#habitant

I’ve read Beltane Lowen’s book French Canadian Witchcraft: the History and Traditions of an Authentic North American Folk Magic Tradition (2003). 

It is important to note that while Lowen’s research is heavily influenced by his involvement in Wicca and the Order of the Golden Dawn and ceremonial magic, (he directly assumed that someone in the 1800s who saw women dancing around a fire at night to be witches worshipping the Goddess (and he heavily used Doreen Valiente as a source, which I find problematic), he still brought up some interesting points on the uniqueness of French Canadian culture, and his book aimed to prove that it is possible, given the folk customs of French Canada, to develop a spiritual practice from it. Studying Canadian and Métis history within my History degree in university, I found the historical information to be sound in this book. So let’s dig into French Canadian Witchcraft and what it could be. But first (bear with me), some historical context:

Picture: Early Acadia by Claude T. Picard

The Historical Context

The cultural uniqueness of French Canadians must be noted if we are to find out about their folk customs. While they were and still are to some extent a Catholic people, they created a syncretic culture melding indigenous practices with Catholic habits. Lowen noted that when they arrived in the early 1600s, the first French settlers arrived in a land where forests engulfed the continent, and the people living here were linguistically and culturally different than them. The only way to survive in this land was to accept the help of Indigenous peoples. Some chose to farm, but often, the money was in the fur trade. Because of their presence in the fur trade, French Canadians were often working in the woods, and establishing themselves within the vast trade network of Indigenous peoples across the continent, from Quebec to Louisiana. Their roaming territory was far larger than the 13 Colonies in the States, and they ventured out more. Once the beaver pelt fur trade collapsed in Europe, the French colonies became a liability to the European French, and they refused to back them up when the English invaded in 1763. Métis families started to form with this trade, and some French Canadians adopted the Indigenous culture and language they married into. At the least, they kept trade contacts with neighbouring nations. 

The French were outnumbered by the English on the continent, and so they sought more alliances with the Algonquian peoples. French Canadian culture, notably dance, music, dietary habits, language and technologies are heavily influenced by Indigenous cultures. Their worldview is of an isolated rural population tied to the land. The Voyageurs and Coureurs de Bois working in the fur trade or as free men often never returned home and stayed in the woods, some rarely attending Church. They married an Indigenous woman using the ‘a la façon du pays’ or country marriage method, angering the local clergy and French nobility newly disembarked in New France (later British North America). French Canadians were soon called “Habitants” and French Canadians soon called the new French nobility “les maudit Français”. There was already a very clearly distinct culture happening in French Canada, separate from its country of origin, France. French Canada rarely had any witchcraft related crimes within their culture, given their syncretic approach to folk customs. With the takeover of the English in 1763, witchcraft became punishable. 

French Canadians therefore kept a unique linguistic dialect apart from French from France, and while they were Catholic, they adapted to their surroundings and needs, mainly in the woods and with Indigenous cultures. French Canadian Witchcraft is then a practice that would invoke both sides of that syncretism, with an emphasis on a connection with nature. 

The French in Canada: a “Distinct” Society

Return from the Harvest Field by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Susor-Coté, 1903 (National Art Gallery of Canada) —ooo— The Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 February 1763, was a tragic event for the citizens of New France, the Canadiens. Jacques Cartier discovered Canada in 1534, and Port-Royal (Acadie) was settled in 1605, three years before the city of Quebec was settled. Therefore, in 1763, Nouvelle-France…

LATIN PHRASE OF THE DAY: OCULI IN VULTU ALICUIUS HABITANT – HIS EYES ARE ALWAYS FIXED ON SOME ONE’S FACE. #latin

LATIN: oculi in vultu alicuius habitant ENGLISH: his eyes are always fixed on some one’s face. Source: Project Gutenberg EBook of Latin Phrase-Book, by Carl Meissner and Henry William Auden Thank you for visiting!