Le Progrès is an excellent source of information on popular French-Canadian culture in the Detroit River area at the end of the 19th century. Popular culture, or folklore, includes customs, traditions, popular beliefs and oral literature; in other words, all knowledge passed on outside of the official sources like church, school and government. It is transmitted through folk-religion, legends and folk-tales, songs, proverbs and sayings. Le Progrès gives us descriptions of soirées and celebrations, of holiday customs, of traditional practices that reflected the community’s values. In a distant and isolated French settlement such as le Détroit, popular culture allowed local Francophones to express their solidarity with other French-Canadian groups in North America at the same time as it allowed them to express the unique characteristics of their own community.

Le Progrès often covered events which facilitated the spread of popular culture, such as parties, celebrations and family reunions. Although some of these events had an official stamp, they nevertheless permitted the free expression of songs, poetry and speeches that upheld popular customs. For example, concerts and gala evenings held in Pointe-aux-Roches and Rivière-aux-Canards mixed folksongs and popular oratory with high-brow literary presentations , . Parish picnics provided for all sorts of traditional games and activities . Gifts exchanged at family functions give us a glimpse of material culture at this time , . Wedding anniversaries were celebrated with increasing elaborateness, according to the length of time the couple had been together . The liturgical year was also marked by customs. Le Progrès gives an account of the practices surrounding the feast of the Epiphany - la Fête des rois - celebrated on January 6th of every year . Lenten observance, although included in the official Catholic liturgy, was much more elaborate than is the custom today, and was part and parcel of popular religious practice . Le Progrès could scarcely let Christmas go by unnoticed, although at this time it was still mainly a religions holiday . Things were rapidly changing, however, and well before the turn of the century, ads in Le Progrès record the arrival of character who was new to French-Canadian consciousness and who would would change Christmas forever .


Oral tradition was occasionally recorded in the pages of Le Progrès. We find several French-Canadian legends which were then very much in style in Quebec literary circles, such as, for example, a loup garou (werewolf) story by E.-Z. Massicote, one of the first québecois folklorists . Another loup garou story comes from Île d’Orléans . These legends belong to a body of traditional beliefs that the Detroit River French shared with their brethren across North America. In this same moral universe, one finds stories of people possessed by devils and forewarned by ghosts , . Closer to home, Le Progrès thrilled its readers with stories of witches in Walkerville , of a monster bird in Rivière-aux-Canards , and of women with mysterious ailments in Detroit , . Other stories appealed to French-Canadian pride by relating the exploits of French-Canadian strongmen like the giant Edouard Beaupré .

Whether people actually believe legends or not, these are always presented as true stories. Their goal is to reinforce community values and to fit events into a consistent world-view. Folktales, on the other hand, are recognized as fiction and need serve no purpose other than entertainment. Actual folktales are rare in Le Progrès. But we do find the little formula tale Minette et les roulettes as well as a poetic treatment of the story of Petit Poucette (Tom Thumb). Halfway between history and fantasy, we can read the terrifying tale of La Nuite des morts (All-Soul’s Night) .


There are some interesting folksongs in Le Progrès. Some are songs that are known throughout the French-speaking world, such as Trois beaux canards and La Légende de Saint Nicolas. There is also an example of a somewhat risqué little ditty supposedly overheard in the confessional at Saint Joseph’s church in Rivière-aux-Canards . But Le Progrès is particularly useful in bringing to light songs composed in reaction to certain current events - songs that would otherwise have disappeared without a trace. For example, one song from Belle-Rivière pokes fun at the corrupt and fraudulent practices of local contractors and politicians engaged in building new government docks . Two other songs make fun of supporters of Bill McKee, the defeated Liberal candidate for Essex North who was seen as being anti-French and anti-Catholic , . Another election song, sung to the tune of a well-known folksong, appeals to French-Canadian patriotism to help defeat the Tories in the 1891 federal election .

Still in the area of oral tradition, we find in Le Progrès a few sayings concerning farming practices and popular medicine , as well as a prayer to Saint Roch for curing cholera . A list of patron saints usefully instructs people who to pray to for various causes . Collections of proverbs also appear fairly regularly in Le Progrès , .

Finally, two traditional practices mentioned in Le Progrès are worth commenting on here. The chariviari was a custom that allowed members of a community to express disapproval of a marriage that went against community standards. Usually the practice was reserved to cases of a widower taking a second wife whom the community considered too young. The young people of the parish would therefore go out on the wedding night and surround the house of the newlyweds, raising a ruckus with pots and pans and causing other disturbances to deprive the couple inside any peace until sunrise. Le Progrès reports on a charivari that took place in Tecumseh; in this particular case, the offending event does not appear to have been a wedding but rather the discovery of a ménage à trois .

A much more peaceful tradition was observed in Saint-Joachim. There, the parish residents took part in a religions procession designed to rid the fields of ravenous caterpillars . This type of ceremony was part of popular religion as far back as New France and was still being practiced at the beginning of the 20th century.