Annotation:Reel Stadacona

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REEL STADACONA. AKA and see "Gigue des belles filles (La)," "Roaring Jelly," "Smash the Windows." French-Canadian, Irish; Jig (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Reel Stadacona", a place-name in what is now Quebec City, is Joseph Allard's retitling of the Irish jig "Smash the Windows (AKA "Roaring Jelly]]"). Allard plays it without alteration, and with very few ornaments.

Stadacona was the name of an Iroguoian village on the St. Lawrence river that sheltered French explorer Jaques Cartier in 1534, who repaid them by capturing two of the chief's sons (Taignoagny and Domagaya) and forcing then to 'visit' France with him on his return voyage. Cartier did keep his word to return them, however, and they were reunited with the chief on Cartier's 1535-1537 voyage. The French overstayed the winter there, but their European diseases caught hold and killed some fifty villagers; meanwhile, the Iroquois assisted Cartier and his crew with a native preventative for scurvy, which had killed a a quarter of his men. Cartier again seized ten Native Americans for his return home. Unfortunately, none returned home this time. When Cartier came back to Quebec in 1543 he found the village destroyed and abandoned, the whereabouts of the inhabitants unknown. However, Cartier chose the location of the village to establish his colony of l'Habitation, which became the city of Quebec in 1608.

Albert Allard and his Quatuor du Terroir ('the local quartet') recorded the tune as "Gigue des belles filles (La)" in Montreal in 1938.

Additional notes

Printed sources : - Jean Duval (La Musique de Joseph Allard 1873-1947), 2018; No. 98, p. 47.

Recorded sources : - Starr 16178 (78 RPM), Quatuor du Terroir (1938, as "La Gigue des belles filles"). Victor 263928A (78 RPM), Joseph Allard (1933).

See also listing at :
Hear Joseph Allard's 1933 recording at the Virtual Gramophone [1]

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