Foyer Père Fiset Group

Interview by: Lucille Cormier

What comes to mind when you think about the Mi-Carême?

- When I was younger, we would go running the Mi-Carême. One afternoon in particular, we were six of us going to Paul à Abraham’s house. We loved to go there because we were well received and we were thinking that his wife would have tea for us. Well, as we got closer to the house, we noticed that she was coming to meet us. However, it was not tea that she had to offer us but instead a big jar of "tisane" (home-made medicine).

- Yeah, A little bit of tisane would’ve helped you, agrees another woman.

- People back then didn’t take medicine like they do today,commented another.

When did you "run" the Mi-Carême? Did it last the whole week?

- We only "ran" it once a year,on Thursday of the third full week of Lent. If it was stormy that day, we would wait until Friday or we wouldn’t "run" it at all for that year.

How would you prepare for the Mi-Carême? What costume would you wear?

- We wouldn’t buy masks, in fact we made them out of paper, a cardboard box, some cotton, a bag of flower or even a woolen sock. We would cut holes in for eyes and sometimes draw red cheeks.

- For the costumes, we would wear everyday clothes or we would go see into my mom’s chest to look for old clothes. We would sometimes receive barrels that our relatives would send down from the United-States. We would sometimes find clothes that nobody had seen before which was good because people would have more difficulty recognizing us.

- I only heard of the Mi-Carême when I moved to Chéticamp. In New Waterford, we called it Hallowe'en.

- It’s not really the same thing.

How would you guess the identity of a mi-carême?

- Sometimes we recognized them by their hands or feet. You have to be really smart to guess a mi-carême.

- One time , I refused to go "run" the Mi-Carême and when Dad asked me why, I said, "They will all recognize me just by looking at my clothes!" He suggested that I wear his clothes, a raincoat along with his southwester. It turned out to be plenty of fun since everyone had a hard time guessing me.

Did you often exchange clothes?

- No, not that I can remember. I left St-Joseph-du-Moine when I was young. I only "ran" the Mi-Carême three times but I can remember it being fun.

Did you run the Mi-Carême in your neighboring area only?

- Yes, we did, because we were on foot and anything further than our neighborhood would have been too far.

Were there any houses that didn’t welcome mi-carêmes?

- There were a few but most of the houses welcomed them. You see, the houses were old and there were no floor coverings, therefore people did not have to worry about dirtying their floors. We called them the good old days.

- However, there were a few houses that were more popular than others, like at Joe and Bella Delaney’s (Joe’s Scarecrows).

- I remember that at Dédier’s house it was always so much fun. He had a speaker outside with music playing all night long. Another reason we liked to go there was because his wife always had a big pot of fricot on the stove and the deal was that if you were able to stay unrecognized, you were rewarded with a hot cup of fricot. She was very nice though and even if they did guess our identity, we were still able to have that fricot.

How old were you when you went "Mi-Carêming" for the first time ?

- I know that I was still going to school, maybe sixteen years old. Younger than that, we weren’t allowed to go out much, certainly not that late at night.

- Well, I didn’t even know what a mi-carême was before I moved here from *Cap-Rouge. I was only seven years old then and I was much older when I actually "ran" it.

- The reason that people did not "run" the Mi-Carême in *Cap-Rouge was probably because the houses there were so far apart.

*Cap-Rouge- Acadian village non-existant today because the people who lived there were forced to move to Chéticamp when the Cape Breton Highlands National Parc was established.

How did you prepare yourselves for the night of the Mi-Carême ? Was it the same as today; did the women make lots of food all week long to be able to offer some to the mi-carêmes ?

- No, it was not at all the same. There was nothing extra, except maybe candies for the children. That would have been all. The Mi-Carême did not excite us as it does today. Nowadays, it’s a week-long party!

Did you see as many mi-carêmes as we see today ?

- No. We just went to the houses that were within walking distance. It was easier to guess a mi-carême because you knew that the person was a neighbor.

-We have more mi-carêmes today, but we have to realize that it’s mostly the same people who get dressed-up five different times in the same day and they always go back to the same houses. So really we can’t say that there are more mi-carêmes than in the past.

Do you have any idea where the Mi-Carême comes from ?

-No. The Mi-Carême, it’s the Mi-Carême! We never talked about where it came from and we never even thought about it. For us, it’s a tradition that has always existed in this Acadian region.

Do you prefer the Mi-Carême today or the one from your days ?

-The Mi-Carême of my days for sure! Nowadays, it’s no fun because you can guess the mi-carêmes before they come into the house by looking out the window to see which car they’re driving. On the other hand, if you don’t want to cheat, it’s too difficult to guess them because they could be coming from anywhere within the Acadian region.

- Today the mi-carêmes arrive too many at the same time and you don’t even have a chance to try to guess them before they decide to take off their mask, saying that it’s too hot to wait until someone guesses them.

What are your thoughts concerning "running" the Mi-Carême all week long ?

- That doesn’t make sense at all ! It’s too much foolishness..

- The Mi-Carême started off as a one day event, then it was two, later, three days. However, since the bicentennial year in 1985 when a committee was established to organize activities during the year, the idea of a night at the Acadian Center called "Laissons entrer les Mi-Carêmes" which means "Welcome the Mi-Carêmes" was brought up. The night was planned for the Sunday of the Mi-Carême week so that it might increase the number of mi-carêmes because at that time the people of this region were starting to worry that this culture was slowly fading away. They were hoping that this night would encourage the younger generation to "run" the Mi-Carême. The Centre was packed to the doors and they’ve had "Laissons entrer les Mi-Carêmes" since that year. The Mi-Carême came alive after that year and now the Mi-Carême is being "run" from Sunday through the rest of the week.

-Today, they often organize dances at different bars in the community for the nights of the Mi-Carême and a lot of people don’t like that idea because this means that the mi-carêmes end up going to the houses much later; therefore many of the owners of the houses have decided not to bother letting them in. These people have to wait so long to see the mi-carêmes that by the time they arrive, the homeowners are ready to go to bed.

When you "ran" the Mi-Carême, did you "run" it until the wee hours of the morning ?

- No,no, maybe until 10:00 - 10:30, no later than that.

- I don’t think that it is a bad thing to "run" it that late because you have to realize that it is clean fun and it might be the only way to keep our tradition alive. Maybe they went a little too far but for a few years there weren’t many Mi-Carêmes, so the people of the community had to do something.

Do you know of any other places where the Mi-Carême is being celebrated ?

- No.

- Maybe in Richmond, but I think they celebrate it before Christmas just like those in Newfoundland. It’s the same idea but not for the same reason. You see the "Mummerers" of Newfoundland on television every year and that is how we’ve heard about it.

How many houses would you have visited in one night ?

-About 8 to 10 houses. We didn’t "run" it very late so it was difficult to visit more houses than that. And of course, we didn’t have any cars so our distance covered was very limited and a lot of time was spent walking.

Did every house in the neighborhood welcome the mi-carêmes ?

- I think so, it was not like it is today. We would visit all the neighboring houses until we were recognized and when we were done we went straight home.

Do you have any memories of true Mi-Carême stories that would explain the atmosphere of the Mi-Carême when you were growing up and also here at the Foyer ?

- Yes, I remember one year I had gone "running" the Mi-Carême at Alex’s house and it was very slippery outside that day. When I arrived at the corner of the house, near the door, I slipped and fell down. I almost landed myself in the hospital.

- Another year, here at the Foyer, one of the residents got dressed-up and came in the room with the rest of the mi-carêmes that were coming to visit us. If she had thought of wearing a pair of gloves, the rest of us would have never recognized her.

- Three or four years ago, another one of the residents here, Elizabeth Cormier, "ran" the Mi-Carême in her wheelchair and no one else here was able to guess her, thinking that she was one of the staff. At first, she didn’t want to "run" it, saying that everybody would guess her by her wheelchair, but I was finally able to convince her. She had lived all her life for the Mi-Carême and that day had meant so much to her. We dressed her up with a long housecoat to hide her crooked foot and we sent a staff member with her and she was also in a wheelchair, so when the nurse was recognized, they all thought that it was another one of the staff.

-Another year that we were welcoming them at the Foyer, it was stormy and we knew that we would not see many mi-carêmes that day, so I convinced our janitor to get dressed-up and make the residents laugh for a little while. He asked another worker to go with him and she made a costume with some old clothes we had in the basement of the Foyer. He came in the room where we were all waiting and he started to pound on the baseboards with his hammer saying "Once I’m finished here, you’ll never have a problem with ants here again!" The janitor, Paul Antoine, was very surprised to hear one of the ladies there say "If Paul Antoine was here, he’d surely kill him!" And once he took off his mask, everyone started to laugh.

Thanks to everyone from the Foyer Père Fiset for their participation.