The rich traditions associated with Mi-Car'me or Mid-Lent are firmly anchored in the folkways of Acadian communities. To celebrate Mi-Car'me, people visited each other's homes dressed up in masks and costumes. In the midst of the merrymaking, a mysterious character called the Mi-Car'me gave candies to little children and sometimes even delivered babies. But this strange individual scared many young Acadians because they feared he would take them away if they misbehaved.

The well-known Acadian folklorist and historian Georges Arsenault will givean illustrated talk on two ancient and popular Acadian winter celebrations.The first is known as Chandeleur (Candlemas) and takes place on February 2.The second, called Mi-Carême, is celebrated a few weeks later in the middleof Lent.Georges Arsenault has researched the origins of these joyful traditions andhow they were observed in Acadian communities in Eastern Canada. Publishedby Acorn Press and translated by Sally Ross, the English titles of his twobooks on these winter festivities are: Acadian Traditions on Candlemas Day:Candles, Pancakes, and House Visits and Acadian Mi-Carême: Masks andMerrymaking.Candlemas Day was at one time an important religious and social festivity.Pancakes were the symbolic food of choice. In many Acadian villages, youngmen went from door-to-door collecting food either for a communal feast or togive to the poor. To celebrate Mid-Lent, people visited each other's homesdressed up in masks and costumes, as they still do in the Chéticamp regionof Cape Breton. In some villages, a scary woman called the Mi-Carêmedistributed candies to good little children. In his presentation, Arsenaultwill trace the evolution of these traditions, highlight modern-daycelebrations, and look at the role they still play in Acadian culture.

From the time of their arrival on Isle Saint-Jean in the early 1700s,Acadian women played a major role in the survival of the colony.Over the generations, they have been active in the home and in the community. They have nursed, taught, worked, sung, prayed, and served. Integrated into a well-documented text with numerous photographs, their testimonies provide a history of the Acadie of Prince Edward Island. This book relates how that history was lived by Acadian women and influenced by their action and determination.

Biff and whiff, baker’s fog and lu’sknikn, pie social and milling frolic – these are just a few examples of the distinctive language of Cape Breton Island, where a puck is a forceful blow and a Cape Breton pork pie is filled with dates, not pork. The first regional dictionary devoted to the island’s linguistic and cultural history, the Dictionary of Cape Breton English is a fascinating record of the island’s rich vocabulary. Dictionary entries include supporting quotations culled from the editors’ extensive interviews with Cape Bretoners and considerable study of regional variation, as well as definitions, selected pronunciations, parts of speech, variant forms, related words, sources, and notes, giving the reader in-depth information on every aspect of Cape Breton culture. A substantial and long-awaited work of linguistic research that captures Cape Breton’s social, economic, and cultural life through the island’s language, the Dictionary of Cape Breton English can be read with interest by Backlanders, Bay byes, and those from away alike.

A collection of haunting legends, delightful yarns, and spine-tingling ghost stories. Swathed in mist, surrounded by the secretive sea, wind wailing like the lost souls of sailors around its shores, Prince Edward Island is the ideal setting for the strange and incredible, even the supernatural. Islanders have handed down, from one generation to the next, many legends and ghost stories of visiting spirits, buried pirate treasure, sea serpents, and ghostly apparitions. Who dares to doubt the veracity of the sailors who met a phantom schooner, the fishermen who fled from a sea monster, or the countless Islanders who have dug for pirate gold, only to be terrified by something uncanny and to have abandoned their search? Curl up on a dark night with this new second edition and find yourself transported to the magical and mysterious Prince Edward Island.

French traditions in America do not live solely in Louisiana. Franco-American Identity, Community, and La Guiannée travels to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, to mark the Franco-American traditions still practiced in both these Midwestern towns. This Franco-American cultural identity has continued for over 250 years, surviving language loss, extreme sociopolitical pressures, and the American Midwest's demands for conformity. Ethnic identity presents itself in many forms, including festivals and traditional celebrations, which take on an even more profound and visible role when language loss occurs. On New Year's Eve, the guionneurs, revelers who participate in the celebration, disguise themselves in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century costume and travel throughout their town, singing and wishing New Year's greetings to other members of the community. This celebration, like such others as Cajun Mardi Gras in Louisiana, Mumming in Ireland and Newfoundland, as well as the Carnaval de Binche, belongs to a category of begging quest festivals that have endured since the Medieval Age. These festivals may have also adapted or evolved from pre-Christian pagan rituals. Anna Servaes produces a historical context for both the development of French American culture as well as La Guiannée in order to understand contemporary identity. She analyzes the celebration, which affirms ethnic community, drawing upon theories by influential anthropologist Victor Turner. In addition, Servaes discusses cultural continuity and its relationship to language, revealing contemporary expressions of Franco-American identity.