Pierre Falcon

Pierre Falcon , also known as Pierriche or Pierre the Rhymer (born June 4, 1793 in Elbow Fort near Swan River , † October 26, 1876 in St. François Xavier in Manitoba ), was a singer and poet, also an employee of the North West Company from 1808 to 1821, then the Hudson's Bay Company until 1825. In Grantown, the later St François Xavier, he was justice of the peace in 1855.

Life

Pierre Falcon was given the same name as his father, who worked for the North-West Company. His mother was believed to be a Cree member . The young Pierre was baptized on June 18, 1798 in Lower Canada , more precisely in L'Acadie in what was then Saint-Jean County. There he learned to read and write. At 15 he went to the Red River Colony in what would later become Manitoba.

In 1815 he married Mary, a daughter of the Métis leader Cuthbert Grant , with which he rose to one of the leading Métis families. The couple had three sons and four daughters. The family followed Cuthbert to Grantown, today's St. François Xavier. In 1838 a census recorded his possession of 30 acres of cultivated land. Between 1838 and 1849 he divided half of this between his sons, leaving him, who had since been elected Justice of the Peace, 15 acres .

Falcon brought the events and developments of his homeland, such as the life of the voyageurs, in poetry and song form. But only a few of his works have survived. He also translated events of greater historical importance into song form. These include La Bataille des sept chênes (The Battle of Seven Oaks), or Le Chanson de la Grenouillère , which was created in Winnipeg in 1816 . In it, he described a battle between Métis under Cuthbert Grant Jr. and the Selkirk settlers under Governor Robert Semple. It is possible that Le Lord Selkirk au Fort William, ou La danse des Bois-Brûlés or simply La Danse des bois-brülés from 1816 came from him. The French-speaking North Americans occasionally referred to the Métis as Bois-brülés. In 1837 Le Général Dickson or The Dickson Song was created . In it he described the story of General Dickson, who left Grantown to found an Indian kingdom in California . Sometimes he played his own lyrics to well-known melodies, such as Les Tribulations d'un roi malheureux from 1869. In it he describes William McDougall's attempt to penetrate the area claimed by the Métis. He himself was prevented by his friends from still riding in old age in order to prevent this.

His songs were often accompanied on the violin or the crincrin . They found widespread distribution between the Saint Lawrence River and the Mackenzie River . Occasionally his songs appear in a modified form. It is assumed that Agnes Laut developed her poem The buffalo hunt from a template as a free translation.

1960 Margaret Arnett MacLeod brought out all of Falcon's known songs ( Songs of Old Manitoba , Toronto 1960). Lake Falcon in Manitoba is probably named after Falcon .

In 1984 a plaque was put up in his honor.

literature

• Margaret Arnett MacLeod: Songs of old Manitoba. Toronto 1960, pp. 1-40.

Web links

• Pierre Falcon ( English, French ) In: Encyclopedia of Music in Canada . published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• Pierre Falcon . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Memorial plaque for Pierre Falcon