The Missouri French Creole Folk Tale of Chasse Galerite
October 12, 2023 12:18 PM Subscribe
Chasse Galerite, a story told by one of the last fluent speakers of Missouri French Creole, Pierre Aloysius Boyer, was recorded almost half a century ago. It has now been paired with the graceful animation and art of Brian Hawkings, bringing new life and vitality to the story of a great French hunter in the late 1600s in North America.
This was quite charming, and I confess that I didn't even know there was a Missouri French Creole.
posted by zompist at 3:30 PM on October 12, 2023
posted by zompist at 3:30 PM on October 12, 2023
Very nice. And to my Anglo-Canadian ears, the French narration wasn't hard to follow!
posted by senor biggles at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by senor biggles at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Thanks for posting - a beautiful story and animation. Part of my family is from that area, so it was interesting to learn more, and inspiration to dig into the history a little.
posted by Otherwise at 7:15 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Otherwise at 7:15 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Wonderful - thank you! The peach tree had me laughing.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by McBearclaw at 9:05 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I may not be able to get to the video thanks to region restrictions, but thank you for sharing this. The link to Brian Hawking's site contains some still images from the video that are just lovely.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:21 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:21 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Disappearing Dialect Calls Small Missouri Town Home
I believe Dennis Stroghmatt , the fiddler -folklorist actually learned the dialect while working with the last Old Mines fiddlers. Missouri Creoles speaking Illinois Country French
posted by zaelic at 2:27 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I believe Dennis Stroghmatt , the fiddler -folklorist actually learned the dialect while working with the last Old Mines fiddlers. Missouri Creoles speaking Illinois Country French
posted by zaelic at 2:27 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Can't access the link (region locked....), but I'm wondering if it's related to the Chasse Gallerie which is a French Canadian legend that is a blend of French and First Nations legends.
I hunted for another platform, but unfortunately this was the only one I could find. Given the closeness in names, I thought there could be a connection - but on investigating, the closeness in name is pretty much it.
For those unable. to watch the video, below is a quick synopsis of the approximately 6 min film:
Unfortunately, I cannot locate a transcription/translation of the original story, either.
posted by Atreides at 6:57 AM on October 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
I hunted for another platform, but unfortunately this was the only one I could find. Given the closeness in names, I thought there could be a connection - but on investigating, the closeness in name is pretty much it.
For those unable. to watch the video, below is a quick synopsis of the approximately 6 min film:
it involves a hunter, Chasse Galerite, who has two different adventures. The first involves him hunting geese in winter and seeing them on a frozen river. Galerite decides to cut a hole in the ice and swim up under the geese, tying their feet together, and then hollering at them to fly (taking him out of the water and presumably, to ground where he has a flock of captured geese). The plan partially works, the geese fly, but up into the air and over the woods, where Chasse eventually lets go of the geese and falls into the forest. His landing is cushioned by a giant hollow tree, in which he is trapped for weeks, maybe months, with his beard growing so long it slips out of a crack in the tree and onto the forest floor. A passing hunter spots the beard, pulls at it, then discovers Chasse when Chasse shouts out in pain.
The second part of the story finds Chasse out in the woods, gathering berries, when he stumbles across a beautiful Native American woman. He immediately decides he wants to marry her and follows her to her village. However, her father, the chief, refuses to let them marry because his daughter deserves a great hunter for a husband. Chasse determines to prove this and accepts a challenge by the chief to go and hunt down a great deer. It is not long before he finds a great stag and when he goes to shoot the deer, he discovers the only ammunition he has is a peach pit, which he uses in lieu of a bullet. He fires and the stag runs away and the story goes forward a year with Chasse continuing his quest to land a great deer for the chief.
He comes across the stag from before, but now it has sprouted a peach tree where its antlers used to be, and he quickly chases the deer so he can have some peaches. The deer, with Chasse on it, runs through the woods and to a frozen river, where it falls through the ice with the French hunter. However, above him in the water, are a flock of geese, and Chasse uses his trick again of tying their feet together to fly him and the deer out of the water to the village to win the chief's permission to marry his daughter.
The second part of the story finds Chasse out in the woods, gathering berries, when he stumbles across a beautiful Native American woman. He immediately decides he wants to marry her and follows her to her village. However, her father, the chief, refuses to let them marry because his daughter deserves a great hunter for a husband. Chasse determines to prove this and accepts a challenge by the chief to go and hunt down a great deer. It is not long before he finds a great stag and when he goes to shoot the deer, he discovers the only ammunition he has is a peach pit, which he uses in lieu of a bullet. He fires and the stag runs away and the story goes forward a year with Chasse continuing his quest to land a great deer for the chief.
He comes across the stag from before, but now it has sprouted a peach tree where its antlers used to be, and he quickly chases the deer so he can have some peaches. The deer, with Chasse on it, runs through the woods and to a frozen river, where it falls through the ice with the French hunter. However, above him in the water, are a flock of geese, and Chasse uses his trick again of tying their feet together to fly him and the deer out of the water to the village to win the chief's permission to marry his daughter.
Unfortunately, I cannot locate a transcription/translation of the original story, either.
posted by Atreides at 6:57 AM on October 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Thank you for that summary, which is reminding me a lot of the Myaamia/Peoria stories about Wiihsakacaakwa.
The version recorded by the Peoria speaker George Finley in 1916 (which is "Text 13" in Costa's collection As Long as the Earth Endures, highly recommended, and is also in the Myaamia and Peoria Narratives and Winter Stories collection) has both the tying-geese-together and falling-into-a-hollow-tree elements. (But in Finley's version it's his pubic hair that sticks out through a hole in the trunk of the hollow tree, which causes him to be mistaken for a bear, etc.) That story has some background on how and why Wiihsakacaakwa was tricked into tying the geese together.
(In that version, his words to the hunters who were about to kill him as a bear are: "Wiici-mihtoseeniyomelakoki!", which has been translated as "I want to be a human with you!")
I wonder if Chasse Galerite was the standard Missouri French name for Wiihsakacaakwa? Are there other stories about him?
posted by Not A Thing at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
The version recorded by the Peoria speaker George Finley in 1916 (which is "Text 13" in Costa's collection As Long as the Earth Endures, highly recommended, and is also in the Myaamia and Peoria Narratives and Winter Stories collection) has both the tying-geese-together and falling-into-a-hollow-tree elements. (But in Finley's version it's his pubic hair that sticks out through a hole in the trunk of the hollow tree, which causes him to be mistaken for a bear, etc.) That story has some background on how and why Wiihsakacaakwa was tricked into tying the geese together.
(In that version, his words to the hunters who were about to kill him as a bear are: "Wiici-mihtoseeniyomelakoki!", which has been translated as "I want to be a human with you!")
I wonder if Chasse Galerite was the standard Missouri French name for Wiihsakacaakwa? Are there other stories about him?
posted by Not A Thing at 9:47 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Not A Thing, thank you for the awesome addendum of info!
If based on what comes up in a Google search, there doesn't appear to be a lot out there for Chasse Galerite, though, he tends to get swallowed up by the Chasse Galerie stories that (after review) are completely different. I left it out of the synopsis, but the union between Chasse and the Native American woman is represented as the founding of the Métis People in the story.
posted by Atreides at 12:50 PM on October 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
If based on what comes up in a Google search, there doesn't appear to be a lot out there for Chasse Galerite, though, he tends to get swallowed up by the Chasse Galerie stories that (after review) are completely different. I left it out of the synopsis, but the union between Chasse and the Native American woman is represented as the founding of the Métis People in the story.
posted by Atreides at 12:50 PM on October 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
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