File: macdonaldjoe-oh-miqmacs_M.mp3
Speakers:
JM – Joe MacDonald
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
JM: Well, there was an Indian village around here, and there was about four fiddlers there, permanently.
KP: Were they Mi'kmaq fiddlers?
JM Yeah.
KP Do you remember their names?
JM: Yes. Patrick Scully, Martin Thomas, Steven Taney, and Frank Cope, and Gus Nicholas.
KP: I've heard some of these names.
JM: You've heard those names?
KP: Some of them.
JM: Paddy Scully only died three years ago in Morell. His family stays up around there. They're living in the reserve now.
KP: Really?
JM: Scully, yeah, John Scully.
KP: What was the town that they all came from?
JM: Well, they only squatted here. It wasn't a reserve, but you couldn't find the place now. It's all but growed up but it's within a field near a brook that run through. They just came there and they built four or five little houses there and oh, they were great people and, and – They had it pretty hard. They made – Anything you could make out of wood they could do it, make a perfect job out of it. A wooden shovel or an axe handle or those half bushel baskets. All they got for a basket was 25 cents and an axe handle was the same ,and I guess a shovel handle was the same. And the Government gave them very little land. And I spent manys a happy hour there, listening to them playing the fiddles, and they spoke their own language except when somebody came in; they'd switch to English then. They could all speak English. Some of them made their own fiddles. Peter Scully made a fiddle; well he made a great job: the workmanship was marvelous on it. And oh, they'd pick up fiddles here and there. Get an old fiddle someplace and they could repair it you know. But they had lots of fiddles. They weren't expensive fiddles at all. But they'd make good music with them.
KP: How'd they learn to play?
JM: By ear. They heard a tune and around on it they'd have it
KP: Where were you able to hear them play, the fiddlers?
JM: Oh at parties. There was lots of house parties.
KP In this area?
JM Oh yes, sure! The Indians would come and the white fellas'd come and it was a matter of passing the fiddles from one to the other.
