The Transformation of La Guignolée in Ste. Genevieve

When French settlers came to North America in the seventeenth century, they brought with them a rich collection of French traditions. Among these traditions is La Guignolée, a song originally performed on New Year's Eve as part of a begging quest where young men in a community went house-to-house collecting donations of food and drink that were either donated to the poor or used in later community-wide celebrations. Although La Guignolée was a well-known and widely-practiced tradition in North America's French creole settlements, today it survives in a dwindling number of towns across the United States and Canada. The purpose of this research was to show how La Guignolée has persisted and changed in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and to provide that community with a record of its now rare tradition. A comparison of ethnographic data on current Ste. Genevieve community members’ experiences with La Guignolée and archival data on La Guignolée practices in the last three centuries showed how members of the Ste. Genevieve community have maintained this tradition through a combination of community support, performer dedication, and cultural preservation.