40 Success 0n the Edge

settlers, still following the way of life their ancestors had brought from France. However, from roughly 1850 to the end of the century, Acadians began to enter the professions and business. At the same time, largely through the influence of this new elite, their isolation was gradually being broken down. This had a two-sided effect on their survival as a distinct people. While men such as Stanislaus Perry, Fidele Gaudet, Gilbert Buote and others were teaching school, studying off-Island, and entering politics, they were also encouraging their fellow-Acadians to do likewise, and to give up their “old-fashioned” habits. Among the things they were urged to give up were the Acadian women’s traditional costume (which, however, was still being worn by old women in Tignish as late as the early 19005), houses consisting of one big room with box-beds around the walls, and traditional farming practises. It could be said that those Acadians who modernized were trading their cultural survival for being up-to-date. And, of course, having more contact with English-speaking people or pursuing higher education meant a better command of English and using it more in the home. For instance, Francois-Joseph Buote, Gilbert’s son,

kept his diary in English, and was a fluent writer and orator in both languages.

From two settlements scattered along the shores, much of Tignish had moved further inland, centred itself around the church and the railway station, and become a small town with a hinterland of nearly twenty hamlets, each big enough to support a one-room school. Descendents of the original Acadian and Irish settlers had survived in the area and built a community which enjoyed a modest amount of fame in other Acadian centres. Some of both groups’ traditional culture was being eroded, but not much. The Irish, being English-