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... its (the folk society] power to act consistently over periods of lime and
to meet crises effectively is not dependent upon discipline exerted by force
or upon devotion to some single principle of action but lO the concurrence
and consistency of many or al1 of the actions and conceptions which make
lip the whole round of life. 1
Was Newfoundland ever "a ballad society" confonning to Redfield's model? The
diverse anthropological and folkloristic accounts of life in the outpons prior 10 1949 leave
little doubt as to the fact. From their field experience in various arcus of rural
Newfoundland, MacEdward Leach reports witnessing "a culture closer to a pure folk
cuhure than perhaps any other in North America," and Kenneth Peacock, "one of the rare
examples in recent centuries of a neo-primitive white culture."2 Other accounts give
historical explanation for the rare persistence of this "folk society" on the continenl
embodying technological advancement and economic prosperity. This is native F. Lin
Jackson's biller account
.. as a truly viable and successful society, Newfoundland has never yet
existed. . While communities elsewhere flourished under deliberate
cultivation, communities in Newfoundland had to struggle to survive as
unwanted or neglected weeds. For almost all our history in fact, a
community of sons persisted, but one which, without the benefit of proper
government, remained retrograde and primitive.... Five centuries of the
plundering of Newfoundland's resources on the part of outsiders
unconcerned with the advancement of local people left a legacy of political
impotence, retrograde economy and a cultural life thwarted by the
unrelieved rigour of bare subsistence, isolation and alienation. 3
The proposition further holds on every point. Newfoundland communities were typically
small communities: in 1949 they amounted to roughly 1,500, most of which had fewer
than 3CK) inhabitants. 4 To this day, social life remains mostly confined to the village level
and everybody knows everybody else, not only within their own community but the two or
three neighbouring ones. The closed character of these societies is such thai all social
relationShips are imimate and personal, as habits reveal: no door is locked at night, visitors
are expected to make their way into the kitchen without even knOCking. Crime is
unthinkable for the offender would easily be identified.
I Redfield, "Folk" 299.
2Leach, Folk. 12; Kenneth Peacock, Songs of the Newfoundland OUlports, 3 vols. Nmional of
Canada Bulletin no. 197, Anthropological Series no. 65 (Ottawa: Queen's, 1965) I: xix.
3F. Lin Jackson, Surviving Confederation (51. John's: curr, J986) 35, 36 and 37.
4James. G. Calder, "Humor and Misunderstanding in Newfoundland Culture," Culture &
Tradition 4 (1979): 50.