The long journey of the jigsaws

Jigsawing, ethnologist Monique Jutras makes her “jigging figures” Tom and Tony dance on a board, revealing a piece of our heritage that dates back at least a century and a half.

“They are puppets, toys or percussion instruments, it depends on the experts. For me, these are works of craftsmanship that bear witness to the time of the lumberjacks,” explains the folklorist and musician who displayed her collection for The Journal at her home in Verdun.

Like many relics, jigsaw figures have long been considered objects of little value which would gather dust in the bottom of attics. But research carried out in England in the 1960s, then closer to home during the following decade, made it possible to retrace the astonishing journey of these wooden puppets with articulated limbs.

First known as jigdollsboard puppets have become limberjacks in America. The loggers of the Appalachian forests used them as children to pass the time. And this is where the manufacturing technique would have reached us. “French Canadians would have learned to make these objects by imitating American loggers,” explains M.^me Jutras.

Little known

Now rare museum pieces, the oldest jigsaw figures date from the beginning of the 19th century.^e century. “But it remains very difficult to specify the year of manufacture and the artist for the oldest pieces,” mentions the musician who completed a bachelor’s degree in the late 1980s and a master’s degree in ethnology in 1991 at Laval University. .

The Canadian Museum of History, for example, has at least two “dancing figures”, but both the maker and the year of creation are unknown.

The very origin of this object is lost in the mists of time. A German engraving from the 12^e century reveals two people operating table puppets. A valuable testimony to the history of these objects, this engraving shows puppets activated horizontally rather than with wires as in modern puppets, argues M^me Jutras in an article published in the ethnological journal Rabaska.

Current artists

For around fifteen years, M^me Jutras scours flea markets and flea markets looking for articulated puppets. She got her hands on a rare piece: a jiggling flight attendant! The vast majority of puppets are in fact male.

Its collection has been enriched with several recent pieces created by artisans such as Paul Marchand, from the Lotbinière region, and Yves Pellerin, from Montreal.

“The problem with having new ones is that they are delivered naked! When I made them dance in their simplest apparatus, it made everyone laugh. So I had to dress them.”

On verra M^me Jutras handling jigs on the show The great vigilJanuary 25, 2025 on -.