Post-medieval Breton earthenwares in Newfoundland

Abstract

Archaeological investigations of early modern European contexts at Ferryland and St John's, Newfoundland, produced sherds of a previously unidentified coarse earthenware. Petrological study, stylistic matching and ICP–MS/ICP–AES analysis indicate that they come from kilns at Saint-Jean-la-Poterie in south-east Brittany. Pottery from the same centre also reached early modern migratory fishing stations in Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, where sherds closely resembling 17th-century wasters from kilns at Pabu-Guingamp in northern Brittany have also been found. The recovery of earthenwares from these areas is thought-provoking; the archaeological evidence offers a way to trace the intricacies of a vernacular economy which is only fitfully recorded in commercial records.     

A Classical Foundation-Legend from Newfoundland

HANDBOOK OF EUROPEAN NATIONAL DANCES. Ed. VIOLET ALFORD. 24 vols., 1949–1952. Max Parrish and Company, for the Royal Academy of Dancing and the Ling Physical Education Association. Price 4s. 6d. each. Reviewed by Allan Gomme.

SPANISH COSTUME. EXTRAMADURA. RUTH MATILDA ANDERSON, Member of the Hispanic Society of America, New York 1951. Reviewed by Estella Canziani.

THE SACRED STATE OF THE AKAN. By EVA L. R. MEYEROWITZ. Faber &; Faber, 1951. Pp. 222, plates 100. 42s. Reviewed by Mary Danielli.

ENGLISH INN SIGNS. Being a revised and modernized version of Larwood and Hotten's History of Signboards. 1951. Chatto and Windus. 42s. Reviewed by Leslie F. Newman.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ROBIN HOOD. By P. VALENTINE HARRIS (London: Published by the author, 1951). 93 pp. 8s. 6d. Reviewed by J. B. Bessinger.     

秦汉时期林木资源开发利用研究

林木资源是人类社会生产生活中使用最为普遍的物质。秦汉时期是中国林木资源全面开发利用的重要历史阶段。这一时期,古代民众利用自然林、栽培经济林,使之成为人民生计的重要来源,形成以园圃制为基础的农林复合经济模式。在商品经济刺激下,木材及林副产品成为大宗货物进入到各阶层民众生活之中,林木资源商品化已达到较高的程度。因此,林木资源亦成为国家财富的重要来源,其经济效益和社会效益在秦汉时期得到全面实现,可以说天下资财半出于材。林木资源的开发利用,呈现出人类与自然环境和谐共生的多重历史面相,并对古代中国物质文化和精神文化的形成起到重要作用。     

Making Witches: Newfoundland Traditions of Spells and Counterspells

Le Folk-Lore de France, par PAUL Sébillot. Tome iv. Le Peuple et l'Histoire. Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1907. By E. Sidney Hartland.

The Jataka, or Stories of the Buddha's former Births, translated from the Pali by various hands, under the editorship of Prof. E. B. Cowell. Vol. VI. Translated By Prof. Cowell and Dr. W. H. D. Rouse. Cambridge: The University Press, 1907. By W. Crooke.

Cradle Tales of Hinduism, by the Sister Nevedita (Margaret E. Noble). London: Longmans, 1907. By W. Crooke.

Folk Tales from Tibet, with Illustrations by a Tibetan Artist and some Verses from Tibetan Love-Songs. Collected and Translated by Capt. W. F. O'Connor. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1906. By A. R. Wright.

The Welsh Fairy Book. By W. Jenkyn Thomas. With 100 Illustrations By W. Pogány. Fisher Unwin, 1907. By Alfred Nutt.

Popular Handbooks of Religions.

1. J. Abrahams, "Judaism"; 2. E. Anwyl, "Celtic Religion in Pre-Christian Times"; 3. C. Bailey, "Religion of Ancient Rome"; 4. L. D. Barnett, "Hinduism"; 5. W. A. Craigie, "Religion Of Ancient Scandinavia"; 6. W. M. F. Petrie, " Religion of Ancient Egypt " ; 7. T. G. Pinches, " Religion of Babylonia and Assyria"; 8. C. Squire, "Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland. " London: Constable &; Co., 1906-7. By W. Crooke.

Short Bibliographical Notices.

Volkskundliche Zeitschriftenschau für 1904, herausgegeben im Auftrage der hessischen Vereinigung für Volkskunde von L. Dietrich. Leipzig: Teubner, 1907. pp. 328. By N. W. Thomas.

Transactions of the First Annual Congress of the European Theosophical Society, held at Amsterdam, 1904. Edited By Johan van Mauen. Amsterdam, 1906. Second Congress, London, 1905. London, 1907. Third Congress, Paris, 1906. London, 1907.

Trans. I., Amsterdam.

E. Weise, Fraternity as found in the Laws of Primitive Races. (Marriage-Laws, Taboo, Totemism, Etc.)

D. v. Hinlasper, Labbertav Kitab Tasaref. (A Dutch Paper, relating to a curious Javanese philosophical work.) By W. F. Kirby.

Trans. II., London.

A. Von Ulrich, The Religion of our Forefathers ; The Mythology of Germany in the Light of Theosophy. (Deals chiefly with the Eddas and the Sagas connected with them.) By W. F. Kirby.

Trans. III., Paris.

George M. Doe, Some Folklore Gleanings, principally from Devonshire. (An important paper, including notes on Omens and Warnings, Charms and Incantations, Witchcraft, and Beliefs and Customs.)

A. Von Ulrich, The Religion of our Forefathers in the SlavonicRace. (Some of the remains of old religious beliefs to be found among the Lithuanians, Russians, Bohemians and Poles, and the Wends and Prussians.)

M. U. Green, Some Notes on the Voyage of Bran, with special references to other Planes and States of Being.

Ed. Bailly, Invocation Aux Dieux Planitaires By W. F. Kirby.

Orkney and Shetland Old Lore, vol. i., 1907, and vol. ii., part i., January, 1908: together with Diplomalarium Orcadense et Hialtlandense. Collected and edited by Alfred W. Johnston, Amy Johnston, and Jón Stefánsson. London : Printed at the King's Weigh House for the Viking Club.     

Anthropogenic pressures on coastal dunes, southwestern Newfoundland

Sand‐dominated coastlines backed by transverse foredunes, dome dunes, and parabolic dunes occur at several sites along the coastline of southwest Newfoundland, extending from Sandbanks Provincial Park (Burgeo) to Grand Bay West (Channel‐Port‐aux‐Basques) and north to J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park. The coastal dunes developed during the mid‐Holocene in response to enhanced sediment availability and flux, coupled with effective sediment retention. Under present environmental conditions, development of aeolian dunes is hindered. Recent changes in the geomorphology of these coastlines provide evidence of the impact of anthropogenic activity. Differing time scales of both weather/climate events and landform response complicate interpretation. Anthropogenic modification, both intentional and accidental, represents a locally dominant geomorphic influence, and these dunes have evolved rapidly in response to anthropogenic pressure coupled with storm events. Changes in the southwest Newfoundland economy have led to increased interest in tourism, and consequent pressure on the sandy coastlines and backing dunes. Increased anthropogenic utilization of the coast for recreational purposes, both by residents and tourists, and limited offshore winter ice and onshore snow cover have resulted in accelerated erosion and degradation of the dunes and coastlines. The influx of sand from the beaches is insufficient to replace that removed through natural and anthropogenic causes. Consequently, the coastal dunes of southwest Newfoundland are essentially relict and will not regenerate following anthropogenic disturbance. On trouve à plusieurs endroits le long des côtes sud‐ouest de Terre‐Neuve, du parc provincial Sandbanks (Burgeo) à Grand Bay Ouest (Channel‐Port‐aux‐Basques) et vers le nord jusqu'au parc provincial J.T. Cheeseman, des littoraux à prédominance de dunes où se sont formées des avant‐dunes transversales, des dunes en forme de dôme et des dunes paraboliques. Les dunes maritimes sont apparues vers le milieu de l'ère holocène en réaction à la disponibilité accrue de sédiments et à leur flux alliés à leur rétention efficace. Ainsi, les conditions environnementales actuelles entravent la formation de dunes éoliennes. Des changements récents à la géomorphologie de ces littoraux fournissent la preuve que l'activité anthropique a des conséquences. Les événements météorologiques et climatiques ainsi que la réaction topographique étant reliés à des échelles de temps différentes, compliquent l'interprétation. Une modification anthropique, qu'elle soit intentionnelle ou accidentelle, constitue une influence géomorphologique locale dominante. Ces dunes ont évolué rapidement en raison de ces pressions anthropiques alliées à des événements pluvio‐hydrologiques. Des changements dans l'économie du sud‐ouest de Terre‐Neuve ont suscité un regain d'intérêt pour le tourisme, ce qui a eu pour effet de créer des pressions sur les littoraux sablonneux et les dunes. L'accroissement de l'utilisation du littoral à des fins récréatives, tant par les résidents que les touristes, et l'accumulation limitée de glace en mer et de neige sur les côtes ont accéléré l'érosion et la détérioration des dunes et des littoraux. L'afflux de sable des plages est insuffisant pour remplacer celui qui disparaît pour des raisons naturelles ou anthropiques. En conséquence, les dunes maritimes du sud‐ouest de Terre‐Neuve sont essentiellement des reliques et ne se régénéreront pas si elles sont perturbées par des causes anthropiques.     

Unpacking the discursive Irish woman immigrant in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Newfoundland

From the late 1600s to the early 1800s, Irish migrants journeyed to Newfoundland to take advantage of opportunities in the lucrative Newfoundland cod fishery. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this essay explores constructions of Irish-Newfoundland womanhood as articulated by local British officials, the Catholic Church, and male-centred family history narratives. These discourses located women at the margins of early settlement experiences or rendered them invisible altogether. Yet Irish-Newfoundland women were able to negotiate their own subjectivities within this discursive terrain, finding spaces for identity construction in the disjuncture between rhetoric and lived experiences. Some resided more immediately under the hegemonic gaze and struggled to break free from dominant narratives. But most became essential workers in household fishing production outside the capital of St John's, and their vital contribution as shore crews gave them considerable power and authority both in their households and in the broader community. Performing demanding physical work on stages and flakes (elevated wooden structures) or in gardens and fields, carrying out various economic activities in their own right, they were hardly the unproductive, unruly bodies of British official discourse or the passive flowers of civilisation narrated from Catholic pulpits. And far from being absent from the migration story, they were central players in community formation and the economic life of the island. In this historical context, proximity to/distance from hegemonic knowledge production created variations in identity construction within a group often represented in the literature as homogeneous and powerless.     

Ethnoscaping Canada's boreal forest: liberal whiteness and its disaffiliation from colonial space

This essay examines the construction of Canada's boreal forest from the point of view of critical whiteness studies. Through an evaluation of two texts—a film and a book—produced in conjunction with a 2003–2004 environmental campaign, it argues that the boreal forest is constructed as a white ethnoscape and that, as a result, boreal forest conservation comes to be associated with ‘white’ identity, although by no means exclusively so, and certainly not without significant contradictions. The essay deploys Robyn Wiegman's notion of liberal whiteness to argue that liberal white subjectivity is cultivated in these texts by its self‐conscious distancing, or disaffiliation, from colonial spatial practices. It is argued that this distancing is achieved through the active inclusion of First Nations peoples in the texts such that the boreal forest is constructed as a socio‐natural working landscape. Liberal white disaffiliation is explored through three specific tropes: inclusion, inverted racial historicism and economic partnership.     

Performative Chineseness and Culinary Tourism in Chinese Restaurants in Newfoundland,Canada

Abstract

This article explores Chinese culinary practice in Newfoundland by including a non-Chinese perspective in the sense of ‘culinary tourism’. As it is an open, multivocal, and incomplete system, both Chinese and non-Chinese participate in the everyday negotiation of Chinese foodways, shaping their different and sometimes conflicting understandings of Chineseness in response to various global or local socio-cultural circumstances. In this process, a diasporic Chinese identity is mutually constructed, while a creolized, cosmopolitan sense of being Newfoundlanders—based on shared culinary experience—also emerges.     

Policy Styles and Degenerative Politics: Poverty Policy Designs in Newfoundland and Quebec

This article examines the proposal suggesting that policy designs are consistent with the social construction of target groups. Associated with policy design theory, the proposal pessimistically suggests that underprivileged citizens will be targeted with policies that do little to help them, creating a vicious circle of degenerative politics. This article argues that the prevalence of degenerative politics depends on policy styles. Significant where the adversarial style prevails, degenerative politics is less common in consensual systems. This proposal is examined through a systematic content analysis of action plans to reduce poverty in Newfoundland and Quebec.     

Partnerships in place: Facilitating rural local government entrepreneurialism in Newfoundland and Labrador

Rural local governments across Canada, including those in Newfoundland and Labrador, struggle with many of their day-to-day operational activities, including providing appropriate drinking water, wastewater, and garbage collection services, among other essential services, and rarely have capacity to facilitate local economic development activities. In recent times, entrepreneurialism has been noted as having potential for rural local governments, yet little research has been completed to determine its presence and relevance for municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador. In response, we examined eight case study local governments in Newfoundland and Labrador to determine if, and how, entrepreneurialism was present in municipal efforts to increase economic prosperity in their communities. Findings suggest that while rural local governments continue to face challenges due to declining support for rural development from provincial and federal governments and increased downloading of responsibilities, some communities have established ways to remain resilient through partnerships and building on place-based assets. This exploratory study provides a basis for further in-depth research to determine the extent and approaches to entrepreneurialism in local government in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.     

Mineral weathering in forest soils and its relevance to the preservation of the buried archaeological resource

There is more woodland in Britain now than for many centuries and considering many international climate change mitigation policies, woodland cover, both in Britain and internationally, is being promoted. However, neither the management of existing woodlands nor their expansion should be at the expense of important archaeological evidence. Due to the large number of known archaeological sites, the large areas of land with uninvestigated archaeological potential and the expanding woodland cover, suitable mitigation strategies need to be developed to allow preservation in situ of important sites. An understanding of how woodland soils and the buried archaeological resource interact is, therefore, essential. This paper utilises ongoing environmental research into the mineral weathering rates in forest soils and considers its application to artefact preservation. The study concludes that soil water pH, its movement, and the saturation of dissolved ions in the soil solution are major factors determining both mineral and artefact longevity. A simple guide to artefact longevity based on these properties is proposed and a geochemical model for predicting loss is tested. These tools could be applied to any soil or individual horizon irrespective of land-use.     

The skulls of Chief Nonosabasut and his wife Demasduit – Beothuk of Newfoundland

In March 1819 a young woman was abducted by white settlers and her husband was killed. They were among the few remaining members of the Beothuk of Newfoundland. Eight years later their skulls were removed from their burial hut and transferred to the University of Edinburgh. This paper describes these two important skulls and details injuries and pathologies not previously recorded in detail. Chief Nonosabasut displayed evidence of extensive trauma to the region of his chin which is most likely to be evidence of previous, but well‐healed, combat injuries. His wife, Demasduit, presented with an intriguing perimortem fracture to the left parietal bone which extended onto the base of the skull. This is discussed in the light of evidence available at the time of her death. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reassessment and new data on the diachronic relationship of Thassos Island with its indigenous metal resources: a review

The extraction of mineral ores and its associated metal production has been a persistent element of the economy on Thassos Island since prehistoric times. As early as the Upper Palaeolithic, around 20,000 years ago, ochre had been mined and used for painting, while early silver extraction is attested during the Final Neolithic (early fourth millennium BC). Copper production and alloying becomes an important activity in the coastal settlements of the island during the third and second millennia. The inception of iron metallurgy has been seen in association with copper smelting as confirmed by analyses on slag found in Early Iron Age upland cemeteries. With the arrival of the Greek colonists around 650 BC, intensification in silver and gold extraction became paramount for further economic expansion. This deep history in the use of Thassian metals is being reviewed based on archaeological findings and archaeometallurgical research of the last three decades, while new analytical data on Early Bronze Age copper smelting at Aghios Antonios are being presented.