![]() The most widely known aspect of mummering in Newfoundland and Labrador is the disguised house visit. Some of the masks are very grotesque, and the fools or clowns are furnished with thongs and bladders, with which they belabour the exterior mob. The ladies are represented by young fishermen, who are painted, but not masked. A huge paper cocked hat is one favourite headpiece, and everyone among the gentlemen, excepting the captain or leader and his two or three assistants are masked. The mummers prepare, before the New Year, dresses of all possible shapes and hues, most of which are something like that of the harlequin and the clown in pantomimes, but the general colour is white, with sundry bedaubments of tinsel and paint. John’s for 1842, which he called “a sort of saturnalia amongst the lower classes.” He noted that the revels started on Christmas and lasted for three days: They called themselves Fools and Mummers.Ī few years later, Sir Richard Bonnycastle described the Christmas festivities in St. Men, dressed in all kinds of fantastic disguises, and some in women’s clothes, with gaudy colours and painted faces, and generally armed with a bladder full of pebbles tied to a kind of a whip, paraded the streets, playing practical jokes on each other and on the passers by, performing rude dances, and soliciting money or grog. Jukes, a Cambridge scholar visiting the island in 1839, wrote: It was certainly well established in Newfoundland by the nineteenth century. Variations on the tradition evolved in the United States, the Maritime Provinces, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, while mummering and jannying evolved their own forms in Newfoundland. The tradition of mummering came to the New World with early settlers and was introduced to various communities all along the Atlantic seaboard. Welcome to the colourful world of Christmas in Newfoundland and Labrador, a holiday that is not complete without a little bit of mischief and foolishness! Stephen’s Day wren boys, the actors of the old mummers plays, and the fearsome nalujuit of Northern Labrador. Along the way, he will introduce you to other colourful Yuletide characters, including ugly stick–makers, the wild-eyed, snapping-jawed hobby horse, the St. Using archival records, historic photographs, oral histories, and personal interviews with those who have kept the tradition alive, he tells the story of the jannies themselves. Folklorist Dale Jarvis traces the history of the custom in Newfoundland and Labrador and charts the mummer’s path through periods of decline and revival. By the 1860s, mummering had been made illegal, a ban which stayed in place for well over a century, but which failed to stamp out a beloved, and complicated, Christmas tradition. But while today’s mummers are often portrayed as friendly and entertaining, they have a past checkered with violence, vandalism, and even murder. ![]() Whatever you call them, and however they are costumed, they are a firm part of the province’s Christmas folklore. ![]() These strange creatures are mummers, though they can go by other names: jannies, fools, oonchicks, or darbies. Then, before they roast from the heat of the kitchen, they head back out into the darkness and do it all over again. ![]() Once inside, they dance and sing and have a drink or two while people try to guess just who is behind all that clothing. These characters trudge from door to door or make surprise appearances at parties, seniors’ homes, or workplaces. As the Twelve Days of Christmas roll around each year in Newfoundland and Labrador, you might see oddly padded figures with humps on their backs, shoes on the wrong feet, their auntie’s bra on the outside of their clothes, with faces hidden behind masks or bits of old lace. ![]()
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