Les Vouèsins

Overview

When he arrived in the summer of 1934, J. M. Carrière described Old Mines as “a straggling, quiet little village in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks, about sixty-five miles south of Saint Louis. Scattered all along the countryside, I found six hundred French-speaking families living in this community.” Carrière sought out the most accomplished storytellers and meticulously transcribed 73 folktales, documenting both the Creoles’ worldview and the local French language, rapidly falling out of use. When researchers returned to the community in the 1970s, many of the stories Carrière collected had already faded from memory. Others left an indelible impression, such as Frank “Boy” Bourisaw’s Le Petit Bœuf aux cornes d’or. Les Vouèsins (The Neighbors) is an adaptation of this long story about the devil and the community’s folk hero, Petit Jean.