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In the fall Labradorians moved inland to live on thcir trapping grounds in Iiule
communities ofone or two families. It was the custom for Ihe scattered "inter
communitics to gather in one place. usually the Iludson Bay Company post. for
Christmas. These gatherings became the occasion for fcasting. dancing. and the singing
ofsongs. Clarice Hopkins. a Labradorian 00\\ li\'ing in Goosc Bay. spoke in great detail
about songs she and other members ofhcr famil) had composed. Al age fifteen. she
composed a song. about her sistcrs and their boyfriends from e\\ found land. The song. a
moniker, was thinY·lwo \'erses long and included c\cf)onc at thc gathcring in addition to
the Newfoundland crowd.
I'd compose [songs) around Christmas and forgct them unless somebody
\\TOte them down. I think the one about Cupids was copied and was in
Cupids. That's where I did pick up a lot ofvcrscs I had forgotten because
they had taken it back there and kept it alive for awhile. lJ2
laricc went on to say that the younger people mentioned in thc song had kept on
singing it because it was about them. She reiterated dun songs wcre composcd for special
occasions, sung, and then forgotten unlcss somCOllC wrote thcm down or kept all singing
it. To her. a song was "really a record or tile things we were doing." While hcrs were
always romantic songs about boys and girls teasing each othcr. her brother and other
fishermen composed songs about fishing or about working 3t the nearby whaling factory.
One song composed by her brother (another moniker song) listed all the bankers (fishing
Memorial Univcrsity of cwfoundland (1986) and "Folk Programming Versus Elitc
Infonnation: The Doyle Blilletin and the Pllblic Dispatch:' Cllllllre &Trlldition 12 (1988).
pp.41-59.
232 M FLA 86.Q13. C8629. See also Bollntyolo Barren Coast.
144