Culture Tradition - Memorial University`s Digital Archives Initiative

Culture
&
Tradition
Vol. 13 1989
Culture & Tradition
1989
Volume XIII
Editorial NoteslEditorial
Editorial (Universitt Laval)
EdilOrial (Memorial University of Nnd.)...
.
..... Anne-Marie Poulin
.... .5
John A. Harries
..... 7
Articles
Iconographic actuelle du
Sacr~
.. Anne Marie Poulin
9
L'icOne de Marie, M~re de Dieu, Porte du Cie!:
Esquisse d'uR cheminement spirilUei ..
.
La Vierge Marie dans ('imaginaire des croyants:
analyse des pri~res d~pos~s Al'icOne de
Marie, M~re de Dieu, Porte du Cicl................
.
Women and Supernatural Dreams: A Case-Study
Denis Croteau
Marcelle Cinq-Mars
34
42
.. Valentina Bold
54
The Cross in the Window: An Examination of a -Miraclein Folk Catholicism
Keli 10 Healey
66
The Black. Heart in Newfoundland:
The Magic of the Book
Barbara Rieti
80
.
.
Is This Space Yours or Mine? A Study of Personal Space
in Narratives of Haunlings..........
.
Lise
Saug~res
94
Reviews
Review of Patrick O'Flaheny.
Priest of God
........................................... Eileen Condon
110
A Note of Thanks
The editors would like to express their sincere gratitude
Arts. Memorial University of Newfoundland, and
10
10
Dr. Michael Staveley. Dean of
Dr. Gerald Thomas. Head. Dept. of
FolkJore. for their generous suppon of Culture & Tradition. Special thanks also go to the
staff of the Depanment of Computing and Communications at Memorial University of
Newfoundland for their invaluable assistance during the production of Ihis volume.
COVERICOUVERTURE: Contemporary domestic shrine. Quebec / Oraloire domeslique
du Quebee. Photo by/par Paul Lalibert~.
I.S.S.N. - 0701-0184
Legal DeposiliDep6. Ltgal:
National Library of CanadaIBiblioth~queNationale du Canada
Biblioth~que Nationale du Qu~bec
iii
Editorial BoardiComite de Redaction
Anita Best (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Marie-Annick Desplanques (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Mark Ferguson (co-editor in chief - Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Ga~tane Gauthier (Universitt Laval)
John Harries (co-editor in chic:f - Memorial University of ewfoundland)
Melissa Ladenheim (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
James Moreira (co-editor in chief - Memorial University of ewfoundland)
Anne-Marie Poulin (rtdactrice en chef - Universitt Laval)
Manine Roberge (Universitt Laval)
Marie-France St. Laurent (Universitt Laval)
Lise Saugtres (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Culture & Tradition is published annually with the cooperation of the FolkJore
Graduate Students Association of Memorial University of ewfoundland and Etudiants en
Arts et Tradition Populaires de l'Universitt Laval de Qutbec. Subscriptions are $6.00 per
annum. The editors welcome article submissions on any folklore-related topics. These
should be scholarly papers of ten to twenty double-spaced typed pages, and may be
accompanied by photographs or drawings. Our range of topics includes the traditional
arts, music, foadways, architecture. legend. belief, cultural psychology and sociological
structure of regional ethnic, religious, and industrial groups in Canada. Studies based on
original fieldwork in Eastern Canada are especially welcome. The editorial board also
accepts for consideration book. record and film reviews as well as brief notes appropriate
to the journal's focus. Papers, subscription requests or general correspondence may be
forwarded to either Culture & Tradition, P.O. Box 115, Arts and Administration Bid.,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, AIC 5S7, or
Culture & Tradition. CELAT, Pavilion de Konninck, universit~ Laval, Qutbec, P.Q.,
Canada. G IK 7P4.
La revue Culture & Tradition est pub lite une fois par I'an par des ~tudiants en Arts
et Traditions populaires de I"universitt Laval de Qu~bec et The Folklore Graduate
Students Association of Memorial University of Newfoundland. L'abonnement est de
$6.00. Le comit~ de rtdaction acceptera les articles ayant un inten~t ethnographique. Ces
articles seront de dix a vingt pages dactylographites l\ double interligne, d'un bon niveau
scientifique, et peuvent etre illustr~s de dessins ou de photographies. La revue est ouverte
a un grand nombre de subjets: ran populaire, la musique, I'alimentation, I'architecture,
les coutumes et la strucrure sociale de groupes regionaux, ethniques et religieux du
Canada. Les comptes rendu de livres, disques et films d'un inter!t ethnographique seront
tgalement bien accueillis. Adresser toute correspondance ACulture & Tradition, CELAT,
Pavilion de Konninck, universitt Laval, Qu~bec, P.Q., Canada. G IK 7P4. ou l\ Culrure &
Tradition, P.O. Box I~. Arts and Administration Bid., Memorial University of
Newfoundland, SI. John '5, Newfoundland, Canada, A IC 5S7.
Editorial
Anne-Marie Poulin, RMactrice en Chef
Uoiversit~ Laval
Dans la poursuite d'une tMmatique conjointe, ponam sur la religion populaire. Ie
comit~
de r6daction de
I'universit~ Laval
en Ans et lraditions populaires
prt5ente la
intitul~
synth~se
d 'un
Iconographic actuelle du
~minaiJe de
sacr~.
Ce
2e cycle
s~minaire
pluridisciplinaire. tenu au trimestre d'hiver 1989 par Ie professeur Jean Simard', visait
ll. tlablir un premier bilan du probltme A travers "ttude d'une icOnel miraculeuse qui s'est
manifestte A Montrtal en 1981 et dont la diffusion s'cst
efrec(~e ll.
L'approche qualitative priviltgite par I'ethnologic a
~It
panic de 1984.
maintenue durant ccUe
recherche grtce aux sources cth.nographiques . tam orales qu'tcrites - auxquelles ont eu
recours les chercheurs de diverses disciplines. C'est done Atravers ce prisme qu'ont
~tt
mis en relief des pratiques. croyances et coutumes d'un phtnomtne saisi sur Ie vif.
L'article de dtpan comprend deux volets : une prtsentation gentrale de la recherche
sur I'iconographie actuelle du sacre ainsi qu'une analyse des lieuK de culle domestiques
de la region de Qutbec en rapport direct avec 18 nouvelle imagerie. Anne·Marie Poulin
suggtre que I'tmergence et Ie contenu de ces nouveaUK lCcoins de
pri~re))
comblent un
vide eSlhttique et spirituel engendre par ((l'iconoclasme qutbtcois.' observt Ala suile de
Vatican II, dans les annees soiKante.
Denis Croteau eumine quam A lui Ie cheminement spirituel des inforrnateurs
Apartir des tlements de croyances
relev~s
de leur discours. II s'interroge Asavoir si cette
I Le comite de r~aclion est redevable AJean Simard d'avoir relu les Ie lues qui suivent ec Ie
remercie pour ses commenlaires el ses consells.
2lcOne en grec veut dire image. Hisloriqueme", l'icOne s'associe AI'imagerie sacree de I'~glise
indivtse. Depuis Ie Schtsme au Xle sitcle edte imagerie renvoit A n!glise chrtJienne orie,.ale qui
a so mainlenir la tradition. Relevant de la theologie, l'icOne repond A des canons striclS
d'inlerpretAlion. EUe se realise dans Ie jeQne ella pritre et participe Ala lilurgie onhodoxe.
Depassaot Ie simple objd d'art.!'W:One a pour but premier de refleler l'au-delA, l'Absolu.
(;DITORIAL
d~marche signale un rapprochement avec
r
~glise ou si elle ne favorise pas p)utOt un
certain isolement par rapport Acelie-d.
Marcelle Cinq-Mars se livre Aune analyse de contenu de 500 intentions de
rtdig~es
~ r~glise
de
par des croyants et
d~posUs
Saint-Michel de Sillery.
d~montrer I'~can
pri~res.
au pied d'une reproduction miraculeuse de l'icOne
pr~s de Qu~bec.
Par Ie biais de cene coutume. die tente
existant entre la conception que se font les croyants du rOle et du
pouvoir de 1a Vierge el celie de la position officieJle et dogmatique de rl:gJise.
Editorial
John A. Harries
Memorial University
"13"
Unlucky number thineen: there are said to be hOlcls with no thineenth floor and
athletes who are loath to wear the number on their backs. and if the thineenlh day of the
month should be a Friday, then lhere are still many who will speak of it with nervous
humor, not quite admining apprehension, yet sufficiently aware of the day's rumored
effect on human fortune that they cannot let it pass without comment Unlike hockey
players or hoteliers, the editors of Culture & Tradition have decided
nOl 10
omit our
thirteenth issue; however. like those who still rremble slightly. we recognize its
significance in the western lexicon of folk-symbols, and have decided
Memorial contributions to this year's volume
10
(0
devote the
folk-belief.
The significance of the number thirteen is in its popular interpretation, an act which
connects symbols drawn from a text to events in our everyday world. So it is that a
number may mean misfortune, a four leaf clover may mean fortune, an albatross hanging
over the mast of a tall ship becomes the soul of a dead sailor, and a bird in the house
indicates the approach of death. Folk belief is in many ways a whole scheme of
interpretation by which we order our lives, a language of symbols in which we can
express our hopes, fears and aspirations.
All four of the English language essays explore this interpretive framework as it
deciphers extraordinary experience: Bold discusses how women conceive of dreams as
repositories of symbols that represent future events~ Healey argues that her informants
drew upon their religious beliefs to interpret a cross on their kitchen window as a miracle
that had panicular significance during a period of personal crisis; Rieti analyzes the
tradition of the Black Heart book as being contiguous with altitudes towards books and
reading in rural Newfoundland; and
Saug~res
shows that stories of hauntings are vehicles
for expressing the narrators' concerns for belonging. What is panicularly significant in
EDITORIAL
these essays is lIlat they all convincingly show that the extraordinary events, though
decidedly outside the realm of normal experience. are intimately connected to our
everyday lives through folk-belief systems. Indeed they go a step funher and show that
extraordinary experience in many ways works to illuminate the ordinary human existence,
to give form
10
fears ever present, to answer questions ever asked.
Iconographie actuelle du
sacr~
Anne-Marie Poulin l
Universit~ Laval
Partie A
de la recherche
Pr~sentation g~n~rale
La loll. d. fond
Le sacrt n'est pas mort, pas plus que son iconographic. Le
qU'OD
emprun(~s
Ala tradition,
~me
au religieux
si~c1e
cr~es
1a plus ancienne. TeJle est l'icOne de Marie,
Die". Pone du Cicl, dont on dit qu'clle a ~t~ cr~u en 1920 d'apr~s un
Xe
relOUT
observe de plus en plus s'accompagne d'images nouvellement
de Constantinople au Mont Athos, puis
lransftr~
l
mod~le
Monlr~al
ou
M~re
de
impont au
par des voies
myst6rieuses. Jost, un jeune ermite catholique d'origine espagnoJe raconlc que "icOne lui
a
tt~ I~gu&:
1 I'tlt 1981 par son ancien professeur d'iconographie, Wl moine russe
nomm~ Nicolas. L'Eglise orthodoxe russe hars frontitresl de Montrtal prU~re dire que
ricOne est un cadeau des moines du Mont Athas en
Gr~ce
et qu 'clle aura it tit rapponte
par Ie jeune ermile.
Quai qu'il en soit, l'icOne se manifeste de facon miraculeuse chez ce dernier en
exsudant une huile
orthodoxes fUSseS
l'icOne par cette
parfum~e
r~c1ament
~glise,
et abondante en novembre de la
aussitOt l'icOne par tradition.
dtpo~
m~me ann~e.
pourtant
form~
Les
AI'art de
laisse entendre qu'il lient A1a garder avec lui. Les deux parties
viennent alors i\ l'entente suivante: lorsque Ie
I'image est
Jo~,
propri~taire
de l'icOne est dans la
m~tropole,
Ala Cathtdrale Saint-Nicolas, rue Saint-Joseph AMontrtal;
cependant, d~s que son travail d'iconographe Ie retient ailleurs, l'icOne J'accompagne dans
ses d~placements.
IEthnologue et ttudianle Ala maltrise en Arts et traditions populaires.
2l:g1ise en ex.il depuis la rtvolution bolchtvique de 1905. I:glise de droile militant en faveur d'un
retour de la monarchie en Russie. En rupture tOlale avec les autres branches de I'orthodoxie ceue
I:glise demeure vivement opposte Aloute forme d'unitt entre chrttiens.
10
ANNE-MARJE POULIN
Figure 1: leOne de Marie,
M~re
de Dieu, Porte du Cie!. Un suintement en forme de
4(chapelet» apparatt 1 partir de la main droite de 1a Vierge. eAil~e et diffu~e par
1a Socittt de 1a Marie, Mtre de Dieu de MonlTtal [1984J (Photo: Paul Lalibertt).
II
ICONOGRAPHIE ACTUELLE DU SACR(;
Plus que la situation ambigui! des origines ou Ie mode de partage de "image, c'est la
poursuite du
phtnom~ne
miraculeux: qui relient iei lOuie nOire anemian. De fail. parmi les
ceRtaines de milliers de reproductions photographiques de "icOne prodigieuse ayan!
tIt distributes. des centaines se sont manifesttes
;i
leur tour Atravers la province. voire
meme A rravers Ie monde!
C'eSl ce phtnom~ne. pour Ie mains inusilt chez les catholiques romains qui
conslitue la toile de fond d'une recherche sur !'iconographie actuelle du sacrtdans la
rtgion de Qutbec.
L'tv~nement
s'accompagne d'une
~rie
d'incidenls qui ont
profondtmem marqut son tvolution. Pour en saisir louie I'ampleur et rimpaci. un bref
rappel des faits s'impose.
Le 21 novembre 1981, l'icOne Marie,
M~re
de Oieu, Porte du Ciel (Porta'ilissa
grec) se manifesle de la fac;on suivante: ((une huile soudaine et fort
~n
parfum~e s'~coulait
lentemenl de I'tloile, symbolisant I'Esprit-Saint, sur rtpaule droile de Marie, ainsi que
des deux mains de la Vierge et de la main droite de l'Enfant JtSUSHJ . Signalons que les
manifestalions sur les reproductions variem et que trois types onl tit relevts: Ie parfum,
I'huile parfumte ou non et la poussi~re d'or ou d'argent qui se greffe A la surface de
I'image sacre pour un temps
indttermin~.
Pend ani deux ans, seul un petit groupe de pri~re y a acc~s. Des rumeurs circulent
cependant quanl aux manifeslations et bienfails de la Vierge et plusieurs
image4 .
A r~tt
r~c1amenl
une
1984, une reproduction photographique est r61lis6;~ montranl un
suinlemenl en forme de chapelet A partir de la main droile de la Vierge. Entre 1984 et
1986, des ceRtaines de milliers de reproductions de l'lcOne miraculeuse sont distTibu~es
A partir de Monlrtal, Trois-Rivitres et Qutbec. Enlrevues, reportages el Itmoignages se
sucddent quant au phtnom~ne en gtn~ral et ses bl!ntfices en particulier: conversions,
rfconciliations, gutrisons, faveurs obtenues, appel A j'inltriorisation, elc.
J-rirt d'un
reuillc:t &lite par la Societe de Marie. Mb"c: de Dic:u de MoRtrtaJ. ~1of\(real. Quebec.
aot1t 1986.
4Les enqu~les demonlrc:nt que cenc: iconc: rtpond ! dix noms dlfferents. Les plus connus soRt
Marie, Mere de Dieu, Por1c: du Ciel el Notre-Dame de la Porte.
ANNE-MARJE POULIN
12
de
Le 9 ftvriee 1986, un autre tvtnement (cmiraculeuxn est signalt alors qu 'un journal
~tropole
d6clare qu 'une statue de la Vierge (epicure du sang»
la
i Sainte-Marthe-sur-le·Lac, situte environ A30 kID au nord-ouest de rile de MontrtaL Le
(miracle•• attire pas moins de 10.000 personnes en huil jours. Une semaine plus tard, la
fumisterie tclale et trois individus sont am!:lts pour avair rtpandu de I'huile vtgttale el du
sang humain sur la statue de la Vierge. Parmi les 90 objets de pittt entourant ceUe statue,
figure une grande reproduction de ('icOne de Marie.
effort pour dissocier les manifestations
d~
M~re
de Dieu, Pone du Ciel. Tout
"leOne de la supercherie tchoue. el Apartir de
ce moment, la mtmoire collective associera ('image sacrte au scandale de Sainle-Manhe-
sur-Ie-Lac.
Aupres du grand public,
la demande pour l'icOne
miraculeuse diminue
sensiblement. Les croyants Quant .a. eu)( se rHugient dans Ie silence et leurs reseau)( de
pri~re.
Trois ans apres les faits, on observe au moment d'entreprendre I'ttude du
pMnom~ne
que la dtvOlion se maintient et que la distribution s'est stabilisu. Peut-on
parlerd'un engouement passager?
Probllmatique
En guise de prologue au stminaire de Jean Simard, une enquele exploratoire sur Ie
phtnom~ne
de l'icOne est rtaliste .a. l'automne 1988.
Un dossier
a.
quatre volets
(historique, edmologique, esthttique et theologique) en rtsulte et est dtpose aux Archives
de folklore de I'universitt Lavai S.
L'exercice confirme la ntccssiltde poursuivre la
recherche en vue d 'obtenir une vision plus sptcifique el, partanl, plus significalive de la
silualion iconographique actuelle. Le prtsent dossier est une
synth~se
des Iravaux realis6s
dans Ie cadre de cc stminaire multidisciplinaire. C'est ainsi que Irois ethnologues, une
historienne et un IMologien ont form66quipe pour tenter d'etablir un premier bilan du
phenom~ne Quant
aux pratiques. croyances et coutumes enlourant l'icOne en question.
La recherche vise d'abord ces centaines de milliers de reproduclions de I'icOne qui
semblem annoocer une renaissance de l'imagerie sacree au Quebec.
DtjA, I'enqul!te
exploracoire avait dtmonu~ que d'autres images issues de la tradition chrttienne orientale
.see buan partiel a tit pctpart par Anne-Marie Poulin.
14
ICONOGRAPIiIE ACfUELLE DU SACR(;
avaient
~galement
la faveur du public. Cene rtsurgence est d'autanl plus significative
qu'ellc anive Apeine un quart de siecle
apr~s
un balayage de I'an
sacr~auquel
s'es!
ardemmenc livrt Ie c1erg6 de la province.a. la suite de Valican U. En outre, la production
et la distribution de celte imagerie s'effectuent. contrairemem au passt, A panir du
Qu6bec. Depuis 1984. la Socittt de Marie,
M~re
de Dieu. organisrne
montr~alais
mis sur
pied pour promouvoir la d6votion A l'icOne miraculeuse. &lite ct assure la diffusion
universelle des reproductions.
Comment expliquer qu'une icOne orientale s'implante avec autant de vigueur en
terre qutbtcoise, et ceo rnalgrt les efforts entrepris pour circonscrire dtvolion et imagerie
des saints de puis Ie concile de Vatican U? QueUe est la signification rteJle de celie
rtsurgence? Qui en est responsable? Oil se situe I'imagerie traditionnelle dans ce
mouvement? Le: discOtJrs (oral et tcrit) du croyant s'est-il mooifit face Acene nouvelle
imagerie? De queUe
fa~on?
Par quel(s) moyen{s)?
Face Ace questionnement el profitant d'une situation en pleine acrualitt, Ie groupe
de recherche s 'est appuyt sur ses observations et ses intuitions pour tnoncer
rhypoth~se
voulant que Ie cuhe de (,icOne (ou 1l'icOne) serait une rtaction a. la crise iconoclaste
engendrte par Vatican II Ala fm des anntes 1960,
A !'inttrieur de ce param~rre, iI
s'agissait de dtcouvrir si (,icOne rtpond a. un renversement d'une conjoncture, signe que
les chrttiens recherchent une religion plus sensible,
Ce type d'hypolhtse fait appel a. une approche qualitative qui assure la poursuite
des objectifs vists:
relever les pratiques, croyances et coulumes actuelles des la'ics
sensibilists Al'icOne miraculeuse, inventorier (,iconographie associte Ala dtvotion
Adomicile et cibler Ie ou les groupes ccpromoteurs)) de l'icOne en question,
Les moyens priviltgits pour rendre compte du vtcu relatifa.l'iconograph.ie actuelle
du sacrt SOnt les
enqu~tes
orales et rtlUde des intentions de
d'une reproduction miraculeuse de l'icOne de Marie,
M~re
pri~res
dtpostes au pied
de Dieu. Porte du Ciel,
M~lhodologl.
Chaque ttudiant s'est d'abord
familiari~ avec
les dimensions mstoriques,
etMologiques. esthttiques et lhtologiques de l'icOne tlabortes dans Ie dossier partiel aux
Arch.ives de folkJore pour ensuite tlablir une mtthode rtpondanl aux objectifs de dtpart.
15
ANNE-MARIE POULIN
Deux types de mtthodologie ont ttt considtrts, I'une pour les enqu!tes orales,
('autre pour la classification el l'analyse des
rt~re
mtthodologie tlaborte ici
pri~res
personnelles sur papier.
La
exclusivement au;lt enqu!tes orates qui ont d'ailleurs
monopoli~ quatre des cinq chercheurs. ~laine Julien et Gatrane Gauthier, ethnologues,
forment la premi~re
~uipe;
Denis Croteau, thtologien, el AMe·Marie Poulin, cthnologue,
la seconde. L'hislorienne Marcelle Cinq·Mar$, dont Ie travail repose uniquement sur une
documentation tcrite, dresse sa propre nrethode dans Ie
troisi~me
Dans un cas comme dans ('autre cependant. ('anonymat a
article de ce dossier.
ttt maiorenu autanl pour les
sources orales qu'tcrites.
US dix-sept enqu!tes orates rtalistes en ~ujpe de deux chercheurs durant les mois
de ftvrier et mars 1989 ont
~l~ enr~gistr~es,
cod~es,
transcrites et
et les
~I~ments
pertinents .1 la probl~matique report~s sur des grilles d'analyse appropri~s6. Effectu~es
.1 partir d'uo questionnaire
enqu!tes
semi-dirig~es
pr~~tabli,
chaque oratoire ou (ecoin de
pri~re» a ~t~ inveotori~
r~gion
M~re
de Dieu. Porte du Ciel, se
de Qutbec eC inclut des participants des milieux rural et urbain.
Saint-Anselme de Dorchester, sitlJt.1
Qtrebec et
sur Ie mode des
et les plus signiticatifs, photographits.
Turain
G60graphiquement, )'enqu!te sur PicOne de Marie,
situe dans la grande
~t~ ruLi~es
les entrevues oot
arm de donner une plus grande latitude aux informateurs. Entin,
Saint-Marc-des-Carrj~res,
pr~s
de soixante-dix
k.ilo~tres
au sud-est de
dans Ie comt~ de Portneuf, Aenviron cent
;\ I'ouest de la capitale, ont fourni trois informateurs chacun.
kilom~tres
Les ooze informateurs
urbains se rtpartissen. ainsi: Qutbec (4), Charlesbourg (3j, Sainte-Foy (2), Sillery (I) er
Duberger (I).
Contexte
Malgr~
un
~cart
plane toujours et la
Rassur~s
du
de trois aDs, Ie souvenir du scandale de Sainte-Marthe-sur-Ie-Lac
majorit~
caract~re
des infonnateW'S s'inqui~te des r~percussions de la recherche.
sCientifique et non joumalistique de
I'~lude, rassur~s ~galement
du
6-rous les e:nregtstre:mel\lS sont deposes aux Archives de: folklore: de: I"Unive:rsitt Laval sous un
code: numaKiue: cOfTespondant au numero de I"informate:ur.
ICONOGRAPHIE ACTUELLE DU SACRE
16
respect de ('anonymat. tous acceptent la visite des chercheurs et se pliem meme Aune
entrevue enregistrte.
La qualitt de ('accueil et la
sinc~ritt
des rtmoins ne se sont jamais dtmenlis.
~s
la
premiere rencontre. une con fiance rtciproque s'est installte entre enqueteurs «:1
informaleurs, confiance qui s'est par ail leurs maintenue toul au long de ('tlude.
Inromlstcurs
Une lisle prtliminaire de Ja"ics engagts a tit gracieusemem roumie par Its
responsables des deux principaux centres de dtvotion Al"icOne miraculeuse. situts
;\ SillefY. en banlieue de la ville de Qutbec. Ces la1c5, sensibilists;} la fois a "hisforique
des prodiges de l'icOne-mere de MOniTtal et aux manifestations analogues dans leur
rtgion. figurent en quelque sorte comme hisloriens-participants du
ph~nom~ne dans
leur
milieu respeclif. De par leur engagement, ils connaissenl en plus la posilion prudente de
I'Eglise face 1 ces tvenements. Ala fois porteurs du discours populaire el conscients du
discours
officiel,
ces
laIcs
engages
representem.
pour
rms
d 'analyse,
des
informaleurs-clts.
Suivam ces
cril~res,
quinze des dix.-sepl adultes interviewts ont ele retenus. Quant
aux. personnes non retenues (une religieuse el une la·rque non engagee), elles ont
ete inscrites parmi les informaleurs secondaires. Le groupe stleclionnt a une moyenne
Compost de onze femmes el de quatre hommes, it comporte neuf
d'4ge de 52 ans.
personnes
mari~es
(5 femmesl4 hommes), deux veuves, une divorcee et deux.
c~libataires.
Neuf des onze femmes oeuvrent A domicile, une eSI secreta ire de bureau et la plus jeune
(22 ans)
~Iudie
en pharmacie A l'Universile laval. Chez les hommes, on retrouve un
directeur d '~cole prima ire, un ingenieur civil et deux rentiers. Entin, dix des informaleurs
habilent la ville el cinq, Ie milieu rural (Ioutes des femmes).
Comme Iype d'engagement en t:glise, sept informaleurs sur quinze privil~giem Ie
mouvemem du Renouveau Charismalique. O'autres participent lla Fondation de Marie
Immacul~
de Sillery voute lla promolion de l'icOne rniraculeuse. lla
calech~se
aux.
adultes, aUl( Dames chreliennes, au Groupe Myriam Belhltern et enfm 1 Marie·Jeunesse
pour les 15·25 ans.
Fait 1 souligner, six des huit btntvoles de ces organismes sonl
d'anciens charismatiques ayant 10UI simplemem 0Plt pour de nouvelles formes
ANNE-MARIE POULIN
17
d 'engagement depuis environ quatre ou cinq ans.
moment au !'autre de leur vie,
d~but des
adMr~
Ainsi, treize personnes ont, Aun
au mouvement charismalique qui a pris son eSOOT au
anntes 1970 peu aprts Ie concile de Vatican II. Quant 11a jeune fille de 22 ans,
sa pr&Jisposition pour ('engagement chretien remonte Adouze ans ec s'explique par
I'assistance rtgulitre aux soirees de
pri~res
familiales dans sa paroisse.
Pour compltler Ie profil des informatcurs. iI est A remarquer que doule d'entre eux
sont ttmoins d'une ou de plusieurs manifestations sur des reproductions d'icOnes, soit Ie
parfum,le suimement (parfumt ou non) ou la poussi!re d'or ou d'argenl.
Mis Apan les informaleurs-clts, dix-neuf aulTes personnes ont partici¢ plus ou
moins acrivement ault enqu!tes, soit
a. titre
de conjoints. de parents ou d'amis.
La
pertinence de leurs propos, surtout au chapitre des croyances, ainsi que leur nombre,
justifient qu'ils aiem
articles
pr~sem~s
~t~ consK1~res
dans I'analyse globale. Cependanl, dans Ie cadre des
ici, rappon de ces informateurs secondaires n'apparaltra qu'en
filigrane 7.
Questionnaire
Le questionnaire d 'enqu~te se compose de quatre panics. La
les questions d'ordre personnel visant
a. 6tablir
premi~re
Ie profil de I'informateur.
comprend
Les deux
suivantes forment Ie noyau de 1'6tude et portent sur les pratiques et croyances relatives au
ph~nom~ne
de j'icOne miraculeuse, alors que la
demi~re
nom(s) d'autres personnes poss&1ant l'icOne de Marie,
M~rc
a pour but de recueillir le(s)
de Dieu. Porte du Cicl.
Questionnaire d'enqu~te
I - Identification de !'enque:te
. nom, pr~nom
- sexe
- groupe d'4ge (tranche decennale)
- adresse personnelle
- num6ro de ttl~phone
7Le detlul des temoignages de ces 19 informlUeun se trouve dans I'enscmble du dossaer
depose aux AFUL (Archives de folklore de rUniversite Laval).
ICONOGRAPHIE ACfUELLE DU SACRE
18
- date et lieu de I'enquele
- type d 'engagement en I:glise
II - Praliques
A) Lieu de culle domestique
I) Am~nagemenl physique du lieu
-situation
(d~crire
du
g6n~ral au
paniculier)
- dimensions
- mobilier
- luminaire
- objelS de pi~.~
- impri~s ou mattriel audio-visuel
- icOne(s)
- type (5) [Iamintes, encadrtes, tpinglette, elc.]
-forma.(s)
- iconographic: compltmenlaire
-localisation (5) autre (5) [aulO. sac Amain. vttemC:nl, etc.]
- en tchange-t-on
2)
Gen~e de
('amtnagement
- qui a donnt I'idc!e
- date de ('amtnagement
- qui a dtcidt de la forme d 'amtnagemenl el pourquoi
- provenance des artefacts
B) Gestes et paroles des priants
- qui frtquente Ie lieu et 1 quel rythme
- jour, soiT. dun~e
- pri~res individuelles ou collectives
- genre de
pri~res
- position des prianls
- conlexte audio-visuel [musique. encens. enregistrements continus. elc.]
III - Croyances
A) L'icOne de Marie, M~re de Dieu, Porte du Ciel
- l'icOne suinle-I-elle ou a-t-dle suint6
- description du suinlement [huile, parfum, poussi~re d'or localisation, etc.]
- r6cits des manifestations
- r~aclions observ~es [conversions, faveurs oblenues. gu6risons, elc.]
B) Etat actuel de la religion calholique
- innuence de l'icOne
• importance des images et des signes sensibles
- impact du Condie de Vatican II sur la pratique; les images
- o~ va la religion
IV - Connaissez-vous d'autres personnes qui ont une icOne de Marie,
Ciel A la maison?
M~re
Dieu, Pone du
19
ANNE-MARIE POULIN
Partie B
Pratiques relatives :l. l'icoDograpbie actueUe du sacre
Le
p~no~ne
miraculeux de Marie, Mtre de Dieu. Porte du Ciel. qui se poursuit
mtme 1 travers ses reproductions. en incite plusieurs ;\ ~riger des lieux de culle
domesliques. Ces oratoires ressemblent peu cependant au «coin de pritre» traditionnel
oil ron s'agenouillait en fm de joumte pour r~citer Ie chapelet en familieS.
r~actualisation s'accompagne
Cene
de pro fonds changements tant au niveau de la fonne et du
comeDU de I'oratoire ;\ domicile que dans les gestes et paroles des ulilisateurs.
La pre mitre panie de eel anicle
11'iconographie aeNelle du
sacr~.
pr~sente
Ie bilan facrnel des pratiques relatives
L 'a~nagement physique et la
ge~se
du lieu de culte
domeslique dans la rtgion de QUfbec secont d 'abord considtrts pour trailer e"suite des
prariques plus intimes relevant des gesles et des paroles. Cel effon vise 1
~tablir
les liens
entre les pratiques et 1 mettre en relief les tendances qui se dessinenl sur Ie plan fonnel.
d~gager une
La secondc panie lente de
signification des pratiqucs par Ie biais de I'analyse
el de l'inlerpr~tation9.
A - Lieu de culte domestique
1· Amlnagemenl ph)'slqut du lieu de culle
Le lieu de cuhe domeslique, com.mW1~ment
g~n~ralement
moins complexes selon les informateues,
bibliot1l~que
appel~
Ie ucoin de
pri~re~~,
se situe
au salon/salle de stjour ou dans la chambre 1 coucher. Ces lieux, plus ou
murale.
s'~laborent,
pour six. d'entre eux, au lour d'une
O'autres placent leur reproduction de I'icOne miraculeuse sur un
chevalel ou une table d'appoint du salon, sur la commode d'une chambre ou la fix.e tout
simplement au mue d 'une de ces deux.
pi~ces.
IJusqu'aux an~es 1960, Ie «coin de pri~re" s'org.msait generalement autour d'un crucifix
flanque des images du Sacre C<t:ur de ~brie et: du Sacre·C<t:lU de Jesus ou d'une statue «lairte
d'un lampton,
4
9L'Etude cons~re ('ensemble des entrevues rtaJisecs par les deux tquipes de chen:hcws.
Gaetane Gaurh~r so~nt ici remen:iees pour nous .vOlr pcnnis d'utiliser Ies
resalws de leurs quatre enqultes pour les fms de cet: artICle.
Qu'~I.inc Julien et:
20
ICONOGRAPHlE ACfUELLE DU SACRE
Flgurt 2: Oratoire domestique de I'informatrice no 8 de la rtgion de
Paul
Qu~bec (PhOIO:
Lalibert~).
Huit oratoires occupenl une superficie assez imposanle variant de Im
hauteur et d'autant en largeur.
vari~l~d'objels
a. 2,5m en
Mise a part d'aulres reproductions d'icOnes. une
et de livres de pitlt se greffem aux Iieux de culle domestiques leis que
chapelet. crucifix, cau btnite. une Duate imbibte d'huile de l'icOne miraculeuse, Ie saint
chreme. des ((paroles de Dieu,. (penstes imprimtes sur papier en forme de pain). des
vitamines C (penstes de charltt sur papier en forme de capsules), brtviaire et Bible. et
;\ un moindre degrt, du mattriel audio-visuel de conferences religieuses et de musique
sacr6e. La moititdes infonnateurs tclaire leur oratoire l\ I'aide d'une bougie ou d'une
lampe ~Ieclrique el I'embellisse de Oeurs fraiches ou rechtes en tout temps.
ANNE-MARJE POULIN
21
Figure 3: Dtlail de I'oratoire domestique de I'informatrice no 8 de la rtgion de Qul!bec
(Photo: Paul LaUbent).
La reproduction de Marie.
M~re
de Dieu, Porte du Ciel occupe 13 des 15 Iieux de
culte domestiques recen~s alars que celles de Notre-Dame du Pe~tuel-SecourslO et de
la Vierge de Vladimir retiennent "attention de deux informalrices du milieu rural.
L'image
d~s
lamin~
demeure sans contredit Ie type de montage Ie plus populaire. Toutefois.
que Ie format de I'image
d~passe
encadrement uaditionnel et plus
20 x 25,5cm, iI y a une (endance vcrs un
~Iabor~.
Deux: formats de reproductions lamintes
daminent: Ie fonnat moyen mesurant 13 x 18cm et la mini-icOne (4 x Scm) facilement
transportable dans Ie sac 4 main, par eKemple.
IOCette icOnc: de la Vierge est la pt"emitre du genre Aavoir ele inlroduite au Quebec. Sa
promotion est due ault ¢res rtdemptor-istes d remonte Aleur arrivte au Quebec en 1876. Dans la
tradition ortbodoxc. cdle ic6nc rtpond au nom de 1a Vic:rge de 1a Passion en rtftrence aux anges
montrant les instruments du supplice de son Fils.
22
ICONOGRAPHlE ACfUELLE DU SACRE
Outre l'icOne principale. Ie lieu de culte dOOlcstique comprend une iconographic
assez importante el diversifite. Plus de 60 images. modemes. traditionnelles et de type
orienlal,
repr~senlant
20 figurations ant tIt rtpenorites.
Plactes en ordce dtcroissanl
d'importance. on relrouve la Vierge de la Paix. Ie Christ Pantocrator, la Triniltde
Roublev, la Sainte Face, Notre-Dame du Per¢tuel-Secours. la Vierge de Czeslochowa. la
Vierge de Vladimir. la Sainte Famille. Ie Pape Jean-Paul II, NOire-Dame du Bon-Conseil.
la Prtsenlalion de la Vierge. la Vierge de Korsun. les Trois
proph~les.
les images sainles
de rAnnonciation et du Christ Glorieux et cnfm saint Joseph ci saint Antoine avec
l'Enfant Jtsus ainsi que sainte
reprtsent~ deux
Thtr~se
de rEnfant Jtsus.
Le Saert-Creur est
fois en image et une fois en statue alors que Notre-Dame de Lourdes
figure en staruene contenant I'eau btnite. Ainsi, en incluant l'icOne miraculeuse, onze des
vingt repr~senlations des lieux de culle domestiques renvoient aux icOnes li~s Arf:glise
chr~tienne orientale
(voir tableau ci-<lessous).
Sujels de I' Iconographle actuelle du sacrl relevfs dans qulnze lieu x de culte
domestlques
Le chiffre entre
parenth~ses
indique Ie nombre de fois
01)
I'image fut rtpenorite.
L 'asttrisque identifie les icOnes, c'esl-A-dire I'imagerie issue de la tradition chrttienne
orientale.
Marie, Mhe de Dieu Pone du Ciel (Portanissa. en grec) (16x)
Notre-Dame de 1a Paix ou Vierge de Medjugorge (7x)
Le Christ Pantocrator (5x)
La Trinit~ de Roublev (icOne de l'hospitalitt) (4x)
La Sainte Face ( 4x)
Notre-Dame du Per¢tuel-Secours (4x)
La Vierge de Czeslochowa (4x)
La Vierge de Vladimir (4<)
La Sainte Farnille (crtation rtcente) (3x)
Le Pape Jean-Paul II (2<)
Notre-Dame du Bon--Conseil (2<)
Le Sacrt--Creur (2<)
La Prtsentation de 1a Vierge (1 x)
La Viergede Korsun (Ix)
Les Trois Proph~tes (I x)
l'Annonciation de la Vierge de Fra Angelico (Ix)
Le Christ Glorieux (Ix)
ANNE-MARIE POULIN
23
Saint Joseph et l'Enfant J~sus (Ix)
Sain'e Thtrese de I'Enfant J~sus (Ix)
Saim Amoine c:t I'Enfant Jtsus (Ix)
O'autres reproductions de Marie, Mtre de Dieu, Pone du Ciel ant tit localistes
A "&:an de ('oratoire domeslique. Les endroits les plus populaires sont. symboliquement,
Aproximilt des pones
est
plac~
d'entr~ des
diverses
pi~es
de la maison. Lorsque I'image sacru
au salon, on lui accorde assez souvent une place d 'hoMeur AcOtt de la Bible
ouvene. Quant A la rnini-icOne. die se relrouve tout aussi bien dans Ie sac 1 main et Ie
pone-moonaie que dans Ie
por1e~OCUmenlS
du professionnel ou de ('ttudiant. Certains
informaleurs portent une tpinglene de ricOne stu" leurs
V~lements
cellant dans leur voilure. II est Anoter qu'au moment de
ou affichent un auto-
I'enqu~te
les informatrices du
milieu rural, au nombre de cinq, ne connaissaient ni I'un n1 I'autre de ces objets de facture
,teen,e (1987).
L' iconographie compll!mentaire emprunte sensiblement Ie m!me trac6que l'icOne
principale
m~me
si elle est 610ign6e du lieu de culte domestique. En proportion beaucoup
plus faible, cene imagerie se limite en plus Adeux formats: la
tT~S
grande reproduction
fix&: au mur ou la mini-icOne (ic6ne ¢Ierine) transport&: avec soi.
Les repondants donnent beaucoup plus de reproductions de ricOne miraculeuse
qu'ils n'en
re~oivent.
Alors que la plupart limitent leurs dons Ala famille imm6diate,
certains en ont distribu6 cinq Asix douzaines Ades amis et des visiteurs. Une informatrice
de Saint·Marc-des-Carritres a fait connaitre l'icOne Marie,
M~re
de Dieu, Pone du Ciel,
en distribuant gratuitement plus de 300 reproductions dans sa paroisse.
Tautes les
reproductions offertes par les croyants sont consacr&:s et plusieurs d'entre elles se sont
manifest6es au(x) recipiendaire(s) - Ala grande joie des uns et a. la srupHaction des autres!
2 • Genbe de I'amlnagement
Parmi les quinze lieux de culte domestiques recens6s, trois 6taient am6nag6s avant
I'amv&: de l'ic6ne miraculeuse et remontaient A 197~· 76, pendant I'essor du mouvement
charismatique. Une informatrice remarque toutefois avoir un ((coin de
a. une
da:1i~
rann~c 198~ ~cant
la plus prolifique. Le plus ancien de ces lieux de cuhe fut
ic6ne
paniculi~re
pri~re)l depuis
enfance. Les lieux
son
ont 6t6 am6nag6s cnree 1979 et L986,
~rig6
en
ICONOGRAPHIE ACTUELLE DU SACRE
24
1979 A Saint-Anselme et honare l'icOne de la Vierge de Vladimir. Les deux premiers
Iieux de culte AMarie,
premi~res
M~re
de Dieu, Porte du Ciel s'organisent
d~s
la diffusion des
reproductions de l'icOne miraculeuse AI'tt~ 1984; ils sont suivis de six aulres
en 1985. Entin, la demi~re
a~e
signalte (1986) voit la mise en place d'uR lieu honorant
ceUe mtme icOne et un autre ;\ Notre-Dame du Perpt!:tuel-SecouJ!i. Ainsi. IIdze lieux de
culte domestiques sur quinze sont d&Jits;\ Marie,
La conception esthttique du lieu de culle
M~re
rel~ve
de Dieu, Pone du Cie!.
de chacun des infom18leurs. Deux
rtpondants ont mtme prevu son emplacement lars de la construction de leur maison.
Deux aulres avouem avair ttt inspirts par l'amtnagement des centres de
Montmartre canadien ASillery,
o~
comme Ie
po* sur
prot~gent
leur icOne
un chevalet d'artiste, et les Services du Renouveau charismatique qui
prodigieuse derri~re un cadre
pri~re
une reprcxtuction de l'icOne miraculeuse est
vitr~.
Dans ncuf cas, l'icOne principale du lieu de culte domestique proviem d 'un achat
personnel
Marie,
effectu~
M~re
suite A des
conf~rences
ou des
soir~es
de pritre ponant sur l'icOne de
de Dieu, Pone du CieL Pour les six autres informateurs, la reprcxtuction se
voulait un cadeau d'amis
pr~tres ou
religieuses ou de membres de leur farnilJe.
La provenance de l'icOne principale des lieux de culte domestiques se panage
comme suit neuf originent de la Fondation de Marie
Immacul~e si(U~e
AI'tglise Saint-
Michel de Sillery, trois des Services du Renouveau charismatique ~galement ASillery, une
des Soeurs du Per¢tuel Secours ASaint-Damien-de-Bellechasse et une demi~re, la Vierge
de Vladimir, de source inconnue.
La majoritt des artefacts meublant Ie lieu de culle domestique est acquise lors de
ptlerinages locaux,
r~gionaux
et intemationaux. ou par !'intermtdiaire d'amis laIcs ou
religieux. La famille et les voyages de plaisirs sam rarement AI'origine de I'obtention
d'objelS de pit.t.
ANNE-MARJE POULIN
25
B - Gestes et paroles des priants
Le lieu de culLe domestique est
informateurs. seuls ou
fr~quentent
accompagn~.
quotidieMcment par tous les
fr~quen(~
seiaD une
fr~uence
Atitre individuel et six en couple. Une
plus ou moins grande. Neuf Ie
r~pondante
relocalise la reproduction
de son icOne de la cuisine au salon pour la rcoconue hebdomadaire de son groupe de
priere.
Le temps
reserv~
A ('oeaisen vaTie selon les occupations des informateurs. Ainsi,
trois des panicipants, deux rent ices et une
que la
majorit~
retrait~e.
prient rtgulierement mat in et soi! alars
se reserve plutOt un moment dans la soirte pour la priere et Ie
recueillement. Le temps consacrt Aeel exercice varie considtrablement et peut aller de
quatre Acinq minutes (un cas seulement) jusqu'Adeux ou trois heures par jour. Ces
varianlcs s'expliquent par les moments d'arrer que les informateurs s'accordenr durant
leur travail a. domicile ou au bureau er qui s'ajourent a. leur rencontre rtguli~re du soir. En
gtntral,la moyenne esr d'environ une heure.
Au cours de cene recherche ttois types de prltres ont
rtcittes et
sponra~es.
ttt relevts: les prltres lues,
Les lectures prUtrtes sonr Ia Bible et Ie brtviaire. La premitre esr
lue par treize informateurs et Ie second par ttois
r~pondants.
Les Laudes, Ie petit livre du
Careme du laIcat franciscain et la Vie des Saints reriennent chacun I'attention d'un
informateur. Ce demier sujet inttresse davantage la plus jeune des participants a.I'~tude.
Pour 1a
pri~re
rtcitte, on fait appel au chapelet au au rosaire. De fait, quatorze des quinze
informateurs y ant recours quotidiennement, et ce a. part
leur lieu de culte domestique. Une seule informalrice
(cAves)~
~gale
depuis la mise en place de
r~sume
ses pritres
r~cittes
a trois
er a I'Acte de contrition en compagnie de son marl al'heure du coucher. t(Ce sont
nos demiers bons mots de la joum~e entre
conjoints)~
la forme d 'un dialogue, que neuf des quinze
repr6entte en icOne.
s'~merveillent des
dit-elle. La prltre sponlante prend
~pondants
entretiennent avec la Vierge
C'est 1 ce moment qu'i!s abandonnent leurs soucis quolidiens,
manifestations ou remercient la Vierge pour les bienfails re~us.
Nonobstant Ie genre de
pri~re,
taus les croyants
prt~rent
prier seuls. Lorsqu'ils se
trouvent en compagnie de parents ou d'amis, un moment est toujours rtservt pour
26
ICONOGRAPHlE ACfUELLE DU SACRE
"oraison
personnelle.
Un
tr~s
petit
nombre,
quatre
seulemenl,
compl~te
occasionnellement leur d~volion.1 ('aide de musique sacrte ou de conftrences ou
pri~res
a elle devant
l'icOne
enregistrtes. La plus jeune informalrice (22 ans) se recueille quant
miraculeuse avec une bougie, comme seule source de
Une demiare observation qui mtrite
lumi~re.
d'~tre signal~
est la position qu'cmprunlem
acruellemenl les informateurs pour la pritre quolidienne. Mis.1 pan I'informatrice qui
rtcilc ses pritres au lit. el une
ROUS
"a
dit~). 10US
deux.i~me
qui prie IOUjours
les informateurs s'assoient pour lire.
a genoux
rtciler ou
uparce que Ie Pape
dialoguer
avec
ricOne
du lieu de culte domestique.
Sur Ie plan gestuel, les reproductions de l'icOne miraculeuse font paniculitrement
I'objet d'une manipulation assez importante de la part des personnes rencontrtes. Cc:s
images
sacr~es
soot
cr~s
souvent toumtes dans
10US
les sens pour examiner ou moncrer les
traces de manifestations ou sont dtmtnagtes d 'une
pi~ce
A I'autre dans la maison: par
exemple, du salon ;1 la cuisine lors de la prtparation des repas, de la cuisine au salon pour
recevoir des groupes de
pri~re
ou encore, du salon ;1 la chambre A coucher uquand
~a
va
mah•. Celie image de la Vierge est tgalement transportte dans les hOpitaux pour visiter
les malades, aux soirtes de
pri~re;1
I'tglise paroissiale (Iorsque Ie curt n'en veut pas dans
son tglise) et pour s'assurer de la protection lors des dtplacements quotidiens.
Certains s'endorment en lenant l'icOne, d'autres la portent en tpingleue et
n'htsitent pas A\'offrir
a. quiconque
veut la connaitre. Enfin, une rtpondante de Saint-
Anselme dit meme avoir toumt son icOne Hla face un peu au
mup~
en rtaction
a. de
mauvaises nouvelles.
Plus pieusement, on la salue d'un signe de
tt~te
en passam devam et on y a
dtjA recueilli I'huile pour oindre des malades ou des membres de la famille. Certains
touchenl la main droile de l'Enfant Jtsus pour aller chercher sa
sa main gauche pour y dtposer leurs
de
pri~res et
probl~mes.
~ntdiction
quotidienne el
D'autres enfin tcrivent leurs inlentions
les placent en loute con fiance dans Ie lieu de culte domestique;1 proximitt de
!'image vtntrte.
ANNE-MARIE POULIN
27
BHan de I. recherche
Le bilan des pratiques relatives Al'iconograpbie actuelle du
bonne panic par Ie
CieL Mis 1 part
pMnom~ne
I'~rection
miraculeux qu'cst l'icOne Marie.
de Iieux de cuhe domestiques que cctte
I'un des traits les plus significatifs de ce bilan est leur
saCT~e
M~re
s'cxplique en
de Dieu, Pone du
pr~sencc
~Jaboration
a su inspirer,
complexe.
Cene
observation est d'autant plus peninente. qu'en milieu rural par exemple, otl.aucune
manifestation n'a tIt
contre,
1'~loignement
signal~,
les
I(COinS
de
pri~re)l
soot d'une grande sobrittt.
Par
des centres de dhotion et d 'approvisionnement peue !tre tgalemenl
un [aeteur si "on consid~re que les informatrices dans ces milieux dtplorent ne pouvoir se
procurer des images et des objets de pittt aussi souvent qu'clles Ie souhailent. Aucune
par ailleurs ne cOMaissait
I'~pinglette
au l'auto.o(;oll8Ot pour la voiture disponibles depuis
1987.
L'aspect Ie plus significatif d~coulant de la nature complexe du lieu de culte actuel
est cenainement son contenu iconographique. Les trois principales tendances qui s'en
d~gagent
sam I'ouverture
orientale, la ¢nurie
marqu~e
~videnle
sur I'imagerie proven8Ot de la tradition
chr~tienne
de I'hagiographie traditionneUe occidentale et I'absence
quasi lotale de la statuaire. Rappelons que II des 20 figurations se trouvant dans les lieux
de culte renvoient aux iCOnes byzantines. Ces reproduclions qui apparaissent 47 fois sur
un nombre total de 65 images comptent pour n.3% de I'ensemble. Les saints de la
d~votion
traditionnelle des Qu~becois: saint Joseph, sainte Th~r~se et saint Antoine, ainsi
que la statuaire, font certainement figure de parem pauvre avec une
repr~sentation
de
4,6% chacun.
Fait assez surprenant, c'est sans
b~sitation
que les informateurs troquent
d~votions
et imageries traditionnelles to I'amvu de l'icOne miraculeuse. C'est ainsi que la Vierge
SOllS
divers vocables (4x),le
Sacr~-eC%W" (2x),
sainte Anne (Ix) et un crucifix cMent leur
place to I'immigrante de 1'000ent. Comrne Coul immigrant qui se respecte, la nouvelle
arrivte ouvre la voie aux autres membres de sa famiUe icooique comme Ie Christ
Pantocrator, les Vierges de Vladimir, de Korsun, de Czescochowa., elc. II esc to remarquer
que des reproductions d'icOnes, du moins dans la rtgion de Qutbec, circulent depuis
environ dix ans. Une infonnatrice possMe une reproduction de la Vierge de Czestochowa
depuis 1979 et les &1itions Anne Sigier de Sainte-Foy offrem ce type d'imagerie depuis la
28
ICONOGRAPHlE ACfUELLE DU SACRIO
m!me
ann~e
- sans pour autant avoir
rang~
les images lradilionnelles. Les prodiges de
Marie, Mtre de Dieu, Porte, du Ciel ont eu pour effet d'acctltrer la sensibilisalion aux
icOnes qui demeuraient jusque·IA pell coonues.
Ce demier point invite
a considtrer les
facteurs agissant sur Ie mode et les mOlifs
actuels d'acquisilion de !'imagerie. Tout d'abord la
l'icOne miraculeuse correspond
majoril~des
informateurs dtclare que
a. une dtmarche spirituelle personnel Ie
vtcue
a. ('inltrieur
des groupes de pritre el que leur premitre reproduction est un cadeau d 'amis issus de ces
petits groupes d'appartenance sans lien de parentt.
Ceci conlraste vivement avec la
pratique traditionnelle valliant que proches parents ou amis tchangent petites images
dtvotes pour sQuligner I'hentail d'~vtnementsde la vie sociale, familiale et religieuse. du
berceau 1la lombell. L'acquisition actuelle d'une image ne rel~ve plus d'une pratique
coutumi~re.
conftrme
Tout en se voulant Ie resultat d 'Wle
~anmoins la
L 'icOne
d~marche
renechie et personnelle, elle
lendance individualiste qui caracttrise la religion d'aujourd·hui.
possMe
cependant
quelques
rapprochemenls
avec
("utilisation
Iraditionnelle des images devotes du Quebec en tant qu'oulil ¢dagogique et symbole de
prolection. Elle se distingue toutefois par cet allribut paniculier Al'iconographic orientale
qu'esl la
.~ presence~.
qui transcende ("image, presence qualifiee de spirituelle. Toute la
distinction et Ie symbolisme de l'icOne se situent Ace nivcau. Rappelons que l'icOne, qui
se realise dans Ie jeQne et la
caracleristique
premi~re
pri~re
er repond Ades canons stoCts d 'inlerpretalion, a pour
de refitter l"au-deIA,I'invisible,I'Absolu,
Considtranl I'accueil fait 1 cene icOne au Quebec et I'ampleur de sa diffusion, il
faul aussi lenir compte de ('impact qu 'a eu Ie depouillemenl syslemalique des
des institulions sur ce terriloire.
~glises
et
II appert que ce balayage, s'apparentanl Aune crise
iconoclasle, ne semble pas avoir ete
tT~S
apprecie.
Le temoignage Ie plus marquant
souligne que I'absence du sacre n'a pas encore ete comble. Serait·ce par une imagerie
plus significalive et par des lieux de culte domestiques que les la'lcs tentent de combler ce
vide? Ala lumitre des donnees recueillies. ('art semble jouer un rOle tr~s important dans
lip. Lessard. Les (Xlites images devoces. ~ur utiliSalion traditionnelle au Quebtt, Quebec. Lcs
Presses de l'Universite Laval, 1981. p. 25.
29
ANNE-MARJE POULIN
Ie recueillement et la pi~t~.
fI Y a plus de cent ans, ~m.ile Vaillancourt signalait
l'importance de ce fait dans l'armnagement religieux en avenissant que
~(du
moment
otll'Eglise se d~int~resse de I'art ou que ('art se retire d'clle, cUe perd son meilleur mode
de propagandc))12.
Tout comme
I'am~nagement
du lieu de culte domestique, la prtsence sacr« de
l'icOne miraculeuse influe sur les gestes et les paroles des priants.
D'une part ceUe
4tprtsencc))
personnelle des
maria Ie suscite. entrerient et approfoodit
I'oraison
inforrnateurs. lnttgrte au quoridien. elle conduit to une relation d'amitit. voire d'intimilt.
Cene familiaritt va
m~me
jusqu'l modifier les tcrmes de la renconcre quoridienne qui se
fait dortnavant en face 1 face, bien assis dans un fauleuil confortable, tout comme si on
renouail avec quelqu 'un
agenouill~
et
t~te
apr~s
une longue absence et non plus en position de soumission,
baisste.
InterprEtation
Vouloir interpreter les
sacre uniquement A travers Ie
pratiques relatives A I'iconographie actuelle du
pMno~ne
merveilleux expose l prendre la partie pour Ie
tout Evidemment son impact est indtniable. Cependant, l'accueH fait 1ll'icOne s'inscrit
tgalement, selon les donnees recueillies, dans une dtmarche amorcte au dtbut des anntes
1970. II convient alors d'interprtter les pratiques dans une double perspective: historique
et mariophanique 13 .
Rappelons d'abord que la majorittdes informaleurs (13/lS) s'engage dans Ie
Renouveau charismalique qui prend son envolte au dtbut des anntes 1970.
dtveloppe,ll'inttrieur de ce mouvement ax~ sur
des gestes et des paroles ainsi qu'une
l'Esprit~Sainl,
int~riorit~ par
II se
une spontantitt au niveau
la meditation et la contemplation. Ces
attitudes apparaissent tout au long de I'ttude. L'unique imagerie pouvant rejoindre cette
demarche est celie des icOnes, ces images imprtgntes de la
les croyants ayant
chemin~
ccpr~sence»
spirituelle. Ainsi,
dans la qu~te de I'Esprit, qui demeure somme toule une forme
12W. Corbeil. c.s.v. Trts<n des Fabrigues du Dioche de Jolictte, MontrtaI, Le Muste d'Art.
1978. p. 103.
13Mariophanique: tame dtsignant !'ttude des apparitions et des manifeslatJons marla1es.
ICONOGRAPHlE ACTUELLE DU SACRE
abstraite de
pi~t~,
30
font-ils bon accueil Aune image qui s'inscrit dans leur recherche de
rAbsolu.
L'accueil fait
lUX
icOnes
compl~te
en quelque sorte un cheminement vcrs la
pi~t~.
Le ptee Lucien Roy s.j.• auteur d'un opu5Cule sur l'icOne miraculeuse, souligne que
pittt a loujours VQuJu s'incamer dans des formes
oil clle peut se renforcer en
pri~res
[ ... ]. formes gesruelles par
s'cxprimant. Formes lintraires au vocales en belles
les anirudes et toules
mani~res
~41a
concr~les
d 'expression corpore lie [ ... ]. formes visuelles par les
images et la multiplicittde reprtsentations.114. Ayant dtjA apprivoist les deu" prem.i~res
formes, les (ervents accueillent la dernitre avec d'autant plus d'enthousiame que !'icOne
qui leur est destinte se manifesle
Le caract~re merveilleux de I'icOne invite d'aul1"e part 1 replacer Ie phtnomtne dans
Ie cadre de la mariophanie mooeme. Au Qw!bec. les ((petiles dtlicatesses de la Vierge •• se
distinguent paniculitrement par leur approche dtmocratique et dtcentraliste.
Alors
qu'1 Fatima et 1 Medjugorje les apparitions ne s'adressent qu'1quelques priviltgits, les
manifestations au Qutbec rejoignent des individus de tout age, sexe et statut. De plus,
gtntralement 11
~Ierinage.
oa)
la Vierge apparait. s'trigent de grands centres de dtvotion et de
Au Qutbec. les dtplacements de la Vierge suggtrent plutOI, selon Gtrard
Marier, pretre de Nicolet, ((que la famille devient un centre intense de pritres))IS.
Ailleurs, la Vierge se manifeste sunout 1 des jeunes et prend la parole; au Qutbec, elle se
manifeste davantage aux adulces par des signes qui incilent et invitent les croyants au
dialogue inttrieur. Le Qut~cois fervenl a toujours accueilli les reprtsenlalions provenanl
des centres de dtvolion intemalionaux. Quoi de plus Itgitime que de vouloir chez soi une
photo, une image du personnage ((relesle•• ayant choisi de se manifesler et de se fixer sur
son propre terri loire.
14L. Roy. Une icdne de la M~re de Dieu. Notre-Dame de la Porte. 31: edit.. bfitK)I\S Inla-Renouveau. SiUcry, Quebec. 1987, p. 7.
HC. Macier. «Notre lerre: Ie point final de I"aventure de Usus» dans: r1nformaleur catholigue,
vol. V. nos 4 et 5. 16 fevrier au Ia" mars, 1986, p. 7 (Dossier exploraloire AFUL).
ANNE-MARIE POULIN
31
II faut
~galement interpr~ter
Ie rote des groupes de
pri~re
dans cette renaissance de
I'imagerie. nOlammeDt les charismatiques. lis sont d 'abord les premiers A ttmoigner du
phtnom~ne miraculeux
et Afaire ttat des prodiges et de leurs bien faits. De plus, ils ont su
concrtliser leur dtvotion 1 J'icOne par la diffusion de reproductions et par I'trection de
Iieux de culte domestiques, ce qui a
favori~
unc ouverture sur I'iconographie orientale
chrtlienne. Cette dtmarche s'cffeclue tgalement ;\ travers d'autres formes d'adhtsion
comme la Fondation de Marie Immaculte J. Sillery, qui rejoint l\ elle seule 90 000
membres et qui doit sa formation originate;1 un groupe de lales de la rtgion l6.
Entin et surtout, 1a signification de la nouveUe imagerie
s'interpr~te
l\ travers Ie
miroir de la sensibilitt, un miroir Atriple dimension: traditionnel, merveilleux et
symbolique. II appert que Ie
franco.-qu~~cois
toujours sensible Ala tradition de I'image
deult
d~cennies.
de confession catholique romaine demeure
d~vote
De plus, il ne demeure pas
dont iI a
indiff~rent
~t~ distanc~depuis
au miracle et
a. la
plus de
surprise
ineltpliqu~e. Ace niveau,la sensibilit~ se vitA travers des signes constatables in siru et se
manifeste par des bienfaits corporels et spirituels aussi bien que par des transformations
de creurs et de foyers.
On retrouve enfin une sensibilit6 face au symbole de la
l'icOne. Cette
~cpr~sence~.
est par ailleurs
de I' Absolu et de I'invisible tant
cOTTobor~
comme de la catholicit~11.
priams Am!me leur
par
~rudits,
iconographes et
quotidien~
(,iconographie actuelle du
s'6rige en
Vatican II.
qu'inspire
par les informateurs
eccl~siastiques
de I'orthodoltie
Une c(pr~sence.) v6cue principalement eC intens~ment par des
une
c(pr~sence).
combl~e
iconographique reproduit en des milliers de copies.
sacr~e,
(~pr~sence»
signal~
r~action
sacr~,
par un simple support
Suivant ces interpretations,
en comblant Ie bc:soin de s'identifier
au vide
esth~rique que
connait Ie
Qu~bec
a. une
(cpr6sence).
depuis Ie Concile de
En corolla ire Aces observations, cene forme d'art spirituel rejoint plus
particuli~rement
les lalcS
engag~s
ayant connu ou cheminant encore dans Ie mouvement
160rganisme fondt en lOOt 1984.
I1Rappelons que l'ic6ne rel~ve de la thtologie de I'image mis au point par l'orthodoxie et qu'elle
rtpond Ades canons stricls d'interprttation.
32
ICONOGRAPIiJE ACfUELLE DU SACRE
charismatique.
Cheminement qui se veut un retour aux sources orienlales du
ctuislianisme et auquell'icOne . dont Marie.
M~re
de Dieu. Pone du Ciel - s'associe des
plus intimemenc.
Conclusion
~tude
L'intention premic!:re de cette
fut
d'~tablir
un bUan ethnologique de
I'iconographic aCluelle du sacrt ~ travers !'icOne prodigieuse Marie,
M~re
du Ciel. Voulant dtpasser Ie simple aspect formel du probli!:me. Ie
appuy~
sur "observation du vtcu el Ie ttmoignage des croyaRls.
pour lenter de saisir la signification de
r6gion de Qu6bec.
I'~mergence d'une
de Dieu, Porte
pr~senl
article s'est
propri~tairc:s
d'icOnes.
nouvelle iconographic dans la
Bien que modeste. celie recherche contribue
a. tlucider.
du mains
qualitalivement, Ie sens de ceUe renaissance d'une imagerie pieuse ainsi qu'Adonner
quelques orienlalions pour des recherches fulures.
II serait souhaitable que ce
phtnom~ne
premi~r
bilan incile A ('exploralion du meme
dans d'autres rtgions du Qutbec, d'une pan pour mesurer la
port~e
du
dynamisme ct d'autre part. pour 6tablir des corrtlations et des comparaisons avec ce
dossier. Ce faisant. Ie vtrilabJe portrait de la situation au Qutbec pourrait alors
~tre
esquis~.
Le
probl~me
de I'iconographie actuelle du sacrt ouvre par ailleurs un vaSle champ
encore inexplort rouchant une varittt d'acteurs 1i6s Ala prtsence de !'icOne. Pensons Ala
nouvelle gtntralion d'iconographes
qut~cois
oeuvrant dans Ie domaine depuis ;\ peine
dix ans. au;( producteurs, mOOleurs et crtaleurs d'une nouvelle imagerie sacrte, aux
diffuseurs en milieu scolaire par exemple ou dans divers ceOlres hospitaliers au d'accueil.
Conlrairement AtOUles prtvisions, I'imagerie
d~vote.
si longlemps inltgrte ;\ la culrure
tradilionnelle el que d 'aucuns croyaient disparue. prend ici un nouveau viragc qui mtrile
d 'etre observt et consignt dans louIe son ampleur et son actuaJitt pour en relirer sa pJeine
signification.
L'ic(\ne de Marie, Mere de Dieu, Porte du Ciel:
Esquisse d'un cheminement spirituel
Denis Croteau l
Universite Laval
Introduction
De nos jours. parler de la «Bonne Sainte Vierge» semble
personnes y compris pour une fone proportion
cours
inlitul~ c~Marie
dans l'histoire du
salut>~
d'~tudianlS
d~pa~ pour
th~ologie.
en
plusieurs
si bien que Ie
(THL-1364 I) DC s'esl donnt que trois fois
Ala Facullt de thtologie de I'Universitt Laval depuis 1980.
m~me
s'il avail tIt inscrit une
dizaioe de fois A ('boraire. Pounant I'l:glise universelle vir prtsenlcment un renouveau
mariat important et cc depuis Pie XIII. Si officiellement I'l:glise de Rome refuse ce
constat, iI en va tout aulrement dans Its faits: ROUS vivons A )'heure mariale! Pour s'cn
convaincrc, it suffit d 'examiner la popularitt de l'iCOne de Marie,
M~re
de Dicu.- Pone du
Cicl distribute a. plus d'uR million d 'cxemplaires.
Ce qui surprend Ie plus, outre celie distribution incroyable, ce SOnt les propos lenus
par les croyants sur leur icOne de Marie, Mhe de Dieu, Porte du Ciel.
r~ceprion
de I' icOne, les gens parlent souvent d'une
et dans leur quotidien: uc'est la
pr~sence
pr~senee de
de la Sainte
Vierge~.,
Apr~s
l'aehat ou la
Marie dans leur demeure
(Cune
pr~sence
du ciel, de
J~sus et de Marie~., (Cune pr~sence agissantc constammenH.J .
It:tudiAnt AIa Facull~ de thtologie de I'univcrsitt Laval, I'auteur termine p~scntemcnt unc
mAitrise sur La rClrontrc des religions dans l'a:uvre de Paul TiJHch.
2Pie XII fut pape de 1939 A1958; c'est lui qui promulgua Ie let novembre 1950 la Bulle sur
r Assomption de Marie (Munificentissimus Deus). On lui doit aussi quaere autrcs encycliques
majeurs sur Marie.
)Oans l"ordre,les infonnatrices nos 05. 06 et 09.
DENlS CROTEAU
Cene pn!sence de Marie au cC%ur du quotidien signa Ie. en quelque sone, Ie
cheminement spirituel des sept infonnatriccs retenues pour les fms de cene analyse4 .
L'article qui suit propose d'interprtter leur dtmarche l panir du moment de la rtception
d'une reprtXlucrion de l'icOne miraculeuse en passant par Ie dialogue et rabandon .ila
Vierge jusqu '.1 I'ttape de "inttriorisation.
Esquisse d'un cheminement spirituel
A· Rtceptlon de L'lcOne
C'cst souvent lars d 'un tvtnement imponant dans la vie des informatrices - dtpart
d'u" enfant,
f~te
anniversaire, dtbut d'une ¢riode de chOmage. maladie grave du conjoint
ou divorce - que celles-ei ant re~u en cadeau leur premi~re icOne de Marie, M~re de Dieu,
Pone du Ciel 5. Quel que soil Ie format re~u. ces personnes ne s'anendaient aucunement
l un tel cadeau. Certaines d'cntre elles ne savaient que faire de eeUe ieOne, d'autres
trouvaient rimage de Marie beaucoup trop aust~re et l(se sentaient un peu mal». II y en a
m~me
une qui ne s 'attendait pas 1 garder une ieOne 11a maison: (tee n'est pas une ~glise
ici»6. II faut dire que cene infonnatrice s'est rerrouvte avec une icOne de grand format
mesurant 40 em x SO em,
ieOne pour un centre de
mari
d~ident
apr~s
pri~re
avoir ~t~ mandalte par des amis pour acheter une grande
de la
r~gion
de Qutbec. La joumte de rachat, elle et son
d'entrer l'icOne dans la maison A cause du froid. Une fois A
rint~rieur,
reproduction de l'icOne se manifeste en d~gageant un parfum ressemblanl:\ un
rose el de myrrhe. Depuis celie
joum~
la
m~lange
de
M~re
de
de printemps 198.5, !'icOne de Marie,
Dieu, Porte du Ciel trOne sur un chevalet dans leur salon au milieu de cinq nouvelles
ieOnes difftrentes.
4Les infoonatrices stlectionntes pour eet article son( lirees de rensemble des enquttes orales
~alistes en compagnie d'Anne·Marie Poulin. Leur Age varie de 27 165 ans; trois sont veuves
(1984,1985,l986) soilles nos 01, 02 eI 05, deux soot mariees (nos 03 et 06), une est divon:~e (no
09) et Ia demitte est ctlibataire (no 10). Notons que les cin:onstances onl voulu que les ttmoins
disponibles au moment de l'enqu!Ce soienl tous de sexe feminin.
'Les informatrices se soni toutes prOCUR: une ou plusieurs autres reproduclions de 13. mtme icOne
pour la maison.
61nfonnatrice 03.
L'ICONE DE MARJE
Apr~s
la
r~ception
36
de ('icOne. la plupart des gens ne savent
au ranger
ce cadeau
pour Ie mains particulier. Plus lard, comme par instinct. plusieurs placen! une autre copie
de "icOne prts ou au-dessus d'une porte car son vocable n'est-il pas Marie. Mtre de Dieu.
Pone du Cie!. Ainsi de fa~on parfois lets discrete7 ou de fa~on plus ~vidente. la Vierge
veille sur leur demeure au lieu du traditionnd Sacr~..creur8.
B - L. Dlalogu.
Pour plusieurs, I'adaplation AI'icOne se fera sans trop de peine car 4(plus on la
regarde plus on l'aime»9.
I'endroit ou est
pla~e
us informatrices accordent une trts grande importance
;l
('icOne dans leur maison. Que eel endroit soh petit ou grand. it
devient lenlement Ie centre de leur vie spirituelle et ce, pour six d'enlre clles plus
paniculitremenl.
Un dialogue s'engage alors progressivement entre ces personnes et l'icOne, dialogue
qui devient dtvolion maria Ie et qui s'exprime par une rencontre
rtguli~re
avec Marie.
Celte renconlre se rtalise en face Aface avec l'icOne, Ie plus souvent assis ou, pour rune,
~
genoux. Ces tchanges avec Marie onl lieu au moins une fois par jour, leur durte
variant de quelques minutes ~ une heure lO . Face Al'icOne les gens passent facilement du
chapelel au rosaire: ((avant je trouvais que c'ttait bien long [un chapelet), maintenant
j'essaie de dire mon rosaire tous les joursnll. Une autre l2 nous dira que grAce Aric6ne
7Tel que vu chez la plus jeune informatrice (10).
BC'etait une pnuique courante dans les foyers quebecois catholiques de placer une image du
Sacre-Cceur llu-dessus d'une porte d'entree de la rnaison avec "inscription suivante: ,de benirai les
maisons olll'image de mon cceur sera exposee et honoree)'.
91nformatrice 02.
IOOlacunc des infonnatrices priviJegie son propre slyle de rencontrc. Pour certaines ce seront de
brtves rcncootres aJeatoites de quelques minules mais plusieurs fois par jour, aJon que d'autres
prHereront un khange plus long el plus methodique, par exemple, Ie temps d'un chapelet ou d'un
rosaire Araison d'une fois par jour.
III nfonnatrice 05
12 Informalrice 02, AI~ que I'informatrice 01 s'cndort souvent avt:C son icc)ne.
DENIS CROTEAU
37
elle connait un retour au chapelct. Elle Ie
r~cite
d'une falfon plus intense et actualise les
paroles de "Ave.
Les informatrices font des lectures pieuses du brhiaire. du Nouveau Testament ou
des tents spiriruels des grands saints et saintes de I'~glise sui vies d'une mtditation sur les
mysttres de I'ttriture. La pri~re devient spontante et s'cltprime par un dialogue familier
avec Marie. au cours duquel les gens offrent leur humble
jou~e
de travail en sacrifice
quotidien. Elles font preuve d'une connaissance souvent approfondie des enseignements
de la Vierge donnts 1 MedjugorjelJ. Enfm. clles dtsirent faire Censacrer leur icOne l4 . En
principe cela o'cst pas permis par I'Eglise. et pounant ('ensemble de nos infonnarrices
poss«lent toutes des icOnes consacrfes!
Les informatriccs parlcm m!me d 'une prtsence physique de Marie, prtsence qui
suscite un dtsir de toucher I'kllne ou d'!tre avec J'icOne.
Pour I'une d'elles. cene
prtsence de Marie ~ travers I'icllne s'exprime au coucher. par Ie contaci avec l'icOne lors
de la r6citation du chapelcl. II lui arrive assez rtguli~rement de s'endormir avec son icOne
dans les mains avant d'avoir termint son chapelel l.5.
C - L'Abandon A Marie
Une fois Ie dialogue
~tabli,
les mols ne manquent pas pour dtcrire ces moments
paniculiers: ((Elle prouve qu'elle eSI lA, qu'elle s'occupe de nous», ((qu'elle nous aide,
nous
prol~ge).,
C(nous
~oute
et nous inonde de graces)). C(on peUI tout lui confier, lout lui
remettre.'. Les anecdotes aussi ne manquent pas: deux de nos informatrices nous ant
avout ne plus avoir peur des voleurs depuis J'arrivte de leur icOnel (cUne icOne dans une
IJII est int&essant de remarquer 'ci les liens etroits qui existent entre les differcnts phenom~nes
maria.ls. POW" la plupart des informatrices. ces phenom~nes constiluent un lout; pour eUes, les
apparitions de Medjugorje ne sont qu'une des nombfeuses facates de la vie marlate. De plus. six
d'enlte eUes esper-ent se rendrc ou retoumer AMedjugorje; trois d'entre clles y sont dejA allees .
14La consb:ration de l'icOne est un geste infiniment plus impoltant quc 1& simple bened'ction.
l...ors de l'eucharistic,l'officiant placc sur I'alltclles 'cOnes Aconsacrer sur lesqlleUes il dtp05era les
S&inles csp«cs durant I'offc:rtoire.
L'ICONE DE MARIE
38
maison, c'est une protection [c~les(el)116.
eel abandon
a. Marie n'est pas uniquement passif car it emretiem m!me la poursuite
du dialogue. Marie est une campagne, une amie; mais aussi une (cM~re qui
DOUS ~coute.
DOUS exauce et qui veille sur nous)~171 qui on peut tout dire ~t sunoul, tout confier. Ainsi
plusieurs de nos infonnatrices poussent ('audace jusqu'ldemander AMarie divers signes
tangibles ou des manifestations arm d'tclairer les ~v~nements de leur qUOIidien. Ces
signes ne ,dennent pas seulement de l'icOne. mais parfois de tQutes sooes
de la vie quolidienne; pour les informalrices. ce seront aulant d'
((accu~s de
d'~v~nemenIS
rtceplion» de
la part de la Vierge.
Pour toutes les informalrices, cene
~tape
du cheminement s· accompagne d' une
diffusion de !'icOne selon leurs moyens fmanciers propres l8 ,
De plus, six des
inforrnatrices font panie de groupes de pritre au de mouvements d'l:glise; elles annoncenl
la bonne nouvelle, donnenl des ttmoignages de vie, au invilent les gens Avenit prier Aleur
domicile,
Elles participent aussi et bien sauvent de
fa~on
active Ala vie de leur
communautt paroissiale, Tout cela afin de ttrnoigner des miracles accomplis par Marie
dans leur vie: elle leur a donne (cia force d'accepter les choseS),19 et les evtnements
difficiles qu'elles vivaient au moment de la reception de l'icOne,
o - L'lnt~riorlsalion
Aprts une ¢riode souvent Irts intense de diffusion de l'icOne, qui dUTe de quelques
mois Aquelques anntes. les gens cessent subilement de distribuer Ataus vents les icOnes
parce que c'est quelque chose de prtcieux et d'important. Bien souvent,les reproductions
sonl
~nites
ou meme consacrtes, alors l(On ne donne pas
~a
An'importe qui)) de dire
plusieurs informatrices,
16) nfonnarrice 06,
111nfonnauice 02,
tSL'informatrice OS estime Apres de 300 reproductions Ie nombre d'ic()nes qu'elle a distribuees;
a10rs qu'une aulre n'en n'a donne que quelques-unes, faule de moyens financiers,
191nfonnarrice 02,
DENIS CROTEAU
39
Puis, avec Ie temps, les gens abandonnent presque tOllS les mouvementS auxquels Us
appaniennent. d'abord ccux du genre tcsocialn puis ceux d'l!glise2°. Tout cela pour rester
Ie plus possible ila Maison avec Marie qui y est
Cene
~tape
communicadon
marque Ie
s~ciale
et
d~but
paniculi~re
pr~sente.
es~ce d'~ta[
d'une
d'oraisoD
r~gulier,
d'une
avec Marie mais aussi avec son fils Jtsus. Ie Christ
et ce A travers "icOne. C'CSI Marie qui offre son Fils, Ie fruit de ses entrailles. Elle l'offre
car.
tC •••
la Vierge Marie est fone. Tu I'as
men~.
[pour notre salul] et tu continues la mission de
dit une informarrice, jusqu'lla croix
DOUS
Ie donner.
Dans nos anntes
troubles, tu prends encore Ie risque de DOUS Ie donner et de Ie fa ire maltraiter. Tu
donnes encore, car tu sais que son nom est Victoire~~21.
DOUS
sa
Ie
Les personnes fmissent par parler moins des manifestations de leur icOne puisque
c'est quelque chose de personnel. Elles restent plus souvent Ala maison, abandonnent
presque toute relation avec Ia soci~t~. sauf celie avec leur ~glise. Elles coupent les liens
avec Ie monde
ext~rieur.
ne regardent plus la
t~l~vision,
n'feoutent plus la radio et ne
lisent plus les jownaux. Elles contemplent longuement )'icOoe, en vivant un abandon
ADieu avec des cctouches» de Dieu, puisque c'est Lui qui prend l'initiative. Elles vivent
une relation
particuli~re,
une namrne les habite. Marie devient alor'S un
Aaneindre. AI'exemple de sa vie
I'adoption d' un discours
effac~
int~rieur:
mod~le
de vie
l\ Nazareth durant Ie minist~re de son Fils. par
(eet sa rrere gardait
fid~lement
toutes ces choses en son
coour»22. De plus, ces personnes cherchent Aimiter les exemples de la vie des mystiques
et des sainrs. Cene recherche se traduit par un mode de vie
d~pouillt;
elles menent une
vie de recluses, prennent des repas frugals, s 'habillenr simplement et ouvrent leur porte l\
tous et l\ toutes. Elles s'abandonnent finalement tout
enti~res
l\ la Providence divine et ne
se soucient plus du lendemain.
20Sau f parfois un petit groupe: intime de p~re.
211nfonnatrice 09.
22Bible de JCrusalem. nouvc:UeMition. 1975. I!vangiJe de Luc 2, 5l.
L'ICONE DE MARIE
40
Conclusion
De la
r~ception
de l'icOne miraculeuse Ason
traduisant par une relation
int~riorisation.
la dtmarche spirituelle
Elle ttmoigne d'un accomplissement personnel se
des informatrices est progressive.
d\~troite
intimitt avec la Vierge Marie.
Ces
personn~s
qui
dtlaissent leur activittd'£glise au profit d'une vie spirituelle plus intense mais aussi plus
rCliete. \liven I en relrait de la communautt et de !'Eglise-communault.
Au (efme de celie enquetc, une question demeure: ce cheminernent spirituel
constitue·l-il une menace pour )'Eglise? Dans un premier temps, on pourrait penser qu'il y
a effectivement un risque pour ('Eglise. la nature de ce demier reposanl principalement
sur I'opposition communaut6'individualitt. La solurion la plus simple et la plus radicale
pour menre fin Ace type de cheminement spirituel individuel serait sans aucun doute Ie
rerrait
syst~matique
de certains signes sensibles comme les icOnes. N'oublions pas que
c'est l'icOnc de Marie,
M~re
de Dieu, Porte du Ciel qui est ici I'instigatrice de ce dtsir
d'isolement. Ce faisant, J'histoire se
nouvelle vague
icOnol~tre
rt~tera-t-elle
? Verrons-nous alors emerger une
pour Ie salut de la communaute?
Toutefois, AI'examen plus approfondi des temoignages, la menace paralt moins
tvidenle. Ces femmes sont consciemes de ce qu'dles vivem et de risoleOlenl dans lequel
dies se sont placte's de plein grt. Pour elles, it est certain d 'une pan que Marie veilJe el
qu'elle ne laissera pas WOlber l'reuvre de son Fils.
D'aulre pan, ces femmes pour la
plupart ont realist leur engagement d'E:gJise: elles ont fait c(leur tempsll el c'est
mainlenanl Ad'autres de prendre la
reJ~ve.
Par ailleurs, pour plusieurs des informatrices,
I'important dortnavant c'est cette vie d'amour avec Marie, ce dialogue et surtout celie
relalion d'intimitt
particuli~re par
et avec leur icOne de Marie,
M~re
de Dieu, Porte-du·
Cicio Or, malgrt I'isolement apparent dans lequeJ vivent ces femmes, eUes demeurem en
communion avec I'Eglise (cune el universelle.' par la pri~re,
Membres discr~tes d'un
liers-ordre anonyme, elles aspirent Attre lout comme Marie les humbles servanles du
Seigneur, pour que ccsa
volont~
soit faile sur la terre comme au cieh•.
La Vierge Marie dans l'imaginaire des croyants:
Analyse des pri~res d~pos~es a l'ic6ne de
Marie, M~re de Dieu, Porte du Ciel
Marcelle Cinq-Mars I
Universit~ Laval
Introduction
Depuis que
M~re de
r~glise
Saint·Michel de SiJlery a
Dieu. Pone du Cicl, les
ftd~les
~(abli
un oratoire i\ l'icOne de Marie,
qui lui rendent visite ont
leurs intentions de pritre. Ces iOienrions soot recueillies et
I'opponuni~d'y d~poser
conserv~es
par Ie (>tre Jean-
Paul Trottier s.m. qui a consenri i\ ce qu 'une analyse en soit faite. Ces intentions de pri~re
sont
g~n~ralemenl
b:rites sur des coupures de feuilJes de papier que les fidtles se
procurent sur place. II s'agit de feuilles coJortes (rose, bleu, jaune et blanc) au verso
desquelles apparaissent parfois des texles religieux. L'utilisation d'une grille d'analyse a
permis de rclever les informations qui ferment la base d'une rtnexion sur la conception
que se font les croyants du rOle et du pouvoir de la Vierge Marie.
La grille d'l.alyse
Cette grille se divise en trois parties. La partie A renferme les informations sur
rtcrivant et la
pr~sentation
mat~rielle
de la
renseignements sur Ie contenu de I'intention de
I'~rivant.
pri~re.
pri~re
La partie B contient les
lorsqu'il s'agit de demandes pour
La partie C fait de meme en ce qui conceme les demandes pour une personne
autre que Ie demandeur.
Partie A:
us ~crivants ont ete ~par~s en deux: groupes d 'Age, les jeWles et les adultes. Cene
division, qui peut sembler arbitraire, est cependant dict~ par Ie contenu mtme des
pri~res.
l~lUdiante au Departement d'histOlre de J'univc:rsitt Laval, ('auteure vient de terminer une
malbise portant sur ('analyse d'un journal personnel.
MARCELLE CINQ-MARS
43
d6:1i~
Figure 1: Oratoire
SilU~
dans
AncOne miraculeuse de Marie,
I'~glise
M~re
de Dieu, Pone du Ciel
Saint·Michel de Sillery, Qu~bec. Au centre, A('avant plan on
remarque Ie panier servant
a. recueillir les intentions des fidtJes
(Photo: Paul
Lalibent).
En effet, une personne qui demande de I'aide pour ses examens scolaires ou qui prie
pour son
arri~re-grand-m~re
peut facilement ttee
(jusqu'Ala vingtaine
d·ann~es).
son conjoint se VOil
c1ass~
Inversement, Ie
dans la
cal~gorie
clas~e
fjd~le
dans Ie groupe des jeunes
qui prie pour ses enfants ou pour
des adulles. Bien entendu, ces donn6es ne
sont retenues qu'4 titre purement indic3lif. De plus, un cenain nombre des intentions de
pri~re fie foumissent pas de dftails permeuant de situer ('auteur dans "un ou "autre des
groupes d ·age. Entin. cene panie renferme les informations sur la langue dans laquelle
est
r~digte
la
pri~re.
VIERGE MARJE DANS L'IMAGINAJRE DES CROYANTS
44
Parlles Bel C :
Divi~es
spirituelles.
en deux sections. ces panics analysent les demandes
Le contenu
I'am~lioration de
la
sant~.
mat~riel
mat~rielles
et
comprend les demandes pour la conservation ou
les demandes visant A amtliorer la situation
financi~re
(Imuver
c1as~es
dans la
un ernploi. gagner Ala lorerie). Les autres demandes mattrielles sont
caltgorie divers.
Le contenu spiricuel contient les demarxtes d'aKJe el de soutien moral. les
~n~iction
remerciemenls, les demandes de pardon, les demandes de
ou de protection,
les demandes pour l'oblention d'une venu (courage. justice, prudence. rem¢rance.
charitt, esptrance et foil et les demandes pour obtenir une conversion ou un relour Ala
roi.
Cene grille d'analyse a tIt appliqute A.500 intentions de
pri~res
prtlevtes au hasard
parmi les milliers qui existent.
Analyse des Resultats
L'Ecrlvant
Les r~sultals monlrent que 85,6% des
et 3,4% non
proponion
utilis~e,
identifi~s.
~gale
fid~les sonl
des adultes contre II % de jeunes
Seulemenl 24,2% d'entre eux. ant signe leur
chez les adultes et les jeunes (21.8%).
pri~re,
dans une
Pour ce qui est de la langue
97,2% des ~crivanlS s'expriment en fran~ais conlre 2,4% en anglais et 0,4% en
espagnol.
Les del118ndes
Au total, on retrouve 485 demandes pour
pri~re
I'~crivant
contre 493 pour aUlrui. une
pouvanl conlenir plus d 'une requele. On demande done autant pour soi-mtme que
pour d 'autres.
Au niveau des demandes
mat~rielles, I'inqui~tude
pour la
sant~
des prcx:hes
reropone sur celie du demandeur (70 contre 49 demandes). Par contre, on demande plus
souvent ('aide
mal~rielle
financitre pour soi (42) que pour auttui (33).
Les aUlres
MARCELLE CINQ-MARS
dernandes sont quatre fois plus nombreuses pour soi que pour autrui (43 conlre II): iI
semble que I'on connall mieux ses propres besoins maltriels que ccux de ses praches.
En ce qui a trait aux demandes d 'ordre spirituel, les
pri~res
de protection, d 'amour
et de btntdiction I'emponenl largement (314) sur "aide morale (228), les remerciements
(84),105 demarxles de vertu (37) el de partlon (26). On demande la protection pour aulrui
(187) plus souvent que pour soi·m!me (97).
Par contre. la difftrence R'est pas aussi
marqute entre "aide morale pour soi (139) el pour autrui (119). On remercie aussi plus
pour $Oi que pour $es proches (67 conlre 17). Sur les 500 intentions de
r~c1a~ Ie
pri~re.
21 ant
pardon pour l'tcrivam et.5 seulement pour quelqu'un d'aulre. On rcttouve 27
demandes pour I'obtention d'une venu pour Ie demandeur contre seulement 10 pour
auuui. Entin, la conversion, jamais demand~ pour soi-mtme, revientA41 reprises. Tous
ces chiffres rtRrentA l'ensemble des 500 intentions de
comparaison sur la nature des
pri~res
pri~re.
II impone d'effectuer une
adresstes AMarie entre celles des jeunes et des
adultes.
Prl~res des
Dans
repr~nte
jcunes ct des adultes
l'~hantillon pr~lev~ se lTouvent 55
I 1% du total.
exprirn~s
par les jeunes (55 individus
identifi~s)
tableau nous apprend que les jeunes se
niveau des demandes
mat~rielles
demandes correspondent aux
scolaires,
succ~s
pri~res d~pos~s
et celles des
d~marquent
par des jeunes, ce qui
diff~rences
Le tableau I montre les
a1n~s
entre les demandes
(428
idencifi~s).
principalement de leurs
ain~s
Ce
au
diverses (15,7% contre 3,2% poW' les aduhes). Ces
probl~mes
quotidiens que vivenc les jeunes: examens
amoureux au sponifs, etc. De
m~me,
les jeunes r&lamenc plus d 'aide
morale (25,7% concre 12,4%) el de prolection (14,2% conlre 8,9%) que leurs alnts.
Qui peut nous alder?
Pour les fid~les, la Vierge Marie joue soil Ie rOle de bienfailTice soit celui
d'interm&:liaire. Le plus souvent, on requiert son intercession
aupr~s
de Dieu ou de
J~us.
En effet, les gens distinguenc les deux personnes et on ne demande pas la meme chose
i\ I'une et AI'aucre. eet aspect mEricerait d'ailleurs une recherche plus approfondie. Quoi
qu'il en soit, Marie a Ie pouvoir de toucher leur creur: c'est une cenirude pour ceux qui la
prient.
VIERGE MARIE DANS L'IMAGINAIRE DES CROYANTS
Comparaison des
Prl~res
Tableau I
des Adultes Avec Celles drs leunes
Pour Autrul
Adulles
Jeunes
Pour Sol
Jeunes-'
Demandes
Adultes'
I. Mattrielles
- Sant~
- Finances
-Autre
2._SA~:~I::le
- Remerciement
- Pardon
- Protection
- Venu
- Conversion
46
%
%
%
%
4.9
4.3
3,2
1,4
0.0
15.7
6.8
3.4
1.1
5.0
0.0
0,0
12,4
6,5
1,9
8,9
2,4
0,0
25.7
4.2
2,8
14,2
4,2
0.0
11,8
1.6
0,5
18.1
6.8
4,2
5.7
1.4
0,0
15.7
2.8
0,0
En plus de Dieu et de J~sus (sous louces ses appellations). les fid~les ont fail appel 8
fois l saint Joseph pour la protection des travailleurs ~t des ~res de famille. Seulement
deux autres sainls soot pr~sen(s: saiOle Anne (4 (ois) et saini COme (I fois).
c\ Marie. elle occupe une place
La Vierge Marie c'esl aussi Marie.
majoril~
Quant
priviltgi~e.
M~re
de Dieu, Pone du Cie:!.
La grande
des fid~les s'adresse A ((rna m~re Marie~. ou i\ ((Marie. mtre de Dieu.). Qualre
autres appellations ont tie trouv6es: Notre-Dame du Rosaire (2 fois), Notre-Dame du
Perp6ruel-Secours (l fois), Notre-Dame de I'Esperance (I fois) el Notre-Dame du GrandPouvoir (I fois).
Pour qui prle...·on?
Les 500 pri~res analystes contiennent 978 demandes dont 485 pour rtcrivant et
493 pour les autres. Dans cette partie, nous verrons pour qui les tcrivams prient, outre
eux-memes.
Nolons d'abord que la majoriltdes
pri~res
eSI deslinte Aune ou des
personnes en particulier que ron dtsigne par son nom sans memionner Ie lien avec
2Pourcentagc: de celie demande sur les 908 failcs par des adultcs.
JPOllrCentage de cc:lte demande sur Ics 70 faites pat les jeuncs.
MARCELLE CINQ-MARS
47
l'~crivant. Tr~s
peu de
pas voutes Aetre
mentionn~s dans
fid~les
analy~s.
trouvent utile de noter ce lien puisque leurs
pri~res
ne sont
Le tableau II rend compte des destinataires explicitement
les intentions de
pri~re.
Tableau n
Pour Qui Prle-I-On?
enfants de r~crivant
famille d'autrui
grands-parents
18
fr~re
10
9
tpouse
m~re
7
¢re
fils
Marie-Jeunesse
mari
6
3
3
cousine
lante
oncle
II semble
tr~s
difficile de conclure quoi que ce soit Apartir de
nombreuses, sinon que les
unissent aux personnes
fid~les
3
3
2
2
2
2
I
sceur
donn~es
aussi peu
ne ressentent pas Ie besoin d'identifier les liens qui les
mentionn~es.
Types de prl~res
Dans son livre Pri~res secr~tes des Fran5ais d'aujourd'hui, Serge Bonnet4 a
class~
les types de
pri~res
des
Fran~ais
en 25
cat~gories.
ne figurem pas dans les intentions analyrees dans la
indiquees par la leure
((X»)
pri~res
Celles-ci soot
dans Ie tableau III ci-dessous.
Quelques exemples tires du corpus des intentions
de
Parmi elles, huit (8) seulement
pr~sente ~tude.
les ev~nements marquants de la vie du
analy~s
illustrent les
((communiqu~))
selon la classification de S. Bonnet. Le
cat~gories
annonce par exemple
fid~le:
- 12-03-87, Naissance de C.R. Bonne
saot~.
Merci;
- Sommes revenus de notre voyage de Rome.
4Serge Bonnet, Pri~res secr~tes des Francais d'aujourdh'hui, Paris.l:.d. du Cerf, 1976, p. 281.
VIERGE MARIE DANS L'IMAGINAIRE DES CROYANTS
48
Tabl.au III
CBt~gorles de prl~res
l{
.It
selon 18 c1assiflcatlon de Serge Bonnet
• bouquet
- cane de visite
- chaix
- communiqu~
x
- comptabilit~
- colis
- ex voto
- graffiti
• Icltre
- litanies
- n~gocialions
- ~tiles annonces
x
- confession
- constat
- courrier du creuc
x - curriculum vita::
- dtcJaration
- demandes
;'it
- question
- rtclamation
- rendez-vollS
- syndical de 1a Terre
- syndical du Ciel
- ttl~gramme
- uhimatum
La caltgorie
l(colis~
consiste gtntralemenl Aremellre ses proches ou ses
probl~mes
encre les mains de la Vierge. sous son emitre responsibilitt:
- Marie, je Ie laisse J.P. Prends soins de lui.
La
((r~lamatiom)
provient d'uR fidtle qui s'allend Arecevoir ce qu'il estime eIre
son dO:
- Je prie depuis deux ans pour rna saUlt. J'auends encore la gutrison.
Le tlsyndical de la Terre et celui du
lesquelles Ie
tid~le
Cid~~
sont
repr~senl~s
par des
pri~res
dans
attire ('attention de la Vierge sur les problemes des vivants el des
morts:
• Pourrais-tu aider rna soeur, son mariage va mal. Merci.
- Mon ¢re est d~cM~. Je prie pour lui. Pouvez-vous I'aider. Merci J-C D.
Entin. il arrive que les
fid~les
lancent de vrais
((ultimatumS~1 A I'image
de I'exemple
suivant:
- EG. ment toujours Asa e.S. Si cu ne fais rien. je devrai lui dire la
vtrit~.
MARCELLE CINQ-MARS
49
Cette partie Deus a dre~ Ie bilan de ('analyse de cantenu des 500 pri~res adresstes
i\ Marie. M~re de Dieu, Porte du Cie!.
soulev~ une
question paniculitre
(I
La lecture et ('analyse de ces pritres ant
appen effectivement que les
fid~les con~oivent
deux
rOles i\ la Vierge: intermtdiaire et bienfaitrice.
Dans la seconde panie de
article,
eel
DOUS
verrons la position officielle et
dogmatique de rtiglise i\ I'~gard du rOle de la Vierge et ce qui ressort de la conception
que s'cn font les croyants. i\ panic de ('analyse de leurs pri~res.
Interpr~tation
des R~sultats
Une premiere analyse du contenu des pritres dt!X>s6es i\ Marie, Mtre de Dieu, Porte
du Ciel a soulevt plusieurs interrogations. Par la nature des demandes et la
clles
prtsenttes, on peut obtenir un
SOOI
I'imaginaire des
analy~es
fid~les.
Les.'500
pri~res
aper~u
fa~on
dont
de 1a conceplion du rOle de Marie dans
utilistes dans la premitre panie furent done
r~·
dans eene perspective. Cene fois-ci, Ie deslinataire, son rOle (bienfaiteur ou
intercesseur), la nature de la demande et la faeron dont on s'adressc au destinataire ont
~t~not~.
RfsuUats
Les .'500
pri~res
sc
r~partissent
ainsi: 348
pri~res
a. la Vierge (69,6%), 80
i\ J~sus
(16,0%),30 a. Dieu (6.0%), 27 ne mentionnent aueun destinataire (.'5,4%) et 1.'5 s'adressent
a. d'autres (3,0%). C'est done
n'~tonne
7 priMes sur 10 qui sont adressUs i\ Marie. Ce chiffre
nuHement puisque la devotion
particuli~re
de I'eglise de Sillery est centree sur la
Vierge.
R61e du destinatalre
Seule Marie poss!de deux rOles aux yeux des
fid~les: intenn~diaire aupr~s
de son
Fils el de Dieu et bienfaitrice direete des grtces. Sur les 348 pritres AMarie, Il,8% des
fid~les
oot recours a. son intercession eontre 88,2% qui lui demandent de leur procurer
personneHement les grtces, sans Ie secours de Dieu.
VIERGE MARIE DANS L'IMAGINAJRE DES CROY ANTS
Nature des demandes
Les demandes sont divistes selon la grille d'analyse utiliste dans la
de eel article. Seules nuent analysUs les 348 pritres
pas mains de 770 demandes: 202 demandes mattrielles
adre~es;\
COOffe
premi~re
50
partie
Marie. qui onl foumi
568 demandes spiriruelles.
Les demandes de protection (260) et d'aide (138) sont les plus nombreuses alors que les
demandes de conversion (14) et de pardon (9) sont les plus rares. Le tableau IV donne Ie
total des demandes pour chaque rOle de la Vierge.
Tableau IV
Nature des demandes adressees a\ Marie
Demandes
Nombre Blen(aitrlce Inlermedlalre
Sant~
Conversion
78
57
67
138
60
9
260
87
14
63
50
62
127
55
8
242
82
14
15
7
5
II
5
I
18
5
0
Total
770
703
§2
Finances
Autres
Aide morale
Remerciement
Pardon
PrOlection
Vertu
La
r8~on dont
on s'adresse a\ Marie
Sur 105 348 pritres. 223 (64%) personnes tutoien' I. Vierge e' 81 (23%) I.
vouvoient. Dans 44
pri~res.
on ne retrouve aucune indication.
L'tgllse, la Vlerge elles Fldeles
- Pourquoi prioRs-oeus devant Ie crucifix, devant les images el les reliques des
sainls?
- Nous prioRs devan! Ie crucifix, devant les images et les reliques des saints. parce
que la vue de ces Objets excite notre d~votion. en nollS rappelao! Ji!sus-Christ el
les saints. et en RCUS les proposant pour mod~les l\ imiter.
- Pourquoi prians-ocus si souven! la sainte Vierge?
- Nous prioRs si sou vent la sainte Vierge parce qu'elle est la plus puissante
protectrice que ocus puissions avoir au Cie!.
MARCELLE CINQ-MARS
51
Ces ex.traits du Petit Cal~hisme5 pr~sentent les rOles recaonus de la Vierge: mod~le
el proteclrice. Meme si Ie Petit Cat6chisme a
lais~
la place aux d~rets du Condie
Vatican II, les dogmes, eux, R'ont pas subi de modifications. Le 21 novembre 1964. Ie
pape Paul VI promulguait la constitution dogmatique De Ecclesia (Lumen Gentium). Le
chapitre VIII de ce document est
enti~rement
consacr61la Vierge Marie. L'ankle
~4
pr6seme les intentions des autorit6s conciliaires:
En constquence. Ie saint Concile ( ... I entend mettre en lumi~re la fonction de la
bienheureuse Vierge dans Ie myst~ du Verbc incarnl: et du Corps mystique. et d'autre
part. les devoirs des hommes rachetb CRVCrs la Vic:rge, MOl: du Otrist et mo-e des
hommes. sp6c:ialement cellc des fldeles6.
Le rOle de la Vierge est c1airemem pr6cire dans I'article , 62:
( ... ) cUe s'occupc: I ... I des frtres de son Fils qui sont encore des ~Ierins et qui soot en
butte aux dangers et aux mis~. I ... I Tout cela doit pourtant ,'entendre de m&n~re
qu'on n'enltve ni n'ajoute rien lladignit~et 11'aetion du Christ.. sad M6diateur'.
S'il est done permis de recourir Ala sainte Vierge. ceci ne doit
alt~rer
en rien
I'unique m&:liation du Christ. L'Egiise reconnait alors rutiJit~du culle de la Vierge:
c(~jA, depuis les temps les plus recul~s, [ . , . ] les fidtles, en leurs pritres, se rUugient
sous sa prmcction au milieu de tous les ¢rils et des difficul~s qu'i1s rencontreno.8. Les
textes de Vatican II mnovent en
pr~sentant
«une synthtse si vaste de la doctrine
catholique sur la place que Marie tres sainte occupe dans Ie mysttre du Christ et de
l'Eglise••9. Mais cene synth~se doctrinale demeure assez aride.
'Petit Cat6chisme: fdition officielle, Qu~bec, 1944 (1976) p. 117.
6p.A. Martin, Vatican II, Its seize documents conciliaires. Montrtal, Fides. 1967, p. 671.
'Idem., p. 88-89.
'ldem.. p.91.
VIERGE MARJE DANS L'IMAGINAIRE DES CROYANTS
Plus de quinze ans
apr~s
Vatican II, Ie pape
p~lerin
52
lean·Paul II s'adressait aux
Mexicains AZapopan lO au 5ujet de la pi~t~ populaire covers 1a saime Vierge.
Pour ce
pape, la pitlt populaire n'est pas Hune forme inftrieure de manifestation religieuse))II.
Bien encadrte par les autoritts religieuses. tda pittt populaire est vraiment la pittt des
pauvres el des simples,.I2. Mais cette pittt populaire n'existe pas seulement au Mexique.
comme en font foi ItS
pri~res d~postes i
Sillery. Les paroles prononctes par Jean-Paul II
meltent en exergue Ie Ion dogmalique. voice sec, des lCltles conciliaires. Plus de vingt ans
aprts la c10rure des sessions de Vatican II, it semble que la roi et la dtvotion des
eltigeRt plus de chaleur, de sensibilitt. Le
fid~le
fJd~les
a besoin de se sentir prts de son Dieu.
Ce rapprochement peut!lrC plus facile avec la Vierge. la
m~re
des hommes (voir tableau
IV).
Le rapprochement se serait-il
effectu~
au
d~trimenl
de la connaissance des rOles
reconnus 1 Marie par I'Eglise? En lant que prOlectrice. la Vierge interctde auprts de son
Fils pour obtenir la protection et I'aide demandte. En tant que mod~le et type de I"Eglise.
Marie donne I'exemple des venus que Ie croyant do it s'efforcer d·imiter. II n"est jamais
mentionnt que la Vierge possMe la
possibilil~
de procurerdirectemenl el personnellement
les grAces demandtes l3 .
Cependant. cene position dogmatique ne semble pas
pr~sente
AI'esprit des
fid~les.
La
grande
Seulement 8,7% d'entre eux demandent I'intercession de la Vierge.
IreS
majorilt (91.3%) des demandes prtsenttes 1 Marie la prie d'intervenir direclement el
personnellemem dans Ie processus d'obtention des grAces: c'est effectivement la Vierge
qui, pour les croyants. procure les bienfaits. Le tableau IV
pr~senle
Ie nombre de
pri~res
adresstes exclusivement a Marie.
IOMoincs de Solesmes, La devotion a Marie dans I'enseignement des papes. Solc:smes, 1987. p.
91.
Illdem.• p. 211.
12ldem.. p. 212.
UArticle '62 des documents conciliail"cs.
MARCELLE CINQ-MARS
53
Les demandes d'aide morale (127) et de protection (242) correspondent aux rOles de
Marie reconnus par I'Eglise. On pent aussi mettrc de cOtt les remerciements. Par contre
les demandes de
g~rison.
de conversion. de
succ~s
financiers, amoureux el sponifs ne
correspondent pas aux dogmes. Et que dire des demandes de pardon adress~s Ala Vierge
alors que Dieu seul poss&le Ie pouvoir d'accorder ce pardon?
Evidemmenl, les
fid~les
peuvent ne pas trouver essenliel de s¢cifier que leur
demande en est une d'intercession. Dans ce cas, seulement 8,7% des
fid~les
ressentent Ie
besoin de sp&:ifier la nature de leur demande.
Par contre. les 91,3% qui forment la majori(tont
explique la nature de leur demande.
peul~tre
une autre raison qui
II est possible qu'ils n'aient pas lu les lextes
conciliaires ou les constitutions dogmatiques portant sur Ie rOle de la Vierge
aupr~
des
hommes et de Dieu. Mais ee ne sont pas 11 les seules ressources disponibles: les pasteurs
sont
prtci~ment
dogmes de
fa~on
IA pour rem&1ier 1 eeUe situation en prtsentant l'enseignement des
1 ce que les
fKJ~les
les connaissent.
L'anicle #67 de la constitution
Lumen Gentium s'adresse direetement aux prttres qui doivent l(expliquer correctement Ie
rOle et les privil~ges de la bienheureuse Vierge ... ~.14.
Conclusion
L'analyse du eontenu des
pri~res dtpostes
1 \'ieOne Marie, Mere de Dieu, Pone du
Ciel nous revele d'abord la nature des demandes adresstes A1a Vierge Marie. Mais elle
DOUS dtvoile sunouc une autre facette de la reprtsentation de la Vierge dans )'imaginaire
des
fid~les.
Les rOles qu'i1s accordent 1 leur
m~re
ctlesce ne eO'mcident pas exactement
avec les dogmes eels qu'tnoncts par les documents conciliaires.
Charg~s
de leurs douleurs ec de eelles des etres qui leur sont chers, les
humblement une mere d~bordante d'amour, de chaleur eC de rtconfon.
HMoines de Solesmes. op. cit. p. 92.
de leurs peines,
fid~les
irnplorent
Women and Supernatural Dreams:
A Case-Study
Valentina Bold
University of Glasgow
Introduction
I'd like to stan this paper with a proposition:
women, are more able to let their feelings go. And they're more open, and through the
yc:~ women have had 10 be more accommodating. As wives. mothcl'1. secretaries. store
clerks. librarians. all of those things. women have had 10 be more accommodAfing. and
have had [0 leave themselves open 10 more chance. As when men are more controUed.
and more io control. they are the controUCf'S. and. I mean. leI's face it. men have cI"eated
the Dew m)'tb 01 sOfOce. of which women ace constantly gening coaxed 10 become
involved in ... (Bold T89-12. Laurie),'
These points will be developed below. This study focuses on three young women
from
ewfoundland and their beliefs about supernatural dreams. Jane is married with two
children and runs a small business in a Newfoundland outport. Isabella lives in St. John's
with her parents and three brothers and works as a waitress. Laurie is a teacher who came
to Newfoundland with her husband about six months ago. None of the women is involved
with the established church, but Jane and Isabella are members of the Rosicrucian order,
or AMORe.
The women discuss a variety of supernatural activities, distinguishing
spontaneous "experiences" such as dreams, trances, and seeing presences from induced
"experiments" such as telepathy. psychometry, and using the ouija board.
ILaurie's rtference to the -new myth- of science was echoed in a later interview by Jane. The
women are hostile to the cull of rationalism which has engulfed modem society (Bold T89-15).
(The citations hert are 10 specifIC lapes in Valentina Bold's restricted coUection of interviews on
supernarural dreams etc., condocted in the fall of 1989 in ewfoundlllnd. The names of her
informants. Laurie. Jane and lsabc:lla. are pseudonyms·- Eds.1
V ALENTINA BOLD
55
Style and Structure
Descriptive Dreams
[n the first part of this discussion I will explore the narrative techniques used by the
women in discussing their supernatural dreams. The dreams may be broadly split into two
categories: those which are primarily descriptive, and those which are primarily symbolic.
Examples of the first class include the following. from Isabella, which she told in response
to one of Lauric's dreams:
@: What was the thing you thought of. thai: wasn't the same1
(Isabella): Actually it's nothing (laughs I
(Laurie): Thafs OK.
(Isabella): No. it triggered a memory about a dream that I had had. ard. about a girl I went
to school with. I dKin'( even know, eh. her yay weU. and I went up and I said "I had a
dream about you.·
(Laurie); ·Ych, what did you dream about?" -. you know, this
is silly nonsense.
(Isabella): ·Wdl. actually I had a dream that I was al your home. and your home was
connected 10 lhe hospilA.!. and you were getting your leg amptuated." And she goes.
·You·re kidding." [all laugh I
(Laurie): "Yeh. You know. it's only a dream." lalilaugh)
(Isabella): And 1 started 10 describe her bedroom. and. eh. the curtains. and eh. eh, her
bedroom was the cutesy type. and she had a lot of knick-knacks. and that's basically what
I can remember. and just described the different knick-knacks 10 her, and things like that.
you know. And all of a sudden this girt was like. at the end of the dream.
(Laurie): "Did I uh. get my legs amputated?"
~:
Cause everything else was so accurate.
(Isabella): Cause everything else was so right. you know? And I went. "Well, actually.
you didD't. But I. you know. I can't remember you gelling your leg amputated."
Aid sure enough. at Ihe end of the year. she had two operations. One. al differenttimcs.
on her knees. She gets fluid that builds up in her knees, ~: Ob). You know. this is
why she was worried. Apparently she already knew she had an existing problem ~ :
Wow; Jane: problem) and she thought the possibilit)' was there. and she feared that.
maybe. from my dream. because everything was so accurate. that maybe. eh. you know?
(Bold 1'89-1)
The memorate. then. begins wilh a link to a previous narrative. followed by an
orientatioo. establishing Isabella's relationship with her friend. The complicating action --
WOMEN AND SUPERNATURAL DREAMS
56
the prediction - is described concisely. and at this paim. the me morale moves from a
lighthearted to a serious mood. Jane offered an evaluation of the friend's reaction:
~Cause
everything c:lse was so accurate- and Ihis is accepted by Isabella and Laurie. A coda
reveals thai Isabella's medical prediction was nO( quite as -accurate" as the resl of the
dream. 2 The narrative is presented by Isabella as a series of dramatic scenes. The linear
form of the narrative _. progressing chronologically through the inlial report of the dream
(0
its outcome •• is typical of the treatment the women give
10 descriptive
dreams.
Symbolic Dreams
However. the women also experience ·symbolic dreams: which they treat rather
differently.
Many of these are -disaster dreams," predicting internationally significant
events,) One of Jane's most extraordinary disaster dreams was, she believes, a symbolic
prefiguration of the ell.plosion of the American space shull Ie "Challenger," As she told
this, Jane referred to a notebook she keeps of her disaster dreams, as "proof" against
sceptics:
@: I remember you mentioning that )ou'd had a dream about
(~):
~ChaUenger,·
Yes. the space shunle,
(Y!V: Can. could you tell me about that again?
(Jane): eh. eh. (nip through notesl that was probably one of the most accurate, I'll just,
s~of, get the details right. one of the most accurate dreams in the sense that aU the
details were there, And at the time I didn't understand. I couldn't say, aw, yeh. weU. "I
just dreamt that the ChaJlenger went down: but (fit'd dream in notebookl.
2The near-accuracy of many dreams was rationalised by Jane, immediately after IsabeUa's
memorate:
I really lhink thai you have the dream. and the: dr(:~m is probably accurate, and in Ihe proce:ss of
waking up, yuu Iry 10 make il logical, and I think yOIl do interprel il when you wake up, as yuu do. I
think whllt yUIl do is yOll mould ii, fa make: il m'lfe sense.
J.rhe significance of dream symbolism has proved a rich area of invesligalion for psychoanaJysts.
Some argue for a coherent code of symbolism. To Freud, for example, long hard objects represent:
penises, round. empty objects vaginas, Most dreams. Freud argues. express sexuaJ desires. and
repressed ill wishes (Freud aOO Oppenheim). Freud argues that dream symbolism ope:nues in a
number of predictable ways: through condensing various quaJities and individuals into one symbol;
by displacing the main symbol into a minor role; and by means of a censor. which hides the latent.
or true, hidden meaning of the dream, behind manifest imagery (Freud),
57
VALENTINA BOLD
OK. eh. let's see. OK. the dream was. it was. eh. about two weeks befou it ACrually
occurred .- you're aU familiar with the space shuttle disaster~: Yeh). You
remember tha( lhe teacher, me eh. OK. So. in the dream, there was. an explosion. [checks
off decails on her fingers I lots of fire:. [check) kind of out in the middle of • big empcy
field or something [check)
There was a yeUow school bus. OK. fdled with a class of Grade three studenls. very
specifically Grade three. and somedting 10 do with a teacher. An:t I had a sense, firse was
what 1 thought of the school bus. my kids go to school, on the yellow school bus. But I
knew. cause like I really knew for sure it had nothing to do with my kids.
OK. weD my kids were, say it wasn't my kids. And at the time. eh. my boy was eight. and
my girl was six. and this is all. sort of relevant for later on. Eh. there was nOlhing left of
this explosion. except sort of charred remains.
OK. so I, I was sort of feeling all the pante, urn, in me dream. I was back at the school
where this school bus had come from. the teachers. the students. the parents. were all sort
of going arourd in shock, ard really really traumatised. And. eh, that was sort of the firnt
part of the dream.
Then. later on. there was a second part of it. where I was in another place. viewing the
charred remains of whatever it was that had exploded. And it was like all these pieces
laid out. in a, a restricted area. kind of on a grid. like they were trying to piece everything
back together again. Ard everything was black. except for these little rourd [makes round
shape with thumb and forefingerl white plastic discs. OK1
Now f mean. I woke up from this dream. and I fclt, "this is tocally bizarre. this doesn't
make an,' sense at all." OK?
OK. so t-beo. this stuff comes on the news: "Space ShunJe explodes, uh. kiUing the crew
and. and this one (ueber: OK. so this is the teacher connexion. Am then they started
with the story. OK. her nine-yeM old son had led adclegaaion ofschool<hildren from his
grade J class. who had gone to the launch to watch it. in this yellow school bus. OK?
Now it's really unfortunate that he had to watch it happen. but that's not part of this story.
Am when they went back. they all went back to the schooL am the whole school was
traumatised because it had been the teacher. you know. this whole scene happening. it was
like I was at the school when all the this was going on, and saw it all happening. Ard as it
turned out. you know. her two children, she had a boy, nine, and a girl. six. which was
almost the eltact age of my kids at the time. which is probably why I tuned in to it.
(YID: Do you think. do you think that's right, it has to be a situation that you're, you
know. you have to have some sort of personal involvement?
~): I think there might be some sort of a thread there. that pulls certain people into
certain issues. ~: Mmm.)
OK. so that was the first story. that. sort of. I knew. as soon as I saw it. As a matter of fact
I was watching it on TV, you know. I walched the thing explode. and it just came all over
me. right aI that moment. That is what the dream was about.
OK, now. later on. like a couple of days lala they had it on the news that they had laid out
all the charred remains in this grid pattern. trying to p~e it back together. trying to find
out what had gone wrong. And what was the cause of the disaster'? ~: the whi(e
discs.) The little white. th. whaf do you call them. the ring seals. between the rocket
boosters. and that was what was the cause of the crash. right? You know. so I mean. the
WOMEN AND SUPERNATURAL DREAMS
58
whole thing just son of ch. ch. ch. ch. ch. Imake cin:les with her hard) aU the details. all
of a sudden made sense. So. I mean. there's no way I could have figured it out. You
know. But when it all happened. then. sort of. ·Oh. boy!- lbat was it. You know. Well,
I mean. that was. WeU. I mean. I cried. (Laurie: Mmm.) You know. when it aU sort of
hit me that Ihis is what happenm. J was there. I was in the school. I felt what lhey were
feeling. you know. the whole thing just sort of. Eh. it was a nry emotional. very. ch.
(Laurie: Mmm) heartbreaking SOf1 of an experience. BUI at lhe same time. it was kind of
neal, you know. because I bad predicted it. so that's thai ooe. (Bold T89-7)
There are clear stylistic differences between this accounI and Isabella's descriptive
prediction dream. First. Jane's is much longer. Jane's memorate is not linear. but flashes
back and forth from event to outcome.
emphases, making
~checks~
She highlights important points by verbal
on her hands and reiterating
~OK.~
The dream symbolism,
the description, commentary and interpretation are intermingled. This partly mirrors the
dream experience .- Isabella explained symbolic dreams come in
~bits
and
pieces~
(Bold
T89·8) _. and is partly due to the nature of the dream: the symbolism is not selfexplanatory as in a descriptive dream.~ However, there was a definite progression in the
narrative through the first part, the description of the dream itself, to the images and their
significance, and concluding with an explanation of the process of interpretation. Jane
deftly handles my interruption to wrap up her narration.
The interpretation of the dream does not draw on traditional symbolic imagery to
predict, but rather Jane's images represent real elements in the events they prefigure.
Disaster dreams, as with Jane's, are usually corroborated for the women by television
footage, an aspect which brings traditional belief into the modem technological context,
"T. C. L...cthbridge thinks that many supernaturaJ dreams come as "flashes· with scenes appearing
as single images, or linked togetha as in a mov'e (Lethbridge 125-16). The fact that symbolic
dreams cannot ~ immediately interpreted was used by Freud to demonstrate that dreams canOO(
predict the future:, but instead re:present wish·fulfiUments. He argues this in The Interpretation of
Dreams from a case·study. Frau 8's "precognitive dream' IS explaintd by her deSlre for a lover
(F",ud 623-625).
VALENTINA BOLD
59
In the past. dreams were confirmed by letter, telegram. or newspaper repon (Bennett
Traditions of Belief; Lelhbridge).S
Memorate and Fabulate
The women cold a number of fabulates. or third party experiences, in a different
style to the memorares. These can be compared in two consecutive narratives told by
Laurie about "shared dreams; where a friend of the dreamer appears and experiences the
same dream:
I've had dreams where. and again, they're been very rut.
Ard. I remember one in particular. again when I was living in Toronto, was. I dreamllhal
I went to. uh. Florida. or somewhere. with a friend of mine. and we were walking to the
waler. and it was nice. and we were having Ihis conve~ation. and all this stuff. So in the
morning (we didn't live in the same place. we lived a couple of miles apan. or whatever)
so I saw him sometime the ne~ day, and he said, ~You know, I had a dream about you last
nighl.~
"Jeez. I had a dream about you too!~ And, d'you. It was like he gave a line. and J gave a
line. and it was the exact same thing.
(Isabella): Yeh. I had an experience. eh. no. well. no. it's not the same thing. I had a
dream about someone once. ard it just triggered my memory. Go ahead. I'm sony.
Ilaughsi
OK. And then I was going to say that my father and my nephew are very. very
close. and this was. I guess this was about a year ago. and Johan. He's four now. so I
guess he was about three years old. and having a nightmare. And his dad went in to get
him. And he's going, ~What's "'Tong. Johann?"
"OH! Glllmpy in the blue car!~ And he was really upset. So then. my father woke up in
the moming and said to my mum. ~OH! I had a dream that I was in an accident with
-Johann in a blue car. ~
(Laurie);
~:
Whew. (Iaugnl
Laurie: Yeh, it was as if. [Iaughj you know, both at the exact same time. Yeh. (Bold
T89-1)
The memorates and fabulates told by the women are similar in structure: they are
concise (although it is possible that Laurie might have extended the memorate. without
'In the early decades of the twe~ieth cenlury. the British Society for Psychical Research based
experiments on telepathy on the principle that the media often reveal dreams. Subjects attempted to
envisaon the headlines of the next day's paper (Carrington).
WOMEN AND SUPERNATURAL DREAMS
60
(sabella's interjection), and each describes a dream through passages of direct speech.
The memorate has a longer contextual statement at the
beginning~
it also offers a direct
description of me events in the dream. The fabulafe, as might be expected. lacks lhe
personal details, and instead describes the main events as they occurred: the child's
nightmare and explanation; Jane's rather's comments the next morning which -explainthe dream and establish that it was descriptive. There were also differences in delivery:
the memorate was lold in a ralher deadpan style. whereas the fabulatc was lold in a much
more dramatic fashion.
Laurie's cnlenaining performance in the second inslance
compensates for her lack of personal involvement.
The Interviews
During the interviews !.here was a thematic shifl from [he particular
[0
[he general.
In the early stages the women told memorales and fabulates. Towards [he end of the
sessions [hey moved to general. philosophical statements.6
The women enjoyed
explaining the significance of [heir experiences.
There were ·complexes· of memorates offered by each woman. Just as Gillian
Bennett finds that many narratives are open-ended, or employ overlays. I noticed that the
women's memo£atcs came in "chains,· linked by the type of experience or by lhe [heme
rNarrative as Expository Discourse" 421). The lelling of memorates was a dynamic
process.
There was a great deal of interaction between [he women; questions and
interjections were frequent. and often a second speaker would offer lhe evalualion and
interpretation of the experience.
As several of the women's experiences were related more [han once. it occame
apparent that they were skilled at expanding or contracting a basic narrative framework
with more or less detail. as required.
My findings bore out Dell Hymes's recent
identification of lhe ways in which narrators can vary their performances. These includoo.
"rank shift.," where cenain episodes are given fuller treatment. "fading explicitness· in
6FOf" instance. the firsl session began with a series of memorates relaling 10 dreams and
precognition. moved 10 talk of the ouija board and witchcraft. lhen to the discUSSion of good and
evil. and ended wilh stalemenlS about psychics. including a discussion of AtJanlis. (Bold T89·7 and
T89-Sl
VALENTINA BOLD
61
cenain scenes, and "amplification" of details in certain places. As Hymes suggests. the
women's narratives showed stability in the order of incidents related (Hymes 411-417).
The women used a great many metaphors and similes in their dream narratives.
particularly to explain complex premonitory processes. For instance Jane commented on
why some people have supernatural dreams and others do not:
It's like if you've gOl the TV turnm off. there's nothing bting pkked up in your house.
You push on a button and it's tbere. It's always tbere. it's just that )Ol1're not receiving it
(Bold T89-l6).'
They also made frequent reference to the vividness and "reality" of their experiences.
Their accounts include a great deal of circumstantial detail, referring
10
the sounds. smells,
and atmosphere of the experiences. Gillian Bennett has drawn attenlion to me -almost
courtroom atmosphere- of memorate, noting the quamilies of detailed information, and
internal checks for consistency (-Narrative as Expository Discourse- 430). Corroborative
sources were often cited; the women qualified assertions with expressions such as -rve
heard .... and -I've been told . ... or stated that they had seen similar experiences
documented on television (passim). However, for the women, the most important point of
reference was memory. As Jane stated: -Experience is proor (Bold 1'89-13). Passages of
direct speech often appeared for dramatic effect, as in Laurie's account of the dream
shared by her father and nephew, quoted above. Contrary to Labov's suggestions, the
women rarely used direct speech to evaluate their experiences (370).
'lnc: image oflhe psychic as a TV or radio receivCf is a common one: in popular literature on the
supernar.uraJ. For example: ~Wireless waves are passing through your room althe present momen!.
buc if you have no receiver properly tuned to receive them. Ihey will pass unnoticed and unknown.
BUI adjusc your instrument and in comes the message. It is precisely the same in the case of psychic
messages· (CArrington 22).
62
WOMEN AND SUPERNATURAL DREAMS
Meaning and Function
The women believe that nothing in the universe is without a purpose. As Laurie
stated "nothing is haphazard" (Bold
T89-1~).
They agree that the mundane world is
merely one level of experience. S Given their world-view. it is
nOI
surprising they should
discern specific purposes behind their dreams. Jane believes thai family tragedies can be
averted through personal prediction dreams. However. the accidenl will affect someone
else instead. For example. ifher husband avoids a panicular road. because she has dreamt
his car would crash. she will later hear that there was a crash on that road. and someone
else was injured. In the case of major evenls. however. the women are powerless
10
avert
them (1'89-9).
Precognition is explained by the women in an number of ways. In the case of the
Challenger disaster, for instance, Jane had an empathic link with the people involved
(Bold T89·7).9 When people appear in dreams, the women believe that they may be
sending messages telepathically (T89-16, Jane).10 Complememing this, Isabella aoo
Laurie believe that precognitive dreams occur during times of access to the - Akashic
Records: These are -books- which contain information from past lives aoo from what is
to come. The information is metaphysically stored in ethereal volumes (T89·16; T89·17).
The women panicipate in their dreams, often helping others. The individuals' roles
in these dreams may be panially anributed to gender. Carl O'Neil fmds that women are
usually receivers and helpers in dreams, while men are more active (O'Neil, 1976). Jane
8TIte idea of levels of realilY, or of a "ladder of selves- is common among mystical theorists
(Wilson 434). Isabella believes there are levels of consciousness: the conscious, unconscious and
omniscience (T89·18). Omnlscience is the stage of "colUlccting- wilh the Cosmos. and its Akashic
records.
9Freud would argue that the dreams mirror the women's subconscious concerns. On the other
han'l. T. C. Lethbridge has argued that we have many prttognitive dreams, only remembering those
which interesl us. Colin Wilson draws attention to the case of John Godley,laler Lord Kdbl-acken.
who dreamt of a series of winning hOf"SeS. followed the dreams' suggestions and won a fair amount
of money. At the time. Godley was interested in horses and in need of hard cash. (Wilson 147·49.)
lOpsychicai researchers have claimed to be successful in Ihe Ielepathic transmission of dream
narratives under controlled conditions (Ullman and Krippner).
VALENTINA BOLD
63
recalled one instance, for example, in which she tended the survivors of a train crash,
which woukllater occur near Edmonton:
In thai particular case I was actually tending the survivors. I mean, there were people
lying down with their gulS blown open. And I was tr) iog the best I could to comfort
them. and screaming and )'cUing at ambulance drivers to gee: docters over here. and this
kind of thing. So I mean I was right in the mKtdle of it. You know. actually tending to the
wounded. you know? 50.1 mean. it was vee)' VERY real (Bold T89·9).
Jane has a theory about her function in disaster dreams:
it's kind of like a mind transference. it's like where I actually become a part of. and see
through the eyes of somebody that's actually going through it. So it's like. ii's like the
minds actually become one.(T89-12)
She has heard that people involved in disasters have been comforted by a "spirit guide"
and she wonde~ if they are feeling the presences of dreamers (1"89-12).
The women have clearly considered Freud's theory of wish fulfillment through
dreams, that is, thai they might want their predictions to be accurate. Jane emphatically
denies the possibility. Although it was "neat" to predict the "Challenger- disaster, she
does nOI take other people's tragedies lightly. She explains that, even after the events. she
is terribly distressed:
I can slill see il (Laurie: sure) as clear as if it was right in front of me. I can slill feel
everything Ihllt went on. I can slill get upset about ii, you know? So I mean. it's nol just
like somelhing you see on the news and you think ·wouldn't it be neat now, to fit this
togelher, SO I can boost my ego: You know, there's just too much emotional involvement
in it (Bold T89- 7).
Conclusion: Women and Supernatural Dreams.
Jane and Isabella have all shared their eltperiences with women: their mothers,
siste~.
grandmothers and friends. Although they have discussed their cltperiences with
close male friends. it seems that the intimate atmosphere of an all-female group is
panicularly conducive to discussing belief. The interview sessions contributed to the
formation of a group identity and. indeed, were integrated into the women's belief system
as educational sessions. The women's supernatural beliefs are dynamic: they suppolt
WOMEN AND SUPERNATURAL DREAMS
64
each other with parallel experiences, and provide new interpretations which influence
each other's perceptions. I I
The supernatural performs an essential role in the women's lives; it takes them
beyond their mundane experiences. Yel their relationship 10 the supernatural is anchored
in the cultural and social spheres of family and friends. 12 It is clear thai a significant
factor in the formation of supernatural belief is the tendency to imerpret experiences as
extraordinary. Thus symbolic dreams are believed to reveal the future.
Psychologically. the women's eltperiences help them maintain a firm grip on
reality; by perceiving order and reason in the universe they can understand the mundane
world. The secularisation of the modem world has otten been used
10
explain modem
belief in the supernatural (Singer and Bennassi; Berger). Without formal r<:ligion, it is
argued. people seek alternative fonns of ecstasy (Berger 94). The women reject what they
call Wthe new myth- of science and seek. instead. to achieve spiritual enlightenment. 1J
The supernatural offers reassurance and comfort. and furthermore it provides excitement
As Jane put it, supernatural dreams put Wthe fun in Iife w (Bold
T89~7).
liThe women have acquired supplementary knowledge From a variety of sources: television
programmes. such as W5 (Laurie). and films like Witchboard and Shirley Maclaine's Out on a Limb
(Isabella and Jane). Jane and Isabella are av~n the supernatural. but Laurie has a
·superstition· about books on ps)'chic topics. She believes that if she understood her gifts she might
lose them (Bold T89-12). The women accept some traditional beliefs conceming dreams. for
example. the general prirw:iple that dreams predict the future. However. they reject others. including
the idea that dreams go by opposites (T89~1. IsabeUa).
12As Rudolf Otto stresses in Ideas of the Holy. the numinous is complementary
world.
10
the normal
Uln Ihis they are typical of the ·New Age' movement "Broadly conceived it is a protest
movemen!. expressing a distrust of science. and seeking to develop new levels of ·spirilual
awareness" (Kurtz 365).
VALENTINA BOLD
65
Works Cited
Bennell, Gillian. "Narralive as Expository Discourse." JAF 99 (1986): 415-34.
_ _ _ _ ' Traditions of Belief: Women and lhe Supernatural. London: Penguin; New
York: Viking, 1987.
Berger, Peter L. A Rumor of Angels: Modem Society and the Rediscovery of the
Supernatural. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.
Bold, Valentina. Interviews on Supernatural Dreams etc. Audiotapes. Rec. Oct.-Nov.
1989. Memorial University of Newfoundland, 51. John's, NF. Memorial
University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.
90-012
(Restricted). II casselles, 1'89-7 to 1'89-18.
Carrington, Hereward. A Primer of Psychical Research. London: Rider, t 932.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpremtion of Dreams. 1900. Trans. and ed. James Strachey.
New York: Basic, 1958.
Freud, Sigmund and D. E. Oppenheim. Dreams in Folklore. Trans. A. M. O. Richards.
Ed. James Strachey. New York: International UP, 1958.
Hymes, Dell. "Language, Memory, and Selective Performance: Cuhee's 'Salmon's
Myth' as Twice Told to Boas." JAF98 (1985): 391-434.
Kunz, Paul.
~The
New Age in
Perspective.~
The Skeptical Inquirer 13 (1989): 365-67.
Labov, William. Language in the [noer City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular.
Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1972.
Lethbridge, T. C. The Power of the Pendulum. London: Routledge, 1976.
O'Neil, Carl W. Dreams. Culture and the Individual. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp.
1976.
Ono, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of
the divine and its relation to the rational. 1917. Trans. John W. Harvey. 1923.
O.ford: OUP\ 1958.
Singer, Barry and Victor A. Bennassi.
49-55.
~Occult Beliefs.~
American Scientist 69 (1981):
Ullman, Montague and Stanley Krippner.
Dream Studies and Telepathy: An
E)(perimental Approach. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1970.
Wilson, Colin. Mysteries: An investigation into the occult, the paranormal and the
supernatural. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1978.
Witchboard. Dir. Kevin S. Tenney. MCA Home Video, 1987.
The Cross in the Window:
An Examination ora "Miracle" in Folk Catholicism.
Keli Jo Healey
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Introduction
The event described and discussed in this paper occurred in a small, rural
community in Newfoundland. l A short drive east of St. John's, lhe village borders the
Atlantic Ocean and has over one hundred inhabitants. The dominant religion is Roman
Catholic. although a small number of Protestants also Jive there. Although the community
extends to me icy waters of the Atlantic. no residents presently fish for a living. The
people who live there commute daily
10
their jobs in St. John '5. As is usually
characteristic of small communities, almost every person knows everyone else, and many
of the people are related.
The couple most closely involved in the event, Stan and Margaret Clancy, are both
in their eighties aoo have been married for over fifty years. They are devout Roman
Catholics aid are childless. Stan was born and raised in the community; his wife lived in
a nearby fishing village before their marriage, and both of them have lived in small
communities all their lives. Stan's house stands just across a field from the site of his
father's house. In June 1989, Stan suffered a stroke and has experienced declining hea1lh
since then. Prior to the stroke, in the years following his retirement, Stan spent much of
his time outdoors, growing vegetables, picking berries, gardening, walking, and working
IResearch and interviews for this paper- were conducted during lhe fall of 1987. I am grateful to
Diane GoLdstein for providing helpful sources and recommendations during the rewriting of the
paper. I would also like to thank Noel White for his advice and comments.
I have changed the: real names of my infonnanlS to preserve their anonymity and privacy. For the
same: reason, the community in which the events occurred remains unnamed. In qUOLlliom from
informants. an effort has been made to approximate the pronunciation and grammatical structure of
the local dialect.
67
KELI 10 HEALEY
at his house. Margaret has diabetes coupled with poor eyesight. III health now prevents
both from attending Mass. but the community pastoral minister brings Communion to
them at home.
The rest of my informants also live in this
area~
almost all of them have lived there
all their lives. They comprise various age groups, from approximately forty years of age
to over eighty. Each of them is related to SIan and Margaret, either by blood or through
marriage. During the weekend discussed in Ihis paper, twelve people •• relatives and
friends -- also saw the unmistakable shape of a cross which appeared on the Clancy's
kitchen window. 2
This paper is essentially descriptive.
I begin by recounting the event as my
informants described it to me, then I will discuss this episode within the context of their
life history and religious beliefs in an attempt to interpret the meaning of the cross in the
window. One of the main questions underlying the discussion pertains to Rmiracles R -what constitutes a miracle in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church and its people?
Funhermore, how did the people involved in this incident (and how might Catholics
generally) interpret this as a miracle?
In Catholic doctrine. Rmiracle R refers to a wonder or wonders performed by
supernatural power as signs of some special gift and ex.plicitly ascribed to God. Such
events are signs of the supernatural world and our connection to it (The Catholic
Encyclopedia 338-39). In his book, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. Victor
Turner points out that the Catholic Church considers itself a living body, perpetuated from
biblical times on. and if one accepts the revelations and miracles of the biblical era, then
the possibility remains that similar phenomena may occur today. Thus, there ex.ists a
potential for miracles. Miracles did not end with the lasl apostle. Turner writes:
The doctrine of the communion of saincs posits that Jesus, who became man and had a
human soul, his mother Mary, the apostles. and all the saincs. whether canonized or not.
are still, in some sense and at certain times. quasi-materiaUy -prcseru", and can manifest
20f the twelve people who saw the cross. I interviewed four. The remaining witnesses could not
be reached for a variety of reasons; one is deceased. one was ill at the time the paper was wrinen.,
and the others either could not be reached or an interview could not be arranged.
THE CROSS IN THE WINDOW
68
themselves to men and women like: oun:elves and mediate: in various way between the
spiritual and material orders (205-06).
Given the official position of the Church, then. Catholics are likely to incorporate a belief
in the possibility of miracles in their daily lives. A miracle is not an isolated occurrence.
It is tied to a person and
10
a religious instihJtion. Yel to recognize it, one need only be
well-disposed to religious maners and be willing
10
welcome the beginnings of
supernatural grace (The Catholic Encyclopedia for School and Home 200). From a folk
perspective, onc can recognize or interpret an act as miraculous if he or she is willing to
believe the act can be the result of a Divine Power. For my informants. who have been
educated according 10 Catholic doctrine. there is no other explanation for what happened
during Easler. 1978.
For them. the appearance of the cross on Stan and Margaret's
window constitutes a miraculous sign from God.
The Miracle
The events occurred at a difficult point in Margaret Clancy's life. During Easter of
1978, she underwent surgery on her eyes -- her vision was deteriorating and even today,
she sees very little. At the time, she feared she would be blind after her operation. At
approx..imately 1:05 p.m. on Good Friday. she was sining in her kitchen --"I was genin'
ready to go to town ... " •• when she noticed a peculiar sight on her kitchen window. She
called her husband, who. thinking the window was simply dirty. wiped it with a cloth.
Whatever was there remained and over the next few minutes assumed the unmistakable
form of a cross.
The window, a square one. was divided into four panes of glass. Thick steam
covered the top two and lower left panes. but the founh remained completely clear, except
for a white cross in the centre. During my fieldwork. my informants repeatedly stressed
that the cross. though it seemed to be com~sed of steam, was not ~ the glass. Instead. it
seemed to
re 1!! lhe glass.
Annie Clancy. Stan's sister· in-law. who saw the cross on Holy
Saturday. saKi:
Jim Iher husband I came down an' he told me ... he said a cross was on Margaret's
window. An' I went out an' ITom my front yard I couJd see it right up de road .• white
KELI JO HEALEY
69
sleam on de window. Cam in' up de road. you could see de cross. An' I went into
Margaret's to see it. It was in de gJass •• it stayed even when you wiped de glass. It
wasn't fanned by de steam or frost. You know how steam or frost takes on fonns
sometimes·· well. it wasn't like dat. You could run your hand down over de glass an'
wipe it an' it was still in de glass.
She also noted how much clearer the cross appeared outdoors than from inside the house.
Margaret remembered how the steam on the window darkened the kitchen: ·Oh.
my, ev'ryt'ing gOI so black. I couldn't see OUI o· de window: Stan said he -, .. couldn't
see de car parked out in de yard.· Both of my informants maintained that the steam was
thick and -black- -- that is, it completely blocked any light. When the cross disappeared,
so did the steam.
As neighbours -- family and close friends -- came to see the window, several tried
to wash the cross from the glass. Mrs. Clancy now regrets having allowed mis. During
our interview in November 1987, she said:
Dan la relative) came out, .. and went at it wit' a scrubbin' brush! Oh sacred heart, if I
only realized den bul I was sick and didn't know what it was. Make a wonder his arm
didn'l fall off, ain't it, for tryin' to take it off. It wouldn't go.
Stan, added:
An' Mary la neighbour) came down an' tried 10 scrape it off but it wouldn't go away. An'
I knew den an' dey were all here [all of the witnesses) an' I said 'Look, leave il alone. It
is meAnt to stay. It'll go when its time comes for illo go. An' it did.'
Stan'$ now deceased brother lim also felt they should do nothing 10 disturb the cross.
Margaret recalled:
Poor Jim, Lord ha' mercy 00 him, Jim came up an' louched it an' dey were all here tryio'
10 wipe it off, an' Jim said, 'Don't you do <fal. Don't turn dat away. Oat's our 1...on:I:
Few people were tokl about lhe window al the time - just a few family members
and bUsted friends. Margaret went to see her sister on Good Friday and told her about it;
she would not believe what she heard. Margaret phoned her other sister in Nova Scotia
who also found the story hard to believe.
THE CROSS IN TIlE WINDOW
70
Mrs. Clancy had been scheduled to enter a local hospital on Easter Monday for an
eye operation. Not knowing whether this could be interpreted as a positive or negative
foreshadowing of what might happen to her, she and Stan asked the local parish priest to
look at lhe window and, perhaps.
10
bless the house. He refused
10
visit. Stan recalled
that the priest asked who had seen the window but would not come himself. SIan now
believes that it was
cae
... probably just as wdl we dKSn'( get de priest down. becwse)'oo would've had de:
here. cameras ev·rywhere. an' I couldn't have dar. camaas lookin' ('rough de house an' at
de cross. An' people be camin' here like mad. tryin' 10 sec it. I couldn't have it. wit'
Margaret sick.
And so the event was shrouded in secrecy - they were, after all, afraid, and didn't
understand why this had happened to them. They still do not. Margaret recalled during
our interview:
I t'ought it meant I was gonna lose me eyes, 'cause dey were bad den. I couldn't sec: a
t'ing, I was drove so crazy wit' me operation an' de window, I didn't even t"ink why it
was dere until after me operation.
Mr. and Mrs. Clancy wiblessed the fading of the cross on Easter Sunday, at 1:05
p.m.
They were eating their Easter dinner when they noticed what was happening.
Margaret saw "... a body. an' it leaned back ag'in de cross, de head did." Stan added:
An' we see de shadow of. man. I see de body of our Lord, on dat cross. An' de hands an'
fed wit' nails in 'em. An' His cross leaniR' over to de side an' big drops o' sweat·- oil,
my. de sweat rolled down off His body an' ran down de wiooow ... sweat rollin' down
His face an' body an' comin' down de window.
I see de body of our Lord. same as
de pictures. An dat's what it was. An' den it just went.
In discussing the events. my informants also mentioned the appearance of a white
bird that landed on a neighbouring house -- the house in which Stan was born and lived
until his marriage. The bird came on Good Friday and remained until Easter Sunday. No
one has been able to determine the type: of the bird. but when Stan first spoke of it.
following that weekend, he called it a dove,
No one was sure if the cross would appear the following Easter. Stan told me he
thought it might happen again. For three years after 1978, several members of the clergy
KELt JO HEALEY
71
telephoned him. wanting to know whether the cross had reappeared. because ifit had, they
wanted to see it. The cross has not reappeared. Stan has since replaced the window with
a new one, and the okt one was thrown away. He explained to me:
When I put de new window in. I was gonna keep dat one ... but wit· all de snow an' ice
an' ev'ryt"ing off de watel'". itlthe glass I split an' now it's gone.
The only pictures of the window that exist today are those raken on Easter Sunday, 1978,
by Stan's nephew. This was the first time David Clancy saw the cross. Interestingly, he
did not realize until I began my fieldwork that the cross had been on the window all
weekend; he believed it had appeared on Easter Sunday, shortly before Stan phoned and
asked him to come to his house. David says he cannot really explain why he look the
pictures. He insists: "Dere was a cross on de window, no doubt about it. I touched de
glass. But if I hadn't seen it wit' my own eyes, I probably wouldn't believe it."
The appearance of lhe cross has had a definite effect upon Stan and his wife.
Margaret claims she was "frightened to de't'" and couldn't sleep during that weekend.
Even now, she doesn't
... know why it happened to us. I don't know if it was me eyes 01" what. But I know it's
hard to believe. I never in me life would've t'ought it ondis house. Or me,"
She added, laughing, "I'm not a real good person" Ultimately. however, to the Clancys,
the cross constitutes a sign from God, and it appeared for a reason. even though they do
not know what that reason could be. It has strengthened their belief in God, and during
our interview, Margaret often uttered such phrases as "You never know, do you?" and
"De Lord is around somewhere, ain't he?" Stan said:
People don't believe it but iI's true. I mean people didn't believe de Blessed Virgin
appeared to de liule children but dey see her an' it happened. People went dere de next
day to see if dey could see her but dey couldn't. But she was dere - de childTen see her.]
For them, this was not merely a strange incident, it was a miracle.
J.rhe Blessed Virgin is said to have appeared 6 times to three peasart: children between May 13
and October
1917, at Fatima. north of Lisbon in PortUgal. During these appearances, she
recommended among other things frequent recitation of the rosary, devotion to Mary under the
designation of Her Immaculate Heart, and the consecration of the Russian people to her under this
title. In 1930, the apparitions at Fatima were pronounced worthy of belief. Reportedly, a secret was
conveyed during these visits. but the secret was never reveaJed (The Catholic Fact Book 23(}'04.)
n.
72
THE CROSS IN THE WINDOW
Commentary
Deciphering the meaning of this event, why it happened. who or what caused it. or
whether any connection ex iSIs between Mrs. Clancy's operation and the cross, is an
impossible task. Instead, we must approach the event from a different perspective: the
folk interpretation. What do the people involved think it is? What do mey think it means?
Who or what caused it? How has it affected them?
Those who witnessed the cross - and. indc:ed, many of those who saw only the
photographs -. expressed (either implicitly or explicitly) their belief thaI it was an acl of
God. Slan Clancy, describing the last few moments the cross occupied the glass, said he
saw
.. de body our Lord: His brother. Jim. told people trying
10
clean the glass. -Don',
you tum dat away. Oat's our Lord: Margaret accepted it as proof that" ... de Lord is
around somewhere."
JUSt why do these people see this as a manifestation of God on eanh? Surely, it
relies much more on their own beliefs, experiences, and interpretation of their religion
than the fact that they are Roman Catholics. However, not only do Sian and Margaret
attend Church regularly (or have the Eucharist brought to them), they also incorporate Ihe
Church's leaching into their daily Jives in a variety of ways. Their home is filled wilh
religious anicles: pictures, wall plaques, and statues. They sometimes carry religious
objects, for example, holy medals and rosary beads. They pepper their speech with many
religious phrases though this is probably more the result of social innuence than the direct
teachings of the church. Such commonplace phrases as "Sacred
~Iean:
"The Lord have
mercy on him," and "Please God" demonstrate their belief in God as a supreme being,
more powerful than humans. "Sacred Hean" refers to the concept of the Sacred Hean of
Jesus. "The Lord have mercy on him" is, interestingly, very similar to the response in the
Catholic mass: during the Penitential Rite, the priest often says, "You were sent to heal the
contrite, Lord have Mercy."
The congregation responds, "Lord have mercy."
The
colloquial phrase occurs, almost without thought. after the name of a deceased person.
During our interview, Margaret recalled, "Poor Jim, de Lord ha' mercy on him.
People utter "Please God" when they refer to the future, as in "I'll see you next Christmas,
please God." It exemplifies the belief in God's power over human beings: if He wants
73
KELI JO HEALEY
something 10 happen, it will happen. Such phrases constirute a standard part of speech for
some people and indicate -- although the user may not ever realize it -- the folk
interpretation of Goers presence aId power.
Stan said that when the cross began to fade, the window looked the·... same as de
picture: By ·pictures· Stan meant paintings of the Crucifixion. adapted from what has
been wrillen in the Bible. Often depicted in books and paintings, the image is a familiar
one.
Stan's interpretation of the cross on the window, then, is based upon his own
experiences of viewing pictures of the Crucifixion.
He did not specify a particular
picture; he called it Rde picture.· He obviously assumed that others would know what he
meant He thus interpreted what he saw on the window to reinforce what he had heard
and seen in the teaChings of the Church and in books.
There also exists the nmion of "turning" God away in the attempt to clean the
window, apparent in Jim Clancy's adamant statement: "Don't you do that. Don't tum
dat away. Oat's our Lord: Margaret also demonstrated this in her fear of what could.
have happened to her relative who "... went at it wit' a scrubbin' brush ... Make a
wonder his arm didn't fall off ... :
Once again. we have an ernie recognition of God's
omnipotence and even his wrath, here expressed in the fear that someone's arm could fall
off because he tried to erase God's work. There appears to be a consensus that God
should be appeased. This may stem from the Church's teachings and such Biblical stories
as The Flood and Christ's expelling the money lenders from the lemple.
They are
responding, then. to the idea that God may cause hardship and sorrow if people do not
abide by His will.
What happened during Easter 1978 seems to have slrengthened my informants'
belief in God. To them there is no other explanation for the event olher Ihan that it was a
sign from God. Margaret now takes comfon in her belief Ihat Ihe cross foreshadowed the
success of her operation. During our interview, however, she also claimed 10 have been
loa upset about her operation and the image on her window to make a clear connection
between the two during thai Easter weekend. When I first questioned Annie Clancy about
the cross. she responded, "De cross?
Oh. dat was somel'ing dat happened because
Margaret was havin' her operation dat time." It eased both Stan and Margaret when a
THE CROSS IN THE WINDOW
74
priest, upon hearing about the window, said 10 one of their relatives.
~Tell
her (Margaret)
not to worry. That's a sign from God that she'll be alright:
Word of the image on the window spread among family and friends, but much of
the community remained unaware of it Wltil after it had disappeared. When people spoke
of ii, they whispered. Even when I conducted my fieldwork. Annie Clancy spoke of it
hesitatingly. "Margaret told me she see more dan de cross: she informed me during one
of our conversations. She leaned forward in her chair and spoke in a hushed voice. as if
confKling a secret. "Il was all dere -- de hands. de feel. de body. She seen it all." This
behavior may result from a tendency of people to fear what they cannot understand or
explain.
Stan and Margaret wanted their parish priest to bless their house on Easter Sunday.
Such a desire on their pan seems
10
indicate a fear of the apparition and what it might
mean. We may question the request for the priest to bless the house •• if they believed it
was a sign from God, why bless the house? Once again, the request stems perhaps more
from a fear of the "unknown" rather than a real fear of God. In The Idea of the Holy,
Rudolph Ouo refers to such a feeling as "the Wholly
Other.~
He describes it
as~ ...
that
which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible. and the familiar, which
therefore falls quite outside lite limits of the 'canny,' and is contrasted with it, filling the
mind with blank wonder and astonishment" (26). One sees, then. a reaction of fear, but a
fear arising from how little people understand God. rather than a fear of God Himself.
The Church, being part of the human world, offers some security against the divine world.
Neither Stan nor Margaret felt able to explain adequately why this happened to
them. However. their readiness to interpret it as an act of God stems not only from their
religious upbringing but from their beliefs in general. For several years. Stan suffered
from arthritis.
During that time, he carried a potato in his pocket because of an old
superstition that this would cure him. Margaret believes very strongly in
~tokens,"
that is.
signs warning of death. Annie Clancy described one of Margaret's tokens to me. One
night. several years ago. Margaret heard a knock at her door at 11:00 p.m. She opened the
door but no one was there. The next moming her siSler Jean called from
ova Scotia ••
Jean's baby had died at 11:00 p.m. the previous night. Margaret believed that the knock
she had heard had been a token of death.
KELl 10 HEALEY
75
While I was conducting my fieldwork in the autumn of 1987, I collected two
additional accounts of events similar to the one described in this paper. A classmate in
my folk religion class at Memorial University informed me of a cross that appeared in a
window at St. John's College. in Minnesota, in the early 1980s. The image appeared on a
second-floor window; thus the glass could nor be touched as it could at Stan's house. The
cross, however. could be secn from ground level.
I collected the second account from Stan Clancy, who heard it from his br()(her.
Kevin. now deceased. Sian recalled:
An' it happened, too. up in Burin. De time Kevin worked wit' de tdephone company.
An' dcre was a tidal wave up decc an' he had to go up - all the phones were out. An' one
house up due had had a cross on de window before an' all de houses around it were
damaged ... except dat one house.
I asked Slan and Margaret if they believed this house had been saved because a
cross appeared on the window. Both replied that, yes, they did. Kevin Clancy had been
dead when the cross appeared in Stan's window. Kevin however. had told Stan about the
incident in Burin. Thus. their belief that this was a sign from God may stem from their
knowledge of the occurrence in Burin. It may also be pan of the reason they now see it as
a sign of the success of Margaret's operation -- if a house could be spared, so could
someone's health or vision.
To summarize, then, a cross, complete with a body, appeared on a window during
Easter 1978. At that time, one person directly involved in the incident was about to
undergo surgery. During the appearance. a tiny white bird perched on a neighbouring
house. There may be liule or no connection between the events. However, for those who
witnessed the cross on the window, all three combine to produce a demonstration of
God's presence.
THE CROSS IN THE WINDOW
76
Conclusion
This paper examines the folk interpretation of an event believed by those who
witnessed it to possess a religious significance. In doing so. it discusses the source of the
cross, or, more precisely. who the people involved bdieve the source 10 be, as well as the
possible meaning of the event for them. My informants expressed their belief in Ihis as a
miracle, caused by God. which foreshadowed the success of Margarec's operation.
Undoubtedly. in combination. the cross, Holy Week. the impending operation, and the
appearance of a white bird all contributed significantly to the interpretation. As well, we
must remember that several of the panicipants had prior knowledge about a similar.
earlier event in Burin.
Both Stan and Margaret described and then discussed with me a first·hand. personal
account of a supernatural experience they had. Influenced by the teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church, which states that miracles did not cease with the last apostle and could
very well happen today, Stan and Margaret consider their ¢xperience to have been an
example of the work of God. Indeed, Catholic doctrine makes the initial assumption that
God exists and can intervene in the operation of ·scientific laws· to produce effects or
events entirely beyond the power of natural causes. Essential to the Christian faith is the
belief that God has intervened in the past and that He may intervene again (Turner 173).
Thus, the folk belief in an event as a miracle can be substantiated and supported, to a
degree, by Catholic doctrine.
Although witnesses accept the appearance of the cross in the window as a work of
God, at the time there also existed a great deal of fear -- an understandable reaction to
something so eerie, so different, and so inexplicable. I propose, then, that the people
feared the consequences of the sign, whether it indicated the success of Margaret's
operation and appeared in order to give her strength and courage, or ahernatively, whether
it foreshadowed any possible sorrow and still offered strength in light of this.
An event such as this could be interpreted in a variety of ways. My informants'
interpretation extends from their
~rsonal
panicular circumstances at the time.
faith, received church doctrine, and their
On the surface one has a series of localised
KELl 10 HEALEY
77
happenings that are readily given religious significance: the shape of the cross on the
window is equated with Christ's Crucifixion, as is the season at which the event took
place, EaSIer, a while bird is presented as a dove, the kind of bird Noah dispatched from
the Ark.
Based upon their religious education and their own personal beliefs. my
informants have made lhese connections
10
form an explanation of the event. Specific
factors within lheir own lives and community provide crucial validation for the
supernatural interpretation. This in tum reinforces the concept of folk religion because it
demonstrates within my informants a union of the beliefs taught by the church and those
adapted from society to explain a panicular phenomenon.
Even beyond official Roman Catholic doctrine, miracles have an important role to
play in folk catholicism. Events similar to the one discussed here or supernatural in any
way can be interpreted as miracles, given what people have been taught about the
possibility for a miracle in modem society. Often, that which the folk interpret as a
miracle is an event which in some way reinforces what the church has taught. In doing
this. the ordinary person -- or any Christian -- has an opportunity to e}{perience either an
indirect or direct communication with GcxI. An event such as that discussed in this paper
is declared religious and miraculous because it transcends the world with which we are
familiar and at the same time demonstrates the presence of a Divine Power -- a Divine
Power which is seen not only in the Bible but in real life, among real people.
THE CROSS IN THE WINDOW
78
Works Cited
Anwater. David, ed. A Catholic Dictionary. 3rd ed. New New York: MacMillan, n.d.
Bradford. Barbara Taylor. ed. Children's Stories of the Bible from the Old and New
Testaments. New York: OR Book Co., 1968.
The Calholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Apple.on, 1981.
The Catholic Encyclopedia for School and Home. Toronto: McGraw·Hili. 1965.
Deedy. John. The Catholic Fact Book. Chicago: The Thomas More Press, 1986.
Ouo. Rudolph. The Idea of the Holy. An Inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of
the divine and its relalion to the rational. 1917. Trans. John W. Harvey. 1923.
New York: OUP, 1972.
Turner, Victor and Turner Edith. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York:
Columbia UP, 1978.
The Black Heart in Newfoundland:
The Magic of the Book
Barbara Rieti
Memorial University of Newfoundland
The Black Heart. or Black Art. book in Newfoundland tradition gives its possessor
magical abilities, from chewing glass without cutting his mouth to visiting wasting illness
on her enemies. "'n it is information or knowledge of how
10
do things which ordinary
men cannot do: as one collector put it (FSC68-16I64). For this paper I draw on about
twenty accounts from the Memorial University of
ewfoundland FolkJore and Language
Archive (MUNFLA) to give an outline of the narrative and belief complex. and
10
focus
particularly on the significance of the "book" as a source of arcane power and the act of
reading as a magical and polcOIially dangerous activity. I I did not learn much about the
black heart book myself in two weeks of field research on witchcraft in August 1990.
except that people are often vague and evasive about it, even those who talk readily
enough about witchcraft.
response; the emphasis on
Ml've heard of it but I've never seen one: is a common
~
the book is also found in the archival material. which
stresses the danger of even casual visual contact.
Student collectors. who made most of these reIX>ns. render the term variously A-RT, H-A-R-T. and H-E-A-R-T.
The last spelling may in some instances reflect a
collector's onhographic retention of the Mh Mthat some Newfoundland dialects add to the
front of some vowels -- Mhice M for Mice: for example (conversely, a written Mh M is
11 would like to thank the Archive foc pennission to use this material. The fint number in the
accession or refererv:e number shows the year in which the item was recorded; the prefix 'FSC'
before an accession number indicates the materials came from a folklore survey card; all other
malerials came from manuscripts except for numben prefixed by the leiter C; these accounts have
come from tape recordings. All names in the accounts have been changed. but otherwise they are
reproduced eltacl1y (including spelling). My own work mentioned here is in MUNFLA under
90-421 (it is restrkted). I would like to acknowledge the generous nssistance of the Institute for
Social and Economic Research, which is making my research on witchcraft possible. I must also
thank Martin Lovelt\ce for his help, especially with fieldwork. This paper was read in slightly
different fonn at the meeting of the American Folklore Society in Oakland, 1990.
81
BARBARA RIETI
sometimes not pronounced. as in "an an attack") - but most
collecto~
were working in
their home communities, and so really did mean H·E-A-R-T. A remarkable recording
made by Mark Ferguson in Labrador in December 1990 confU111s the lauer usage, for it
concerns "the Book of Black Heans," each page of which bore a single black hean with
tiny shapes of animals inside. The informant (age thiny·six) told how some luckless seal
hunters once came to the owner of the book for help. She opened the book and began to
"tell them a story about seals" (she was not exactly reading. for the book had only small
scratches at the bottom of each page by way of text); within a few minutes the baying of
seals was heard, and water splashed up througb the floorboards although the house was
nowhere near the sea. Afterwards the hunters
gOI
plenty of seals.2
The creation of illusion is a specialty of black art (heart) practitioners, whose words
seem to have a hypnolic effect on their receptive audience. Vince Carew, for example.
could make it seem to snow in the house or set a stove dancing
(FSC68-16l120~
FSC7Q-3/133). One day his falher-in-Iaw, visiting his still-empty new house, commented.
"l suppose you'll be getting some furniture soon":
~Fumiture: Vince rcpl~. ~I've got plenty of furnicure. Come in the front room and I'U
show you.· When he went in, the room was furnished with the most expensive funtirure.
The 000£ was covered with a beautiful rug. Only momeoo before there was nolhing
there. When they went back to the kitchen one of Vince's children was there dressed in
the ordinary overalls ele. ofan outport child. His father said. ~You might as weU gd some
new clothes fur him while you're aI it.- -Why he hasn't any need for new clothes: says
Vince, -he has the best. - Looking at the child. the father-in-law saw that he ..cally did
have the best, when only moments before he had only overalls. (FSC68-16I120)
In conb'ast to this humorous one-upmanship are two accounts given four years apart
-- in 1983 and 1987 -- by cousins I will call John and Joan (83-73 and 87-120). Both
described Ihe magical feats of Marion Bane (a pseudonym). a well-known witch who was
supposed to have passed her Black Hean Book on to her daughter.
Sa~
an "old lady" in
2Mark Ferguson. personal coUection. My thanks to him for allowing me to use Ihis material.
Anyone interested in the black heaJt (art) should see Ihe whole account. which contains the most
complete description of the book to date. The infonnant put the events in the early 19205.
82
THE BLACK HEART IN NEWFOUNDLAND
1983. Mother and daughter were both suspected of using the book
10
cast s~lls.J Only
that summer, Joan had refused to do some painting for Sarah, pleading lack of lime; her
aunt (John's mOlher) was appalled. saying, ·You should have done the painting, my dear,
even if it meant missing university.· ·Since thai day: wrote Joan, -I sure as hell had bad
luck. Subconsciously I relate it
10
Ihis book: John's family lived next door 10 Sarah. and
were embroiled in a boundary dispute with her. John, a young lawyer with his own firm:~
describes an occasion on which two of his brothers were painting the house from a
scaffold which suddenly collapsed. "We firmly believe it was the raulr of Sarah~ she had
placed a spell on us. and that was our way of explaining why a supposedly solid scaffold
should fall down for no reason,· he says, and it is hard to say whether there is irony in his
tone. Joan relates the same incident. except that as she tells it three brothers fell (was one
John?); she also records one brother's remark to the others: "The witch's heart is bumin'
.oday."
The heart as the seat of evil wishing probably explains the use of the hean's image
in counter·wilchcraft magic, as when a bewitched person cuts a heart shape from wood or
paper and shoots it, thus disabling the witch. S There is nOI, however, the direct
connection between witchcraft and the black heart book that one might expect.
Most
black book owners are not said to be witches, and most witches do not have a book. An
informant of John Widdowson who felt himself much persecuted by a neighbor said, ·she
can put a spell on you cause I believe she got a black hean book; she's not a witch, but
she's possessed by the devW (66-25:C314123). The overwhelming majority of witches
JJoan writes about Ihe Black Heart Book. and also caUs it a Witeh's Book. John was the
informant for his brother Howard. who dKt not transcribe his tape; John's is a fine example of the
dialect that adds an "h" to cenain initial vowels (he pronounces "obvious" as -hobvious") and strips
i( from others, so when he says "a"N" he likely means "h·e-a+l."
~Bocn In 1961, he obtained a law degree: from Dalhousie in 1987. The firm is not
communily but in another area of Newfoundland.
In
his home
'In August 1990. I recorded an account of two men who believed thelr unsuccessful fishery on
the Labrador 10 be the resull of wilchcraft. One CllTVed a heart from wood. and (he other cut his
finger and let the blood run on it; they wrole the suspect's name on the device and shot it,
whereupon it exploded. Their luck improved, and when they returned home in the fall they found
the witch had fallen and broken her leg during the summer.
83
BARBARA RlEll
are women, and most black book owners. men. The powers of the ordinary village witch
seem
10
be innate. narural rather than acquired. and she depends on neither ritual nor
diabolical aid -- it is the bewitched who must resort to magical acts and objects to counter
her. An ordinary person might also reson
10
magical malefic practices without being
branded a witch. such as the man who killed an enemy's cows by means of a cat's heart
stuck full of pins (66-24:C270149). When a witch does have a book, it appears that she
uses it maliciously. as did Marion and Sarah. or Julia Blair, who "had what was called the
Black Hean Book for witchin" (FSC73-7.S19). In contrast. despite men routinely having
sold their soul to the devil. I found only a single account of one using the book to injure
olhers. This man was supposed to have caused the illness and death of the children of a
man who offended him in his home community. The informanl's father. however, worked
with him in a lumber camp, where his doings were decidedly less sinister, albeit more
dramatic. According to the collector, Virginia Dillon:
One: night as they were playing cards the man with the book got the queen of hearts.
Before the eyes of everyone he turned the queen into a reaJ woman who walked across the
floor. She was dressed like the figure on the cards. mostly in red. She wore high heels.
One fellow who was about twellly·two fainted. The men never wanted to let this
magtcian in on their games for he knew all the hands around the table and would win all
the money. They were afraid to n:fuse him after they saw the woman, for they thought he
had the power to change them into an)thing he wished .... One night in the lumbel'" camp
(he( put up a thousand doUar bet that no man in the camp would meet him between the
two camps af cleven o'clock at night. All the men were afraid ...when (theYI talked about
it aftel'" they said they wae afraid he might have appeared in some other form, for
example, a snake.
For all this,
~lhe
thing that most fascinated the men was the
book,~
wrOte Dillon, "there
was no way to destroy it. No one ever saw him bum the book but there was a belief that if
he burned it, it would still be in his pocket. ~ The only unusual physical characteristic of
Ihis man, besides long hair and a beard, was that "he was never cold like the other men
and would go out to chop wood with his shin open and with no mitts
on~
(64·1/16-17).
His internal heat and the non-<ombustible book clearly indicate their infernal origin,
although the men were afraid to ask the delails of the man's deal with the devil.
There are historical and geographical reasons for men having Ihe book more
commonly Ihan women.
Roger E. Mitchell's study of George Knox, the Maine
THE BLACK HEART IN NEWFOUNDLAND
84
woodsman, trickster, and black book owner, shows its place in northeast maritime
lumberwoods lore; the lumbercarnp connection would explain ils prominence in western
and central Newfoundland in comparison to the older communities of the Avalon
peninsula. which were less oriented to the lumber woods for work.6 It may also explain
male ownership. as men would most commonly figure in male narration. Men would also
be more likely than women
10
cultivate sleight-of-hand tricks with cards and money.
ventriloquism, and the like. especially in settings like lumber or hunting camps where
their entertainment value would be high.
Such skills really are •• or were -- found in "black art" books. small volumes of
instruction in juggling and legerdemain which have circulated since the mid-sixteenth
century. The best-known prototype, widely copied into the 1800s, is Reginald Scot's
Discoverie of Witchcraft of 1584, in which Scot illustrates the mechanics of various
illusions as part of his effort to discredit belief in witchcraft. Early on, some "magic"
books sought to distance their contents from the supernatural, as in the motto on the cover
of the 1676 Sports and Pastimes: "There's no Hobgoblins here for to affright yeo / But
innocence & mirth that will delight ye" (Hall 128, 204).
But the association with
witchcraft and things diabolical remained in compendiums of innocuous and grayish
"arts" such as The New Conjuror's Museum and Magical Magazine of 1803, with its
sections on legerdemain, astrology, dream interpretation, apparitions and witchcraft, or
The Art of Conjuring; or, Legerdemain made Easy. Exhibiting the Manner of Performing
all the Ingenious and Remarkable Tricks of the Most Celebrated Masters in the Black Art
_"_"_"_. (c. 1815; cited in Hall 206, 196). Even when intended as exposts, like Scot's
Discoverie or Pinchbeck's Witchcraft: or the Art of Fortune-telling Unveiled . . . . of
1805, such works probably promoted more than they debunked; in any case, the the image
&rhe predominantly southwest English background of these areas is also a possible factor, and
direct parallels [0 antecedent tradition are easily drawn. "The power of many evilly-disposed
persons, who work harm to others: wrote RosaJinde Northcote of Devon in 1900, "is supposed to
lie. partly. in their 'books' -- mysterious books, often to be heard of. in the possession of someone
else _. and never to be seen!- (215). Of course, Ireland has magic books as well; 6 hEochaidh
gives an account of a man who had one ("if he read a bit from it there WI\S nothing he was not able
to do") (283-85). In Newfoundland. it is often difficult to draw distinctions between -English" and
"Irish" when there has been so much movement and mixture since the earliest European settlement.
BARBARA RIETI
85
of such volumes inevitably merged with that of the books of spells proper. or -grimoires,"
that continued to be published.1 801h are heirs to the magical manuscripts regularly
confiscated from medieval sorcerers,S and converge in the Newfoundland black book's
ambiguous reputation.
The summoning of spirits, an imponant use of occult lomes from earliest limes. is
found in two Newfoundland texts from lhe South Coast. Old Kelly usually hid his black
book when he left the house, but went out one day and forgol to lock the chest where he
kept it:
The girt he had working for him wanted 10 find out what was in the book so she took it
and began 10 read it and the house fiUed fuU of little black imps. KeUy felt thcre was
something wrong so he hwried up and scrabbled home. When he got back the imps
nearly had the girl kiUcd but he read something else and they went away. The girl never
told nobody what she read in that book from lhat day to this. (68·3154)
In the second text., a woman takes a book from a man's hand and reads until -little black
pups· appear and the owner takes the book back (65-21:CI47120j9
Apparently ·men
make bener masters of hellish conjurations, for a South coaSt man, unable to get help with
his fishing operations one summer, swore, -I'U have somebody next year spose tis the
devil and 'is hirnps" (sic). When they showed up, he set them to work: "One of the himps
'Trevor Hall has compiled a catalogue and bibliographic essay on old con~ring books, which are
now prized collector's items. Montague Summers gives a bibliographic history of the grimoire
(77-98). continually emphasizing its foul and dangerous nature, There is no published inforrrwion
of which I am aware on the circulation of either type in Newfoundland.
IKittredge 38. 58, 65, 80. 83, 189,207.209,228, Newfourdland fortune-tellers somelimes have
a book: one made -a nervous wreck- of a client with the accuracy of his palm-reading (FSC68101121); another. a self-proclaimed witch of SI. John's, eighteen years old, uses a black cloth,
candles, ard book in his fortune-telling sessions (Exam submitted to Martin Lovelace at Memorial,
Fall 1990). The clairvoyant powers of ordinary witches, like their maleflCium, usually comes
naturally.
--~is is Migralory LcgervJ 3020, "inexperienced use of the black book" (Christiansen 28) or
Baughman's motif 0297, "the sorcerer's apprentice- (281). MacCuUoch cites a Devon version
about a female servant who reads a vicar's black book, whereupon a black hen and chicks enter and
grow CO monstrous size, until the vicar rushes home from church and reverses the spell (266). Foc
an Irish version see G1assie ("Cromwell's Bible" 214-15).
THE BLACK HEART IN NEWFOUNDLAND
86
would cut the fish open and cut around the head. one would clean the gUls out and take the
head orr. one would draw up the water and clean the fish. and anOlher would carry it into
the stage, lay them in the 'pin (pen}. and anolher would salt them."
In the fall they
disappeared in a ball of fire (FSC68-7J/149).
Just as the devil appears in folk narrative as a fearsome power or biddable buffoon.
the black hean book takes on more and less serious aspects according to genre and belief.
In 1970. a Bonavista informant attributed family troubles
[0
someone using a "black
magic" or "black an" book circulating in her community (FSC70·21/104).
Another
informant said that in the 19305 a Black Han book on Bell Island "was used mostly for
evil purposes. and infants born deformed or with bizarre physical characteristics...were
often cited as the work of people who practised the Black Han. ~ But the story of the man
who was most closely associated with it has a distinctly humorous tone. at leasl as
conveyed by the collector:
He was sifting idly on the wharf one day. whittling a stick and wishing that he could cross
over to England. Throwing the chips in the water he expressed his wish. whk:h
immediately materialized in the form of a huge vessel there before his eyes. He arrived in
England and spent some time there. but when he wanted to come back again. the Black
Hart failed him. and he was never seen on this side after. (7Q-ZQl44)
Like the quc:en of hearts in the lumber camp. there is a highly visual quality to this
story -- both are like big colour-plate illustrations in a storybook. But most black art feats
were less spectacular and the demands of outport Fausts surprisingly modest. Dave Gaze
did once calm a storm at sea by
~rhyming
off the
curses,~
but the suspicion that he had a
black art book came more from his general prosperity: Tve heard ... that Dave always gets
away from having to pay fmes (e.g., for killing a moose without a
Iicense).~
wrote the
collector......It is only thought that Dave has a Black Art Book. no one has ever seen it
lI's just that he seems to get everything he
give up work
~as
another. who got
wants~
(FSC68-IQlI22). One man was able to
the devil supplied him with all the money he
~the
needed~
(FSC73-17/19);
black stick" instead of a book from the devil. used it to immobilize
a bulldozer until he was given the construction job he wanted (FSC69-19/42).1O One man
tOOlive Knoet mentions a Dorsd witch thought to have had "the black slick" (40).
87
BARBARA RlETI
went for small beer indeed:
~went
finding himself and a buddy short of drinking money, he
into his house and looked into this Black Heart's Book, and by doing so changed
the change (quarters and dimes) into several dollars, enough for several beers each."
Despite Ihis great boon. Ihis book was saKi 10 be "cursed" and brought bad luck to its
owne" evemually (FSC71-31l138).
A final illustration of the two strains -- the diabolical and the jocular - thaI
characterize the
ewfoundland black. art can be found in two essays wrinen around the
same time on two black book owners in different communities. One. Philmon Wade. was
forty years old and bore a highly dubious character, although he didn', do anything
especially bad with his "black heart book"; once he used it to break a spellihat Margaret
Hiscock put on him, and another time, refused a boat trip into SI. John's, he caused the
captain's clothes to fall off on the deck. His unsavoury reputation seemed to rest on more
mundane factors: he didn't work but always had plenty of money; he spent some of his
time seeing married women and some of it in jail.
0
one ever saw his book; they would
die iflhey did (70-12J'/8-103).
In contrast to Philmon Wade is Quinton Gosse, who ran a snack·bar which was also
the stage for his performance of tricks such as dancing stoves, removal of clothing,
transformations of objects, and transferral of money from one place to another. "He is
about sixty years old and one of the most humorous characters I have ever met." wrote the
collector, "...continually doing or saying something funny just to get a laugh." But a whiff
of brimstone clung to even the jovial Mr. Gosse, at least according to those who told the
collector that he had "a black· book";
AU he !lad to do was read cenain pages and he got some kind of magical power. They had
not scen the book since Mr. Gosse kept it home in the house and wouldn't dare let anyone
see it, not even his wife, They also saKi he tried to burn i[ once.. .however, the next
morning when his wife made up the bed she found the black-book under hel' husband's
pillow, He has tried to burn it several times since, but it always turr~ up some unexpecled
place in the house. II (68-17/120-25)
II According 10 Monlague Summern. "the old wives say that once a man has owned the Grand
Alben (a famous grimoir-el he cannot rid himself of it. do what he will. The book invariably
its place on the shelf. even if it be casl into the fwe. thrown away at sea, [om 10 pieces and
scattered 10 the Wlnd- (79).
renm;s
10
THE BLACK HEART IN NEWFOUNDLAND
88
The awfulness of the book is sometimes enhanced by a foreign origin.
Mark
Ferguson's Labrador informant said it came from Scotland. where onc clan siole it from a
rival clan; "John" said that Marion Bane's husband. a freight captain. brought her book
from India. and "Joan" thinks it came from the West Indies; Philmon Wade. being "the
kind of person who was always wandering from place 10 place: gOI his book from
someone on the mainland in exchange for his soul plus one penny.
Marie-Annick
Desplanques, in her fieldwork with French speakers on the Port au Pon Peninsula. heard
of a native Frenchman who owned a "black book" or ftwitch's book" (the informants,
when walking near his house. would see strange visions such as horses with flaming
nostrils which were produced by the man reading backward from his book).12
An exotic provenance and aura of secrecy help to paint the black heart book as a
rare and sinister artifact. However, I think that its mystique is also grounded in prosaic
reality much closer to home, namely, in the scarcity of books in general and the resulting
ambivalence toward reading. Until quite recently. formal education was revered by some
and scorned by others, but either way it was beyond the reach of most when all hands
were needed
[0
pilch in for economic survival. Families were large and incomes small,
and books low on the list of household priorities in all bUI Ihe weahhiest homes. Books
thus remained largely in the domain of the powerful classes, and in contemplating the
contract wilh the devil, it is worth remembering his customary guise as a well-dressed
gentleman. (In December 1990 -- International Literacy Year -. another gentleman. the
Minister of Finance for Newfoundland and Labrador. suggested extending the 12% retail
sales tax
(0
books and children's clothing, assening that poor
~ople
would nOI be
affected since "books are bought mostly by the wealthy. ")13
12The man's daughter- inher-itcd his powers and is consider-cd to be a witch. Thanks to MarieAnnick Dcsplanqucs foe this infonnation; Ihe fuU ver.oion may be fourd In her Ph.D. thesis,
"Women, Folklore and Communication: Informal SociaJ Gatherings in a Franco- ewfourdland
Context," submined at Memorial in 1991.
lJJohn Gushue, "No 'SociAl' Objection 10 RST on Books. Children's Clothes: Kitchen: The
Sunday E.q>ress 1St. John's, Newfoundlandl, 16 Dec. 1990, I.
BARBARA RIEll
89
In ordinary
OUlport
homes. the Bible was often the only book, and it was pressed
into service for many uses beyond formal religion.
When I was perusing some old
photograph albums with Rhoda Maud Piercey, she pointed oUllhat in old studio portraits.
people customarily held a book; often it was the Bible, she said, not for religious reasons
but because that was usually the only book around. 14 Dressed in their finest. people
added to their image a further note of refinement and prosperity (in a fashion nOI unlike
the present television custom of placing professors or other -experts· in from of their
bookshelves or computer during interviews). More magically but still pragmatically. the
Bible could be used as a laJisman, as when placed under the pillow
10
ward off the old
hag. or in a baby's cot 10 keep the fairies away. Clerical exorcists used it to clear houses
of supernatural presences, and there were divination practices involving the Bible and a
key. Many charms, still in widespread use, are verses from the Bible, or believed to be
from the Bible, and just as one has to "believe· in certain charms for them to work. ·you
had to be a believer of the devil before you could carry out the magic in the book,·
according to Philmon Wade (70-12198-103). Reversal and mirror imagery typify many
magic acts, such as reciting the Lord's prayer backwards to give someone the old hag, or
calling his name backwards to bring him out of it. The twelve (holy) days of Christmas
are mirrored in one method of procuring the black hean book which involves going to the
same place every night for twelve nights in a row at midnight (FSC68-16I64). The black
book itself is in opposition to the Bible, as the devil is to God.
One te"t makes the
equation e"plicit:
IThe black art bookl was. in fact. the Devil's Bible which was carried by his disciples.
These disciples were people who had sold their souls to the Devil. and whom he hOO
placed here on e~ to recruit more. The legend goes on that the "disciples- would wail
for an opportunity in which a person wouJd be in a position to bargain with them. When
Ihey thought they had a prospect here. they would present him with "the Black An. - The
person would ~ safe until he agreed 10 accept the Black Art. thus signifying that he had
sold his soul (0 the devil for some favour in rerurn. The person could retW'1\ the Black Art
when he was presented with it. bul if he decided to keep it. it would be too late.
(FSC7Q-17/111)
'''Personal communicatK>n. Spring 1989.
Winterton. Trinity Bay. fOl" over fifty years.
Mrs. Piercey was the unofficial phot:ographer of
.....-----------------------------ruE BLACK IfEART IN NEWFOUNDLAND
90
If books can be powerful objects. it follows that reading can be a powerful act. One
reputed witch threatened
offended her (68·17/112).
10
"read the black psalm" from the Bible "on" anyone who
Reading might even be vaguely
prelemalural~
one man's
literacy was considered cx1d. since he had come by it outside the official channels:
There: is a story which has been circulating for )'eMS about a famIly from Bryanfs Cove.
of which all members are said (0 be in the fairies. One of the sons died at about sixty-five
}e~ of age aOO he was never seen by anyone. He supposedly had a big whisker and he
wrote 11 book and songs even though he had never gone to school in his life...
(FSC7I-211.l8)
Allhough this hermit seems to be an extreme case, reading and writing
~
essentially
private pursuilS in which one eulS off one's fellows. engaging instead with an unseen
consciousness (hence, even in academic circles. the Emily Postian taboo on reading at the
table).
In an intensely interactive culture. solitary pursuits are apt to be suspect
For
example. one student said that if his mother caught him playing cards alone. she would
take the cards away because ·when you play alone the devil is automatically on your side"
(FSC67-10/116).
The devil is a ubiquitous figure in Newfoundland oral tradition, but the attitudes
that helped forge black heart folklore are not limited to folk culture. Religion is still a
powerful official force, and public schools are run on denominational lines. The idea that
books may contain dangerous stuff is alive and well: in 1989. the provincial minister of
education removed from the high schools textbooks containing such blasphemous
expressions as "hell" and "damn." and the Pentecostal faction succeeded in having
expunged a picture showing people dancing. These "ooucators" fear ocular contagion like
the men who saw the queen of heans in the lumber camp. who thought "that if they once
saw what was in it [the book], they would become just as bad as the man who owned it."
Yet these are the bodies charged with educating the young in a population with an
BARBARA RlEll
91
illiteracy rate estimated at lhirty-eight to sixty-one percent. 1S There is no estimate of the
number who can read but don'l, for whom books are not a pan of everyday life.
llka Dickman. a Czechoslovakian physician. kept a diary of her work as district
nurse on the South Coast in 1939 and 1940 in which she mentions the paucity of print and
hunger for books. "llte people make an effort to make the best of everything." she writes,
"thereby much of the actual poverty remains hidden." Old Christmas catalogues were
"appreciated by young and old alike as picture books"; Dickman's own box of old
magazines became a kind of lending library which was "digested voraciously· and
"devoured with devotion and tremendous zeal" by its patrons (32). Great poverty and
isolation have been alleviated over the fifty years since Dickman wrote, but such a
heritage is not lost overnight and books are still not exactly thick on the ground, if I may
use a personal experience to illustrate and to close. A few years ago I was visiting Keels,
a community of about two hundred people, a three hour drive from St. John's. TIle
teenage couple at whose house I was staying were going to a dance, and I was going to
babysit their one-and-a-half-year-Q)d along with my own. Since their house contained
only a few Reader's Digests from the 1960s, I thought I would get a few magazines for
the evening but was told that to do Ihis I would have to drive to Bonavista, fony miles
away. Reviewing the baby's nighttime routine, I asked if ( should read him a story. "No;
said the father proudly, "he don'l have that habit." The habit-forming pleasure of reading
will probably elude this child his whole life, as it has his parents and even those college
srudents who must struggle to wrest meaning from their texts and to prcxJuce readable
sentences (in exchange for a very thin promise of a job). It is hardly surprising that in
folkJore "the book" had become the devil's own device, inscrutable, seductive and scary at
the same time.
'SThe criteria and definition for such figures vary. The Southam Literacy Survey of 1987
estimated a rate of forty-four percent; the 1990 Statisttes Canada of Literacy SkiUs found only
thirty-nine pc:rcent of its ewfoondland sample at ·the level at which an individual can mttt most
everyday ~ading demands- (both surveys are qUOIed in -Literacy in an Achieving Society: A Policy
Statement: on Adult Literacy. - produced by the Government: of Newfoondlard and Labradoc). The
Coalitjon foc Literacy's lowest estimate is thirty-eight percent (!he Evening Telegram, St. John's.
21 Dec. 1990). There is little information on regional and demographic variation, but a survey of
orthem Peninsula fishennen conducted jointly by the Marine Institute and Western Community
College foord seventy-three pc:runt to be -functionally iUiterate- (The Evening: Telegn.m 4 Apr.
1990).
THE BLACK HEART IN NEWFOUNDLAND
92
Works Cited
Baughman, Ernest W. Type and MOlif-Index of 'he Folktales of England and Nonh
America. Indiana U Folklore Series No.20. The Hague: Moulon, 1966.
Christiansen, Reidar Th. The Migratory Legends: A ProPOsed List of Types with a
Systematic Catalogue of the Norwegian Variants. FF Communications No. 17.5.
Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fenniea. 19.58.
Dickman, 1l1ea. Appointment
10
ewfoundland. Manhattan, KA: Sunnower UP. 1981.
Glassie, Henry,ed. Irish Folktales.
ew York: Pantheon. 198.5.
Hall, Trevor. Old Conjuring Books: A Bibliographical and Historical Srudy with a
SUPPlementary Check·List. London: Duckwonh. 1972.
Kiltredge, George Lyman. Witchcraft in Old and
Russell, 1929.
ew England. New York: Russell and
Knott, Olive. Witches of Dorset. Milbourne Port. Dorset: Dorset Publishing Co., 1974.
MacCulioch. Sir Edgar. Guernsey Folk Lore. Ed. Edith Carey. 1903. Norwood, Pa.:
Norwood, 1973.
Mitchell. Roger E. George Knox: from Man to Legend. Northeast FolkJore II (1969).
Orono. Maine: University Press. 1970.
Northcote. Lady Rosalinde. "Devonshire FolkJore. Collected among the People near
Exeter within the Last Five or Six Years." Folk-Lore 11 (1900): 212·17.
() hEochaidh. SeAn. Fairy Legends from Donegal. Trans. Maire Mac Neill. Dublin:
Comhairle Bhealoideas Eireann. 1977.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft.
Summers. London: J. Rooker, 1930.
1584.
With an Intro. by Montague
Summers. Montague. A Popular History of Witchcraft. (1937). New York: Causeway
Books. 1973.
Thompson. Stith. Motif-Index of Folk·literature. 6 vols. Rev. ed. Bloomington: Indiana
P, [l955J.
Is This Space Yours or Mine?
A Study of Personal Space in Narratives of Hauntings.
Lise Saug~res
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Introduction
This paper examines the significance of personal space in relation to the experience
of the supernatural as reflected in five memorates of haunted houses. The importance of
personal space in our culture is demonstrated by Edward T. Hall who points Qut that every
individual develops a sense of territoriality which is -the act of laying claim to and
defending a territory" (187). Douglas Porteous writes about the home as a territory which
has to be defended: "... exclusive control of territory confers three substantial benefits on
its occupants.
These essential territorial satisfactions are identiry, security and
stimulation" (383). According to Porteous these satisfactions derive from the control of
physical space. This control is achieved in two ways: by the personalization of space,
which is -an assertion of identity and a means of ensuring stimulation,- and by the defense
of space. -the means by which stimulation is achieved and security assured. - He adds that
as a result people spend more time penionalizing and defending the home more than any
other physical space.
-The concept of security includes both psychic security and
physical security or protection. Both forms of security are obtained in the home and also
its individual cores, usually bedrooms, boudoirs or studies. This paper will show that the concepts of identity and security are reflected in the
narration of experiences of haunting. and that supernatural beliefs can be understood
within ideas of space. As we will see, in the case of the hauntings described below. the
geography of the house becomes ordered by the presence of the supernatural, and the
significance of the house as personal space also gives meaning to the supernatural
experience. In my analysis. I will interpret the five narratives as accounts shaped by the
idea of home as personal space and the concern of belonging. It will be argued that ghost
encounters are in part struggles for the control of personal space between the narrators.
95
LISE SAUGtRES
who, as we will see, lack connection with the houses' pasts, and the ghosts, who can be
appreciated as embodiments of the history of their places.
Summary of the Narratives
The five narratives that are the foundation of my analysis were all recorded in 51.
John's, Newfoundland during the fall of 1989. In order to preserve the anonymity of my
informants I will use pseudonyms to refer to them: Sarah, Carol, Brenda, Bob and Peter.
All other names used are also pseudonyms.
Though all of my informants considered these to be stories of hauntings, there are
significant differences in the nature of the events described. Three of the stories, those of
Sarah. Carol and Bob, concern encounters with dead persons who return to haunt their
place of prior residence. Peter's story is about a vision he had during a
~ance,
rather than
an actual encounter with a ghost. However, this vision did concern the experiences of a
dead man who had lived in the house Peter was occupying. Brenda also encountered an
apparition; however, she did not believe it to be the ghost of someone already deceased,
but rather an omen of her child, yet unborn.
Sarah was sharing a house with her landlady. a widow. A few months after she had
moved there, while the landlady was away on vacation, she began to hear "something like
a heavy breathing" at night in her bedroom. Now and then an object would fall from the
top of her dresser for no apparent reason. One evening in panicular, Sarah, who was in
her bedroom, heard this heavy breathing more clearly than usual. At first she thought it to
be her boyfriend "trying to scare her: but when she called out and no one answered she
became terrified and ran out of the bedroom, falling down the stairs to the living room.
When the landlady came back Sarah asked her how her husband had died and the elderly
women told her he had emphysema. A few weeks later she found a vase in the living
room and was told by her landlady that it contained the ashes of her husband. After that.
Sarah believed that the sound of breathing in her bedroom was coming from the ghost of
the landlady's husband. who was still physically in the house.
IS THIS SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
%
Despite lhe reoccurrence of the haunting every lime the landlady was away. Sarah
stayed on at the house, moving out a few years laler. After she had moved
OUI.
she gave
the address to one of her friends who needed a place 10 stay. bUI she did nOllell her about
the past haunting experiences. Her friend moved into the house. Shortly afterwanis.
again when the landlady was away, the same thing happened
10
her. and she called Sarah
in the middle of the night because she was so frightened. The next day, after Sarah had
told her about the supemarural presence in the house. her friend moved
001.
Neither Sarah
nor her friend ever told the landlady about what happened bt:cause as Sarah saKi,
wan I
10 offend
her.
~I
didn't
_ She might think I'm weird. you know:
n
Carol had
jusl
moved to a small Newfoundland village. She wenl
which had been boughl by friends of hers from a woman who used
10
10
live in a hou~
live Ihere with her
mother unlil the latter died. The people in the communily lold her that Ihey used
10
see
lights at night coming from the empty house. but Carol did not believe Ihis.
After a while a dog lhat Carol was taking care of began barking up Ihe stairs. Carol
would look but could see nothing. One day Ihe dog barked. and Ihis lime Carol saw a
woman wearing a white dress going up the slairs and into one of the bedrooms. She wenl
upslairs and Ihrough Ihe whole house but found nobody. Feeling uneasy, she look the dog
with her into her bedroom that night. Later on in the night she was awakened by the
growling of Ihe dog. She opened the door and saw Ihe same woman, who was in her
Ihirties and dressed in a I920s fashion. walking across the landing and entering into one of
the bedrooms.
Again Carol ran after her bUI she had disappeared.
phenomena started
10
lake place. Many Ihings that had belonged
10
After that, other
Ihe previous owners
were still in Ihe house, including furnilure, cutlery. adornmenls and linens. Carol had
rearranged Ihese objects
moved back
10
10
her own liking. bUI soon bt:gan to find that they were being
Iheir original location. One day Carol asked aloud if Ihe woman minded
her being Ihere. The answer was the falling of a cup from a cupboard onlo Ihe sink.
Nevenheless. Carol continued
10
In the spring she decided
live there.
10
clean the house and
~get
rid of all kinds of old stuff'
with Ihe help of some children from the community. While she was upslairs. Ihe stove
LISE SAUGERES
97
that she had put on low heat was mysteriously turned up to high, becoming red hot and
creating an explosion. The fLrc was put out quickly, but Carol moved out shortly after this
incident. She believed that the ghost was the deceased mother of the woman who had
sold the house.
III
In Bob's account he and his family had just moved to a Newfoundland outpon,
where they rented the light·house. Just after they had moved into this house, they were
visited by an old man who told them that he had been a policeman in the community. The
man sat in their kitchen and they conversed for a couple of hours. He lold them various
stones about people who had lived in the light·house and mentioned names of people who
were living in the village.
He also told them about his daughter who now lived
somewhere else and that he had spent a lot of lime in the light-house because he was a
good friend of the light-house keeper. Finally he left, seeming to "disappear" into the fog.
After the old man left, Bob went to see somebody he knew in the community, who
had been mentioned by the visitor, to find out who this old man was. There he learned
that the man corresponding to the description had died twenty years before. A few years
later be met a woman who was visiting the community, and he recognized her as the dead
man's daughter by the description the man had given of her. He told her the slory and she
also felt that the visitor was indeed her falher. Bob asked her to send him pictures of her
father but she never did.
IV
Peter was a member of a student theatre group that had been given a house to use as
a theatre. One night they decided to have a
s~ance.
They had "a pentangle on the floor
and [a] chalk circle drawn around a cup of the elements that had a candle. earth. and water
in it." He and his friends joined hands and closed their eyes. During the stance, Peter
began to see images of streets, people. cars, snow, woods. a cabin. and a train. All these
visions seemed to be from the earlier pan of the century. As Ihe vision progressed Peter
began feeling colder and colder. Finally the cold became so e:<treme that he began to fear
for his life, and he told the others that he wanted to stop the stance. When nobody did
98
IS THIS SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
anything he tried 10 remove his hands from the olher people'5 hands but he could nol.
Finally he managed to kick "the cup of the elemenls." AI the same time his hands were
suddenly released and he and the others were driven back against the wall. The orhers
then told him that they had not been able to understand what he was saying during the
s~ance;
they only heard him munering a lot of things.
Peter and a friend decided to find oul what had happened. He had the feding that
1927 was the dale they were looking faT. Indeed, they discovered in a newspaper of 1927
thac the man who had originally lived in the house had died of exposure during a hunting
trip that winter. Having taken the train to go to his cabin in the woods. the man was left
stranded when the train failed
succumbed
10
10
return as expected. He tried
10
go back
10
his cabin bUI
cold on the way and died. Peter believed Ihat he had contacled Ihe dead
man's spirit.
v
When Brenda was around ten years old. she used to wake up at night and see from
her bedroom a small white figure at the bottom of a flight of stairs. This figure kept
jumping back and forth between the last step and the floor. She would go towards it. but
as she approached. it would disappear. She then would take an object and wave it where
the creature had been. but nothing was there. She would go back to bed and then see it
again.
This lasted for a couple of years.
Brenda's narrative is very different from the
others in that she does nOI think that the ghost is a dead person. but rather that it might
have been the ghost of her child yet unborn, more an omen than an actual person. She
now has a daughter and the Mghost Mshe saw when she was ten seemed to be a little girl
because Mit had a dress on M:
Sometimes when I look at Jacqueline I think il was some kind of omen, an indication that.
you know. llaughsl she was going to be born and ... I guess when you·re older you try
and explain things.
LISE SAUGERES
99
Analysis
The five narratives all differ in respect
10
the experiences and the elements of belief
drawn upon to interpret the experiences. However. they all share an emphasis on space
and, in particular, [he idea of home as personal space.
In four of the narratives the
concerns of belonging to a new place, either house or community, are increased by the
presence of a ghost which symbolizes the history of the plael:.
To analyze lhe theme of space in the narratives, I will begin with the house itself
and the placement of the narrative episodes within it The houses where the hauntings
occurred are described as ·old houses· in all but Brenda's narrative. Sarah said it was -an
old house going back
(0
the twenties: The house which was given to Peter and the
theater group was also built in the twemies. Carol described the house as ·old· and that it
·smelt like an old house; although everything was ·neat and tidy" The light-house thai
Bob and his family moved to was also old, and they had to fix it up in order to live there.
Although Brenda did not live in an old house, she recalled that during the summer they
used to go to an island and stay in an old house in which her grand-parents and mother
had lived. Each time she was in this house she felt that there was a connection between
this ok! house and the ghost although she could not explain why. All the houses have two
or three noors and, in Sarah's, Carol's and Bob's stories, the houses are also described a
having a long night of stairs. 1
When interpreting the significance of the place of hauntings within the house, it is
useful to distinguish between more public and more private spaces. Rooms such as the
kitchen am the living-room, which in these houses are located on the first floor. are
personalized areas, but they are also spaces where visitors, strangers to the home, will be
entertained, and are thus public. Bedrooms, on the other hand. which in four of the stories
are located on the second floor. are usually the most private areas of the house. These
lElisabeth Tucker. in her article about space in children's narratives of encounlers wilh ghoslS,
lalkS about such common fearures: Ihe house in which the ghost appe;m is usually quile an
old·fashion((j house. devoid of such modem embellishments as sunken living rooms, dining alcoves
or modular sleeping places. The rooms arc geomeU'ically arranged in linear sequence, and there are
at least IWO (often three) levels connected by stairs" (19).
8
IS nns SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
private spaces, unlike the kitchen and living room, are not opened
100
10
visitors. Corridors,
thresholds and stairs can be considered as places of transitions between the morc public
and more private spaces in the house. 2
We will first look at the bedroom as a location for the ghost. The bedroom is the
most private and personal area in the house and also the most protected. In three of the
narratives the ghost appears at the edge of the narrator's bedroom. Brenda saw the ghost
from her bedroom located on the first noor, bUI it never entered the bedroom; it stayed at
the bottom of the stairs. and therefore her bedroom remained her private territory. In
Sarah and Carol's cases. the ghosts invaded their private territories.
All the
manifestations in Sarah's story occurred in her bedroom on the second floor, which was
her only rruly private space -- the rest of the house belonged to the old lady. In Carol's
narrative, the ghost appeared in different pans of the house including her own bedroom.
In effect, the whole house was being invaded. including her most privatI: space.
In both these stories the invasion of private space seems to underline the threat the
ghost poses to the narrators' sense of personal security. It is after she sees the ghost
entering her bedroom that Carol takes the dog into her room at night for protection. In
Sarah's story the realization that the heavy breathing was in her private territory, her
bedroom, forced her to Oee. The presence of the ghost, in effect, transforms the bedroom
from what was once the most comfortable place in the house into a place which is now
strange and threatening, forcing the living occupants to escape the space in which they
should feel the most secure.
Considering the importance of personal security in these stories. it is not surprising
that ghosts also occupy the thresholds between private and more public spaces -doorways and staircases. In Brenda's story the ghost was seen at the foot of the stairs.
near the entrance
[0
her bedroom.
Brenda did not try to close the door separating the
2Elisabeth Tucker Slates that in children's Slories the ghost walks up the stair.;, step by step, to
reach the child's bedroom, -The staircase thus takes its place as a buffer bc:lWecn one space·-the
frightening realm of the supernarural--and another, the usually safe territory of the child's own
bedroom.... ISlometimes it is f\O( just a question of succesSiVe steps. but of many floors which the
ghost muse ascend 10 reach its victim" (20).
LISE SAUGIORES
101
bottom of the stairs from her bedroom. hoping that she would nOI be able to see the ghost
anymore, because she felt comfortable with it. In Sarah's account, the breathing came
from lhe wall Ihat backed onto the staircase. and she felt uncomfortable on the staircase
before reaching the lOp:
When r d come out of the bedroom at the top of the stairs .
just befoce you went
downstairs, I always got this kind of uncomfortable feeling. just in the space of ... four or
five ... foct. I don't know if it's where he used to hang out or what.
In Carol's scory, the dog was barking at the stairs as if lhere was sometxxly there
before Carol herself saw the woman walking up the stairs
10
the second floor. That night
she was awakened by the growling of the dog, and as she left her bedroom, she saw the
woman walking across the landing before disappearing through
me doorway of one of the
other bedrooms.
In all cases. the entrance between public and private space is focused on and
returned to throughout the narratives when describing the manifestations of the ghosts.
Similarly. in Bob's narrative considerable anention is given to the visitor's transition from
outside to inside and back., his movement from public areas to family space. The visitor
came from the outside, stayed on the threshold while he knocked on the door and waited
for somebody to
come~
that is, he was in transition between public and personal spaces.
the open and non-protected space of the outdoors versus the protected space of the house.
The end of the narrative is marked by the reverse movement: he left the protected space,
the house, crossed the threshold and returned to the public space, the outdoors, before
disappearing:
So anyway, when he left he sort of walked out the door and disappeared. There was a lot
of fog there so I couldn't see whether he had a cae or ... whatever. He disappeared.
The house in which Peter had the
s~ance
was also invaded by the "ghost" or "spirit"
Through his vision., the walls of the house, built to provide protection against the
elements, cease to exist as the boundary between outside and inside. While he was inside,
he was experiencing the unsecured world beyond the house, seeing and feeling the
outdoors. "And in my mind what was going on was a lot of snow and cold, and I ... was
waiting for something. but I was freezing anyway."
102
IS THIS SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
Thus. in the five narratives, the ghosts impose their presences upon the new
residents by invading the houses. They appear on thresholds in particular. the places
which mark the transition between more public and more private spaces.
l will now tum to the narrators' inlerpretations of their experiences. which are
centred around the relationship of the ghosts to the houses. In the four siones when:: the
dead persons come back, they do so for different reasons. For Sarah. the ghost haunting
the house. and particularly her own private space. is the ghost of the landlady's husband
who died of a respiratory illness. The deceased husband had then lived in the house and
had owned it. She believes that he was still present because his ashes were kepi in the
house: "he might not be at rest if that's his ashes ...•
Peter believes that he had contacted the spirit of the man who had lived in the house
where they had the s6tnce and who died in 1927 in the woods. This man was working for
a company that built the house for him in 1925. He was therefore the first owner and
resident of it.
Bob believes that the dead person was 'checking them out' because they were
strangers. The old man never lived in the house. but he
u~d
to visit the light-house
keeper often and seemed to be emotionally attached to the place:
His connection to the house was that when he was stationed as a policeman he used to go
up there a lot. He knew the light-house keeper. they were Ca!ver1S as well. They were not
the same family but they had the same name and probably were conn~led. you know.
distantly. And he ... used to go out there and visit the light-house keeper, and they would
spend a lot of time drinking rum .... So he had a very ... great interest in thai house and
he expressed it too. He wanted 10 know who we were and if we were going to fix it up .
and things of that nature.
This implies that the old man was worried about the house and its state at the time _. "the
windows were out, the house was son of all beaten" .- and he wanted to make sure that
the new tenants, who were strangers to the community. intended to take care of the house.
a house which conveyed good memories to the old man. Essentially the ghost came out of
neighbourly interest. He had a certain claim to the house as a long-standing member of
the community and an old friend, but because he never lived or owned the house he came
to visit in the same way he used to when he was alive, respecting the boundary of the
103
LISE SAUG"RES
house. He knocked at the door as anybody would when going to see newcomers to the
community.
The woman Carol saw was in her forties and was dressed in a 19205 fashion. and
she believes that it was the deceased mother of the woman who sold the house to her
friends. The mother died when she was in her eighties, but Carol explains:
This woman walked along in the hall. whether she was walking along in 1968 or in 1920.
I don't know. I saw her- in 1968. but she might have acruaUy been walking in 1920. that's
my only explanation for it.
The mother had thus lived in the house and owned it. Everything in the house. furniture.
ornaments, cutlery, etc., had belonged to her and her daughter. Carol emphasizes the fact
that
.. they had . . . a really, meticulous way of looking after the house so that there were all
kinds of beautiful things still in the house. linens ard little dressing cloths that you put on
the dresser and things like that. and everything was neat and tidy.
This implies that the mother was attached to her personal objects, and Carol believes that
the dead mother came back to defend her house and protect it from Carol.
In all the cases but Brenda's. the ghost is someone who has a claim to belonging
10
the house, or. at least, as in Bob's story, an interest in the welfare of the house and
community. The ghosts represent the histories of these houses. of their prior residents,
made manifest as spectres, sounds. and mysterious happenings. The encounters with the
ghosts are struggles for possession of space in which Ihe new occupants state their claims
10
belonging and the old occupants, returning from the past as ghosts. dispute these claims
at various levels of intensity. from neighbourly concern to outright hostility.
The
encounters with the ghosts progress either towards conflict or resolution depending on the
altitudes of the ghost towards the inhabitants and the motives of the ghosts for being there.
as well as the reactions of the inhabitants lowards the ghosts' invasion of their personal
spaces.
In all the narratives the ghosts appear at one point to be in control of the situation.
In some cases the ghost remains in control until the end and wins. while Peter. in his
104
IS TillS SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
account, wins in the end. During the
the spirit did.
~ance
Peler did not have the control of the situation,
Peter did nO[ comrol the images he saw, he could not be heard by his
friends in the room when he tried
10
lell them that he wanted to stop because he was
freezing, and he could not lake his hands off the other people's hands. The fact thaI he
managed to kick -the cup of the elements" with his fool reversed the situation. allowing
him to escape from the spirit and to regain control of his life that he had momentarily lost
during the
s~nce .
. . . I tried to remove: my hands from the other people's hands and I couldn't. It was like
they were kind of connected with. like an e1ectr~magnel. you know. and lhe power was
on. and J sr:aned shivering and. actually, I was freezing .... I managed 10 kick out my
foot. (andl as I kicked out my foot I hit the chaJice that held me cup of the elements__ .
When it tipped over . . . that was the most incredible experience. it was absolutely
frightening. My hards were suddenly released and I was driven back about ... three feel
and slammed into the wall.
Bob felt vulnerable in front of the old man because the lalter represented Ihe history
of the house and the village.
He belonged to this house and community because he
belonged to their past. whereas Bob and his family were tOlal strangers
[0
both house and
community and were very conscious of not belonging. In his narrative Bob assens Ihat he
and I1is family dKt not fit in the village because they were strangers and also because Ihey
were different from the people living there:
.. we looked kind of weird, I mean, you know. we were supposed 10 be. I suppose in his
mind. kind of hippies. And ... we were a family of artists and we didn'l have much
money. SO we looked kind of apart .
Therefore. he was not surprised 10 see somebody from the community being concerned
about who they were. how they were going 10 fix up Ihe house, and what Ihey were going
to do. The oki man represented Ihe history of the place and was concerned about these
strangers invading the house he was emotionally attached to. As an ex-policeman the old
man was continuing 10 assume the role of proleclor for his home lown. The ghosl felt
Ihrealened by these newcomers who were unknown. who looked differenl, and who were
making some changes in the house: •. .. the house was son of all beaten. The windows
were out and things like that. We were just sort of fixing it up 10 .
live Ihere." Bob and
his family felt threatened by their posilion as strangers in this village. They were Ihen
LISE SAUGERES
IDS
placed in a vulnerable position towards lhe old man who belonged to this place and
represented the past of the house and village. All the stories he told Bob during his visit
dealt with people of the community and people who had lived in the light·house.
The ghosts are in conttol of the situation throughout Sarah and Carol's narratives,
although both Sarah and Carol try to defend and protect their personal spaces. In both
slories, the basic human needs for security, personal space, and identity are threatened
because of a supernatural presence in the house. In Sarah's case, it was her own territory
which had been invaded, lhe only place where she CQuid totally feel at home because it
was the only room she did nol share with the old lady. In Carol's case, the old house,
including her most private territory, had been invaded as the woman went everywhere in
the house. Although their places had been invaded, they both carried on living in the
houses, emphasizing the fact that they did not want to renounce their claim to the spaces
they had Klentified and personalized as their homes. Neither Carol nor Sarah could feel at
home any longer because of these unpredictable presences; they never knew what the
ghosts wouki do. Thus, the concept of home as safe place, as a protection from intrudeB.
no longer existed.
Nevel1heless, the sense of territoriality discussed by Hall and Porteous seems to
have been stronger than their uncomfOl1able positions. They both said they *got used to
it* in the end, even though they did not like their situations. Carol said, *1 carried on
living there, but I was not happy about the whole thing: Sarah would go to bed with her
light and her radio on, would read verses of her Bible, or would phone her mother when
the breathing occurred. The home and the bedroom had been auacked, and Sarah was
trying to fmd alternative ways to protect them. (n the same way Sarah addressed the ghost
in order to reassure him by conveying that she was not a threat to the house, that she
would not disturb anything in the house so that he should not disturb her: *I'm here
looking after the house you know, I sweep the floor, clean up and look after the grounds,
so don't bother me, now Mr. Smith: This indicates that Sarah believed that the ghost
might have manifested himself in order to protect the space of the house which was once
his. The fact that he manifested himself to Sarah only when the elderly lady was away
could confmn this idea. Sarah, by trying to reassure the ghost, was also trying to defend
her personal space. She seemed to believe that if she had convinced him that she was not
IS THJS SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
106
a (hreatlo his home, the manifestations would SlOp, and she could have regained the right
(0
consider her room as her home.
In Carol's siory, the struggle for the control of the home between Carol and (he
ghost is a predominant lheme in the narrative. Like Sarah. Carol carried on living in the
house after she saw the woman for the first lime and had realized that it was a
supernatural being.
Both the ghost and Carol sought
10
defend their homes. In both
Sarah's and Carol's narratives, the intruders, from the perspective of the ghosts, were
Sarah and Carol themselves, strangers living in ghosts' homes: therefore the ghosts'
personal space and security were equally threatened. It is clear in Carol's narrative that
the ghost considered the house to belong only to her and did nOI want a stranger
10
live
there and use what had once been hers. Carol attempted to rum the house into her home
by rearranging objects, personalizing the space by transforming the interior. and. in effect,
breaking with the history of the place and making it her own. In a very similar fashion the
ghost defended the house in order to protect her belongings and desired them to remain
where mey were when she was alive:
Arv:t I began to firv:t things that were placed differently. If I would ... change around the
house, if 1 would move a dresser, you know, in one corner over to the other side, when I
carne home it was back where it originally was. And if I'd put cups in a different place in
the cupboard from where they were originally, I'd come back from school in the evening
and I'd find they were back in the original place.
Carol tried to fight back, replacing furniture, rearranging things in the house to her own
liking after the ghost had moved them: "I didn't realize it but it became sort of a contest
between myself and this lady who lived in the house." The fact that she said she "didn't
realize it" emphasizes the sense of unconscious territoriality which made her act this way.
Carol also addressed the ghost, but instead of trying to reassure the ghostlike Sarah
did, she defied her by asking her a direct question: "what's the problem, you know, do you
mind me being here?- Even after Carol got an answer to her question, which she
interpreted as being "yes" -- the cup dropping out of the cupboard -- she still carried on
living in the house. although she knew that the woman did not want her to stay there: -.
oh God, she probably doesn't want me to be here at all.-
Instead of moving out or
accepting the ghost by lelling her have her own way, Carol defied her even further by
LISE SAUGERES
107
deciding "10 get rid of all kinds of old stuff," which could imply iliat it was also an attempt
to get rid of the ghost by burning its former possessions. Carol went a step too far and the
ghost reacted. according to Carol, by turning the
explosion. According
10
SlOve
to high heat and causing an
Carol the ghost created the explosion in order to make her leave.
but it is interesting to note that the ghost did not attack Carol personally. just the house.
yet. without causing too much damage to either. Carol said that "I never felt she was
going to harm me or anything.· but the ghost had demonstrated that she had more powers
than Carol and that she was the one who controlled the space within the house. She had
demonstrated that she would not let Carol have the house as her home because it belonged
10
her and not
10
Carol: "If this is what she wants to do, I mean she could create real
problems for me if she doesn't want me to be there, so I moved.·
Conclusion
In Ihis paper I have shown that personal space is a major theme in these narratives
of hauOIing experiences and that the hauntings of the houses underline ideas of personal
space. In all the narratives except Brenda's, the hauntings occur because the spirits of the
deceased remain attached to the spaces they occupied in life, and because new people are
taking possession of these spaces and making them their own personal territories. The
locations of the ghosts in space, the encounters with the ghosts and the invasion of private
spaces, the reasons my informants gave for the hauntings, the histories of the ghosts in
relation to the houses, and the struggles for control of space between the ghosts and the
narrators, are all important aspects of these haunting experiences. In all cases, with the
eltception of Brenda's account, the ghosts embody the history of the houses, a past
unknown to the new inhabitants. In Carol's and Bob's cases, bOlh of them are not only
strangers to the houses they moved into, they are also strangers to the communities. Both
are concerned with belonging to the places where they live, not only the micro·space of
the house but also within the larger framework of the community. In the four narratives,
these ghosts, as history and reminders of the past. convey to the inhabitants that they
could not belong because they did not live this history and are intruders, outsiders
belonging to a different time and space.
IS THIS SPACE YOURS OR MINE?
108
Works Cited
Hall. Edward T. The Silen. Language. Garden City.
Y: Doubleday. 1959.
Porteous, Douglas J. -Home as the Territorial Core: Geographic Review 66 (1976):
383-90.
Tucker. Elisabeth.
"Concepts of Space in Children's Narratives,"
Folldore on Two
COOlinents: Essays in Honor of Linda ~gh. Eds. Nikolai Burlakoff and Carl
Lindhal. Blooming.on: Tricks.er Press. 1980: 18-25.
Comptes Rendus / Reviews
Patrick O'F1aheny, Priest of Go<! (St. John's: Breakwater, 1989),214 pp.
Patrick O'Aaherty's Priest of Goo is anOlher work in a literary genre of great
interest 10 folklorists and scholars in relaled disciplines: the Calholic ethnographic novel.
Within this genre fall works like Mary Gordon's Final Payments and The Olher Side. the
novels of Graham Greene and Ignazio Silone. Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Spark's
Memento Mon, and Kathryn Hulme's The Nun's Slory.
Authored by Catholics and
ex-Catholics, these novels brim with a density of ethnographic derail that a folklorist or
olher social scientist might normally labellhe fruits of good fieldwork.
When I purchased Priest of God in a St. John's book store lhis summer, the check·
out clerk commented that it had been a besi-seller. and she had heard -it was a good one.
M
This may be due to the story's setting in a Roman Catholic community in present-<lay
Newfoundland. The Catholic parishioners in the novel, like Newfoundlanders of roday.
know that Catholic parish priests and brothers have been investigated, charged, and
convicted of child sexual abuse dating back two decades. O'Flaherty alludes
10
parishes
M
and a SI. John's orphanage as the sites of the abuse, though he does not name actual
M
parishes or name the recently closed Mounl Cashel Orphanage. run for a century by the
Christian Brothers. The novel is better read with an awareness of the context of this child
sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Sf. John's. Two good non-fiction sources are
Michael Harris's Unholy Orders (Viking, 1990) and the in- depth Winter Commission
Report. released in July 1990. A scathing assessment. by a Roman Catholic commission,
of Archdiocesan handling of repons of child sexual abuse. the Winter Report is credited
with prompting the immediate resignation of Sf. John's Archbishop Alphonsus Penney.
Priest of God presents a hero of particular interest to the folklore reader: a priest
attempting, as ethnographers do, to explore and understand a community.
One could
easily fit Father John metaphorically into a role of priesc-ethnographer. He comes to a
gradual underscanding of his new parish community through a kird of priestly fieldwork.
COMPTES RENDUS
III
He starts out with house-Io-house visits, acts as a participant-.observer at community
social and religious events. and makes extensive mental notes on his one-on-one
conversations with parishioners.
Like a folklorist, Ryan has a keen eye for material
culture, both popular and religious.
He listens carefully to his parishioners' personal
experience narratives as well as their jokes, and notes how they interact in small groups.
A short time after his arrival in -Long Cove: a small community on the Avalon
Peninsula, Ryan receives a late night call to the scene of a car accident He baptizes an
adolescent boy and hears his dying, incoherent confession. The priest spends the rest of
his time in Long Cove investigating an accident authorities seem
10
be covering up and
trying to solve the spiritual mystery of the boy's last words. On his way to discovering
and eventually destroying a network of child sexual abuse run by leaders in the
community, Ryan is threatened and beaten.
One of the threats is the community's
discovery of Father Ryan's own troubled past-·a mental breakdown and a dropped
criminal allegation.
O'Aaherty's Father Ryan is an odd blend of the priest- superhero and the ·sinner
with great potential· character, common to Graham Greene's novels. He is not eager to
share with this new parish his history of past indiscretions. He learns a hard lesson early
in his career when a child dies because he chose to keep a mother's confessions of abuse
confidential. He relies on prayer to help her rather than reporting her behaviour to the
police. He makes an unorthodox resolution never again to place the sacred confidence of
the confessional above the gravity of a revelation of child abuse.
Ryan questions but accepts his long-time celibacy in a tired and emotionally
deadened way.
When elderly parishioners present anhritic limbs for his blessing, he
embarrassedly refuses money, seeming puzzled at those faithfully convinced of cure.
Like Scobie in Greene's The Hean of the Matter, Ryan's priestly outlook and behavior
become more and more unorthodox as he pursues answers to more and more difficult
questions. He is relentless in his delennination to understand how and why an adolescent
boy has been killed. As he discovers the answer he must also understand the motivations
of each individual in the network of people responsible for the death. In the course of his
quest Father Ryan gets to know many parishioners well. He considers the varieties of
112
REVIEWS
love and sexuality among his
parishion~rs
thai range outside both marriage and
heterosexuality.
Though Father Ryan's role as a "priesc-t:lhnographer." O'Flaherty brings us
ethnographic detail of outport Catholic life in
ewfoundland.
Ryan's first visits to
community homes show us which holy pictures are on their walls. alongside pictures of
pop stars. The priest listens as parishioners joke about the sexuality of priests~ he nOlices
that soap operas prompt these comments during his visits.
community's 51.
He is present at the
Palrick's Day celebrations and provides thick description of the
festivities. with a cynical attention to the social hypocrisy and rolklorismus that are pan of
the community's self·represenI3Iion. One of Ryan's most important clues is another item
of inleres[ to many folklorisls: the personal diary. When an adolescent's nOlebook comes
into his hands, he studies il as a document Ihal will hdp solve a murder and reveal Ihe
boy's troubled private life.
Priest of God is a valuable source for the elhnography of Roman Catholicism in
present~ay
Newfoundland. In a real-life Ian aClual?] social context in which the hitheno
private lives and Ihoughls of Roman Catholic clergy are being queslioned -- in coun, in
the media, and in everyday Calholic community life. Ihis novel provides a complex,
plausible ponrail of one parish priest's inner life and represenlalion of self to Ihe parish
communily. For social scienlisls inlerested in the clashes and Ihe cooperalion of the Great
and Little Tradilions and in folk religion as defined by Don Yoder. O'Flaherty's "Long
Cove" is a case sludy. O'Flaherty presents the waxing and waning of religious praclice
among parishioners, Iheir panicipation in Ihe struClure of parish and local government.
and Ihe economic, religious and political differences dividing the communily. Priest of
God, a holistic ponrait of religious leadership in a little community, auains a high level of
ethnographic relevance 10 present~ay Roman Calholic life in Newfoundland, where
questioning and hoping for responsibility and effecliveness in leadership are ongoing
Ihemes.
Eileen Condon
Memorial University
MijN