smoked, or dried. Professor Hoffinan's book is most welcome as a further contribution to the recognition of its importance. It is not a general history of freshwater fishing (although it gives a succinct historical overview), but a detailed analysis of

three early treatises on fishing from Germany and Spain. Specialists will find intriguing references not only to baits and artificial flies, but to lines, rods, lead weights, pots, traps, and lift nets . The three are How to Catch Fish (Wie man fisch und vogel fahen soll) : a tract in 27 chapters and associated texts first printed by Jacob Kobel in Heidelberg in 1493 ; Tegernsee Fishing advice, circa 1500, the so-called Tegernseer Angel- und Fischbuchlein, from manuscript Cgm 8137 in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich; and Fernando Basurto's Dialogue between a Hunter and a Fisher printed in Zaragoza in 1539. All three are provided in parallel texts with extensive textual and historical notes, as well as extremely interesting introductions and commentaries . The first short printed treatise is essentially a collection of recipes for bait, both for line


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fishing and fish traps. The flavour of the book can be seen in chapter 25 when a bait mixed of human blood, saffron, pressed barley flour, unrisen bread wheat and doe's tallow is recommended . Recipes are also given for poisoning fish . The urge is clearly to catch fish in some numbers. It includes a list of fish and the months when they are at their best, and a short comparison of fish along the lines of "a stickleback is a king . A fresh-run salmon is a lord." The treatise has literary overtones with references to Albertus Magnus and to exotic imported ingredients for some of its baits and potions, but Hoffmann's notes indicate that it remains essentially a practical handbook. The second text is an individual collection of information in manuscript only from the Tegernsee Abbey and without a clear pattern. Its importance lies in that it offers the earliest descriptions of tying artificial flies (although the practice is referred to much earlier), and advises different flies for different seasons and waters. It provides instructions for making a good angling line for grayling, and a miscellany of local recipes for bait with fewer exotic elements than the first. It then incorporates many of the recipes of the first treatise, How to Catch Fish . The third treatise is very different . It is a debate between hunter and fisher, which is consciously literary and explicitly extols fishing as a sport. It sets out to prove the fisher superior to the hunter by emphasizing the patience, repose and contemplation to be found in fishing. However, it too provides practical advice and information at the end on bait, flies, and rods . Unlike the others it includes seafishing with long lines from shore as well as freshwater fishing, and its baits are those appropriate to local Spanish conditions . The texts are interesting not only for their content, but for their contrasts with each other as literary texts. As Hoffmann points out, by being written at all the information has entered the literary sphere and has left the practical oral tradition that normally disseminated the skills of crafts including fishing. But each has its own level of literariness .The Tegernsee text remains closest to local oral traditions, with no

literary pretensions, except that it copies extracts from the printed treatise of 1493 . That treatise is already one stage removed from the local craftsman with its reference to Albertus Magnus and inclusion of recipes with exotic imported ingredients unlikely to be available to most country fishermen. The third is consciously a highly sophisticated literary device, not uncommon in the period, acting as a vehicle for moralizing, teaching and entertaining the literate leisured class, to whom fishing could be a sport rather than a means of livelihood . Hoffmann's commentaries are excellent in providing each text with its own precise historical and geographical context, as well as in providing a clear overview of the importance of fish in the middle ages, and of the exact position of these three texts in the early writings on fishing. He points out that, although these are the earliest manuscripts and printed books which could be called treatises, earlier individual bait recipes can be found in collections of miscellaneous information and scribbled in margins of manuscripts. He also relates them to contemporary writings in England at this period, long before Izaak Walton's wellknown Compleat Angler. Hoffinann's notes to the content of the texts are exemplary and clearly the fruit of long engagement with angling. They are exceptionally full and careful, identifying precisely many of the plants, worms, larva and insects used, indicating how far the bait should work, and analysing the sort of rivers the texts were written about. Altogether this is an interesting book for the scholar and for the fisherman. Hoffinan's broad approach provides the practical, historical, literary and geographical commentary necessary to ensure a wide range of readers can benefit from it . His choice of contemporary illustrations also provides visual evidence of some of the equipment used by contemporary fishermen. This is a specialist book but one which has been made accessible to more general readers, and which provides a further valuable building block toward the eventual writing of a history of fresh-water fisheries.


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John Szarkowski and Richard Benson, A Maritime Album: 100 Photographs and Their Stories N. LYr .ES FoxBEs Szarkowski, John and Richard Benson. A Maritime Album : 100 Photographs and Their Stories. Newport News: The Mariners' Museum and Yale University Press, 1997 . 245 pp ., including supplemental checklist . Cloth US$39 .95, ISBN 0-300-07342-9 ; paper US$24.95, ISBN 0-300-07399-2 . Selecting one hundred photographs to represent a collection of over six hundred thousand is an enormously difficult feat . The images compiled and presented here by John Szarkowski are superb, reflecting the breadth and diversity of the archives at the Mariners' Museum . The images are randomly arranged making this book highly enjoyable either to browse or explore in depth. Each photograph was chosen because of what it reveals about the relationship between humanity and the sea, and because of its visual appeal (p . 14). The images range in time from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the mid-1950s, reflecting major shifts in technology, industries that have been surpassed by new methods and materials, and the explosion of leisure activity upon the water. And while readers should not expect to come away with a comprehensive understanding of America's maritime heritage, their perspective will certainly be enriched. The authors who collaborate on this album are both influencial in the field of photography. John Szarkowski is the noted author of at least two important works on photography, and Richard Benson created a new standard, both technically and artistically, of photomechanical and photoelectronic print reproduction . Purchasers of this album should also note that Szarkowski is not only a historian and photographer, but the retired Director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York . Likewise, Richard Benson is the Dean of the School of Art at Yale University. As the book's subtitle indicates, this is an album of both photographs and stories ; the latter having been penned for the viewer by Richard Benson. The images are of course mute, and cannot speak for themselves . They require interpretation, the quality of which ultimately distinguishes any topical collection of images or artifacts.

Photographs make no effort to create sense out of a scene, as painting traditionally did, but only lay out the jumble of facts. Occasionally a viewer comes along who cannot tolerate this indefiniteness and so declares the subject with some notation or enlightening caption. Often this description bears little relation to the scene that generated the picture, but a written declaration convinces us with authority based on centuries of literacy in our society (p . 112)

The above extract from Benson's story accompanying an exquisite photograph entitled "Horse-Drawn Lifeboat" underscores the major failing of this work. Richard Benson was presented with one hundred images to interpret. Unfortunately for the viewer, few of his descriptions bear any direct relevance to the scene that generated the picture. But because he has put words alongside an image we are encouraged to accept his authority. Apart from the poor quality of many of the descriptions, there is the lack of primacy given to the photographs. Even the elegant presentation of the images is not enough to command the viewer's complete attention; for often the photographs must compete with the stories, when more concise and understated interpretations are warranted. For example, one of the most stunning photographs, both technically and artistically, is that of the "Bark Garthsnaid" (p . 115) . The unknown photographer is precariously positioned in the leeward rigging as the heeling bark is pounded in heavy seas . Instead of allowing viewers to be awed by the scene before them, Benson cannot stop himself from describing the action as if the image did not exist. This particular photograph should simply have been allowed to stand with minimal interference . On the other hand, he could hardly be more insightful than he is with the final photograph, "Deadrise Boat Under Construction" (p. 217) . Here he writes : "Something even more ancient than boatbuilding is going on here, however. This is the process of learning by doing, the handing down of craft and understanding from parent to child." Benson goes on to lament the shift away from this process to one of learning from books and verbal lessons. This testimony combined with a stunning photograph only emphasizes what this entire album might have achieved .


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Unwilling to let brevity stand in the way of a story, occasionally Benson simply gets it wrong. He asserts in the Levick photograph "Shamrock and Resolute" (p . 165) that one can see the effects of hogging on Shamrock by comparing her lines to that of Resolute. He might have a point if Resolute was not between the viewer and Shamrock, heeled over in a light breeze and sailing slightly away from the viewer. Never mind that both yachts were a good distance from Levick when he took the shot . When on occasion the story does happen to be brief, as it is with the "Sound Muffling Trunk" (p . 142), the viewer is left with insignificant conjecture about an image that would have benefited greatly from more research . Then, in "Letters Salvaged from the Empress of Ireland" (p . 116), Benson spends an inordinate amount of space expressing his amazement at how the mail system functions, when a more important question might have been why the

photographer felt that the letters were important enough to record in the first place. Overall there are too few instances where the viewer is enlightened with any substantial interpretation. As "photography once more rolls out its own seductive version of the truth" (p . 164), so, it seems, does Richard Benson . Greater editorial control would have remedied Benson's case of logorrhea, and placed the stories in a more supportive role to the photographs which are the orginal reason for the album. Benson asks us in the story of "Raising the Lord Dufferin" (p .134) "to suspend our analytical eye and enjoy a photograph for what it is" only to continue his own analysis for another entire paragraph. The publication would have fared better had he taken his own advice more often. One must then ask whether Szarkowski, whose background as an author, and Benson, who has set a new standard of photographic reproduction, should not have switched roles in this publication .

Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston, From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver ANNE GODLEWSKA Fisher, Robin and Hugh Johnston . From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1993 . 365 pp ., 18 illus ., 7 maps . Cloth $39 .95, ISBN 0-77480470-X

Maps and Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver is the treasure box that its title promises : full of interesting things, some old and some valuable . Books about exploration and discovery certainly have changed in the last couple of decades.' This book reflects how happy that change is . From a story told by one man about the heroism of the explorers, the wonder of their scientific instruments and calculations, the geopolitics guiding their steps ,2 these books have evolved into tales told from multiple points of view. This work, focused on George Vancouver's appearance in the Pacific, is multi-authored, multi-disciplinary and suggestive of how rich history can be when written critically. In the first chapter Ben Finney describes the surprise and fascination with which Vancouver's predecessor, Cook, and his crew discovered the extent and consistency of a Polynesian culture spread over 3000 kilometres between

Tahiti and New Zealand. Finney describes the unprecedented European curiosity that embraced the native peoples' language and culture but also focused on their shipping and navigational skills and the way these were adapted to the peculiar climatic conditions of the South Pacific. These observations brought Cook and his associates to very early and remarkably sound hypotheses about the origins and migrations of the Polynesians. The next five chapters by Glyndwr Williams, Andrew David, Alun Davies, James Gibson and Alan Frost are amongst the most traditional in the book . They focus on the mapping effected during Vancouver's voyage, the clock technology revolutionizing oceanic travel at the time and the geopolitics of exploration . It is because Vancouver does not himself describe his mapping operations, that Andrew David must reconstruct them from several sources. He uses Vancouver's descriptions of his map making operations in other regions of the world and his charts of the Pacific coast. David also essays the instructions sent by Major James Rennell, surveying and astronomical manuals and instruments known to have been on board and accounts of Cook's voyages and mapping


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procedures. It is an elegant argument requiring like the mapping David describes - the careful balancing of various sources of information . Alun Davies' chapter on Vancouver's chronometers provides some fascinating statistics on the cost of these instruments, how many were produced from the 1770s on, the way they were used, their performance, and the speed with which this technology spread . James Gibson clarifies why the Russians, who had been trading for high quality furs on the west coast of America long before the British or Spanish appeared there, nevertheless were little evident when Vancouver arrived on the scene. The reasons for this are many but include the logistical difficulty of mounting expeditions across the continental expanse of Russia, the lack of a Russian fleet and navigational experience, and Russia's relative backwardness in the technologies needed for exploration : map making, printing, medicine and nutrition, and shipbuilding and navigation. Alan Frost describes the conflict between Spain and Britain. From the Spanish point of view the issue was control of the Upper Pacific coast of North America, in particular Nootka Sound; and from the British point of view, it involved access to a fur trade between that region and China. The British won the access they sought by sheer force of bullying, well supported by the ideology of free trade. The next four chapters are amongst the most innovative and exciting in the book. They are all, to some extent, focused on the "encounter" and on the indigenous cultures of the North and South Pacific . Christon Archer describes the efforts of the Spanish to negotiate with and understand the indigenous peoples of the northwest coast of America. He describes relations of restrained violence, confusion, miscommunication, frustration, lost patience, and conflicting aims between the Spanish and the native peoples, between native groups and between a variety of Spanish interests. It is clear from this account that the "encounter" took place in conditions and an atmosphere guaranteed to thwart any coherent policy. Yvonne Marshall takes a closer look at the geopolitics of three distinctive Indian trading blocks on the west coast of Vancouver Island and what is now the northwest tip of Washington State. Each of the groups negotiated for control of the trade with both the Spanish and the English and were profoundly affected by similar games being played by their prospective trading partners . Of striking note is her description of the friendship that grew up between the most powerful of the indigenous

leaders, Maquinna and the Spanish Captain Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra and the destabilizing impact on the coastal geopolitics of the replacement of Spanish power with British power, represented by Captain George Vancouver. Victoria Wyatt's chapter is probably the most innovative and fascinating in the collection. In the absence of written sources documenting the encounter from the indigenous point of view, Wyatt uses native art of the time of the "encounter" to document the response of native culture to the European incursion into the North Pacific. The impact can be traced in the use of new materials, innovation with art forms and the development of art works depicting non-native peoples. The fact that these latter entailed a sharp move away from traditional imagery is suggestive of the recognition of a profound dissonance between the Europeans and indigenous cosmography. A highly speculative chapter, it suggests some of the potential of approaches not restricted to and structured by documentary sources.3 In the last of the chapters devoted primarily to the indigenous experience, the story moves to New Zealand, Norfolk Island and the South Pacific. Anne Salmond tells a compelling tale of the kidnapping of two Maori men by the Commander of Vancouver's supply ship . The British government hoped that the Maori could teach the convicts engaged in hard labour on Norfolk Island how to process flax and thus make it a viable commercial product. The tale is a rare and unexpected one of honour, respect and friendship in a context of violence and easy betrayal . The consequences of this exchange, and it really was an exchange, were profound, especially for Maori culture and history. The last three chapters return to a European frame of reference with an emphasis on writing about the South Pacific. W. Kaye Lamb looks at the ship doctor's journal written on the Vancouver expedition and locates it within the political nexus of hostility between Joseph Banks and George Vancouver. K. R. Howe comes back to the theme first explored in this collection by Ben Finney, the lack of understanding by Europeans of the indigenous cultures of the South Pacific. Howe, in an interesting review of the major European thinkers interested in Polynesian culture, explores the reasons, both psychological and political, for the peculiar images of Polynesian culture held by Europeans. The book closes with an intriguing essay by David Mackay that explores the place of the South Pacific in European delusions,


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fantasy and fiction. This is a theme already touched upon in a more traditional way by Glyndwr Williams . Mackay argues that fiction has been a far more powerful motivating force in exploration - and perhaps in many other realms - than ever was fact . In general, books of collected essays lack the sustained analytical focus of single-authored works. What they can offer is a diversity of view. Roughly a third of the essays in this book might have been written in the 1960s or 1970s.

The rest are deeply informed by preoccupations and approaches of the 1990s. The book lacks a conclusion end its introduction is presumptive rather than critical . The opening address by the Squamish Chief Philip Joe is more token than a convincing declaration of commitment to a balanced and critical approach to the history of the "encounter." Nevertheless, the quality of scholarship in most of the chapters and the imaginative flair of two thirds of the book carry it .

NoTEs 1.

First O'Gorman, then Jennings and finally Todorov sent off the opening salvoes with Edmundo O'Gorman, The Invention ofAmerica: An Inquiryinto the Historical Nature of the New World and the Meaning of Its History (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1961) ; Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America, Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (New York : Norton Co . Inc., 1975); and Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (New York: Harper & Row, 1984). For a strong sense of new and important trends see Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1991); R. Cole Harris, The Resettlement of British Columbia : Essays on Colonialism and Geographical Change (Vancouver : UBC Press, 1997); Ken G. Brealey, "Mapping them Out: Euro-Canadian Cartography and the Appropriation of the Nuxalk and Ts'ilhqot' in First Nations' Territories, 1793-1916," The Canadian Geographer 39, 2 (Summer 1995): 1140-156 ; and Karl W. Butzer (ed.) "The Americas Before and

2.

3.

After 1492 : Current Geographical Research," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82, 3 (September 1992). The traditional history of "discovery" has been a popular topic of research since the early nineteenth century. The best of the work of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s came from the pen and influence of David Beers Quinn. See Victoria Wyatt's book : Shapes of their Thoughts : Reflections of Culture Contact in Northwest Coast Indian Art (Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984). Of recent interest are Janet Catherine Berlo, ed ., The Early Years of Native American Art History (Seattle and London : University of Washington Press, 1992); Judy Sund, "Columbus and Columbia in Chicago, 1893 : Man of Genius Meets Generic Woman," Art Bulletin 75, 3 (September 1993): 442-446; and more popularly, Vickie Jensen, Where the People Gather : Carving a Totem Pole (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1992).

John E . Barnard, Building Britain's Wooden Walls: The Barnard Dynasty, 1697-1851 DANIEE>