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have created new tenns and uses relevant to their activities and concerns. SlUdies of this
local idiom reveal riches with regard to the fishery and its whole context: words relating to
fish and seals (bedlamer, white-coat), conditions of water (clean water, dirty water), ice
(pack ice), wind (wind gall, wind hound) and others still. Many temlS from this semantic
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field also appear in local proverbs and phrases (a spare oar, a spared life; as far as ever a
puffin new).l In addition, a study of fishennen's designations of particular fishing
grounds has uncovered the existence of an ernie idiom specifically relating to fishing and
shared among the men of the community.2
To gauge the extent of the sea's influence on the natives' character, one needs some
knowledge of maritime cultures in genera!.3 The intrinsic danger of wrenching a living
from the ocean is such as 10 inspire universal human behaviour. Such is Michel MoUat's
explanation for finding great similarly in maritime people's attitudes towards death:
En conclusion, les attitudes de l'homme en face du peril en mer sont un
des moments les plus signifiants de sa relation avec Ie sacre, que ce dcrnier
soit benefique ou malefique.... II faudrait d'ailleurs bien mal connaitre Ie
milieu marin pour imaginer des differences profondes de componement
devalll Ie danger commun, it l'heure ou personne ne peut plus mentir ni
tricher. 4
The immensity and instability of the sea, analysts accord, always and everywhere have
aroused a sense of mystery and inspired symbolic interpretations. Translating his natural
fear of the depths in Christian ideology, Man has viewed the sea as a remnant of original
chaos, a realm inhabited by monstrous creatures (Jonah's whale) or the dreaded universe
of the otherworld (spirits or even the devil boarding phantom ships). Within the pre­
modern conception of space, the sea is the "unknown" par excellence, "the ultimate in
1Story, "The Dialects of Newfoundland," in Smallwood, Book 3: 559-63. For:m explanation
of the terms cited and more examples, see Dictionary of Newfoundland fngJi.rh, ed. G. M.
SlOry, W.J. Kirwin and J. Widdowson (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1982).
2Gary R. Butler, "Culture, Cognition, and Communication: Fishermen's Location-Finding in
L'Anse-a-Canards, Newfoundland," Canadian Folklore canadien 5.1/2 (1983): 7-21
3Major studies include Horace Beck, Folklore of the Sea (Middleton, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1973);
Peter F. Anson, Fishermen and Fishing Ways (East Ardsley, Eng.: Rowman, 1975); Michel
Mollat, "Lcs altitudes des gens de mer devant Ie danger ct devant la mort," Ethnologic
rranr;ai.re n.s. 9.2 (1979):191.200; Lacroix. As this thesis is about to be submilled.
Laurier Turgeon scnds me a copy of his edition of Identite Maritime Identity. Canadian
Folklore canadien 12.2 (1990), most contributions to which relate to outsidc and insidc
views of maritimc people,
4Mollat 198.