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mummering
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
Spelling variants:mumming
n. — also attributively, Newfoundland, Social customs
the practice of visiting houses in elaborate costumes and disguises, participating in various group activities over Christmas (see Image 1).
Type: 4. Culturally Significant — The tradition of mummering or mumming seems to have been inherited from England (see the 1988 quotation & EDD), though the spelling variant mummering is virtually exclusive to Newfoundland (see the 1969 quotation, Halpert & Story 1969: 216, and Charts 2 & 3 below). In Halpert & Story, Widdowson suggests that mumming is the "usual printed form" which is occasionally used orally in Newfoundland, but notes that "in many areas on the east and south coasts, 'mummering' is regarded as the normal, long-established term", while mumming seems to be "the most frequent [term] on the south coast and in the Bay St. George and Codroy Valley areas of the west coast [...and] the one most commonly used in St. John's, and is frequently found elsewhere on the east coast where, with some exceptions, it is regarded as the 'old' term. In some communities both 'mummering' and 'mummer' may be the only accepted terms", and the newer form of janneying is the "normally accepted term on the west coast of the Great Northern Penninsula" (1969: 216-17).
Halpert proposes that mumming in Newfoundland can be categorized by location (indoors or outdoors) and whether it is formal or informal (Halpert & Story 1969: 35-61).
Informal indoor visits include house visits, which is the primary definition of mummering in the DNE. Associated with house visits is a guessing game where residents attempt to guess the identities of the mummers, whose costumes are usually very elaborate and often involve cross-dressing to further obscure their identities. There is also the formal outdoor parade form of mummering, which sometimes includes pageants or plays along the procession. Mummering today is more than a preservation and expansion from British English, as it also serves to mark local cultural practice of Newfoundland pride (see Moore 2012).
Mummering has been banned several times (for example, see the 1966 & 2011 quotations) due to some mummers' rowdy and sometimes criminal behaviour. These civic bans "have a curious habit of repeating themselves in time, suggesting the deep-seated nature of the custom of mumming, which has been suppressed only to rise again in the old or a new form" (Halpert & Story 1969: 51). After a murder in 1861, Newfoundland's Legislative Assembly passed an act which banned anyone from dressing as a "Mummer, masked, or otherwise disguised" (Halpert & Story 1969: 179), and this act has never been officially repealed. After this ban, both the disguises and parades continued, although the two became disassociated. Disguising continued mostly in the form of the house visits, and Story suggests that “the deep-rooted traditions of parades during the Christmas season led to a partial transference in Newfoundland [of several fishermen’s societies' parades, which] instead of holding their official parades on July 12, held them [during the Christmas season]” (Halpert & Story 1969: 53).
See also DNE, s.v. "mummer" and "mummering", and OED-3, s.v. "mumming" (1a), EDD, s.v. "mum" (v.1 and sb4).
Halpert proposes that mumming in Newfoundland can be categorized by location (indoors or outdoors) and whether it is formal or informal (Halpert & Story 1969: 35-61).
Informal indoor visits include house visits, which is the primary definition of mummering in the DNE. Associated with house visits is a guessing game where residents attempt to guess the identities of the mummers, whose costumes are usually very elaborate and often involve cross-dressing to further obscure their identities. There is also the formal outdoor parade form of mummering, which sometimes includes pageants or plays along the procession. Mummering today is more than a preservation and expansion from British English, as it also serves to mark local cultural practice of Newfoundland pride (see Moore 2012).
Mummering has been banned several times (for example, see the 1966 & 2011 quotations) due to some mummers' rowdy and sometimes criminal behaviour. These civic bans "have a curious habit of repeating themselves in time, suggesting the deep-seated nature of the custom of mumming, which has been suppressed only to rise again in the old or a new form" (Halpert & Story 1969: 51). After a murder in 1861, Newfoundland's Legislative Assembly passed an act which banned anyone from dressing as a "Mummer, masked, or otherwise disguised" (Halpert & Story 1969: 179), and this act has never been officially repealed. After this ban, both the disguises and parades continued, although the two became disassociated. Disguising continued mostly in the form of the house visits, and Story suggests that “the deep-rooted traditions of parades during the Christmas season led to a partial transference in Newfoundland [of several fishermen’s societies' parades, which] instead of holding their official parades on July 12, held them [during the Christmas season]” (Halpert & Story 1969: 53).
See also DNE, s.v. "mummer" and "mummering", and OED-3, s.v. "mumming" (1a), EDD, s.v. "mum" (v.1 and sb4).
See: janneying
Mumming is the "usual printed form" of the term, according to Widdowson (Halpert & Story 1969: 216). Use of mummering or mumming also seems to depend on location. (See also Halpert & Story 1969.)
Note that faces may be covered (as in Image 1) or may not. There is outdoor mummering and indoor mummering (as in Image 1).
Quotations
1819
Another custom, which is said to be still observed in the north of England, prevails in some parts of Newfoundland, though not with general approbation: it is called mumming; men and women exchange clothes with each other, and go from house to house singing and dancing, on which occasion Christmas-boxes are expected, and generally granted previous to the performance, in order to get rid of them.
1910
Our young people were very much concerned just previous to Christmas as to whether the old time custom of mummering would be ruled out this season, owing to the presence of some disguised member of the "black hand" alliance, who had been making nocturnal visits of a very uncomfortable nature to some of our more sensitive neighbours. A threatening poster, however, issued by the Magistrate quickly cut short his career, and the mummers have had the usual glorious time.
1966
Murrers [sic] visited from house to house and the object of their visit was always a guessing game. They talked in a disguised voice until their names were guessed. Often they carried musical instruments and danced or sang at the request of their hosts. After performing mummers were given "some Christmas" -- food and drink, and went on to visit another house. The amount to which dancing and drinking was involved depended larkely [sic] on the community. In some communities, mummers were quite docile creatures, in others, they were very rough and rowdy. Due to all the ill effects of these rough mummers, a law was passed in St. John's in 1861 banning mummering in Newfoundland. The law has never been repealed and the practise is still illegal. Mummering lasted considerably longer in the outports furthest removed from St. John's. Gradually it was taken over by the children and became a trick or treat game. Even this child mummering seems to be no longer in vogue. It was quite common at home when I was a child, but my niece, aged ten, now asks, "what are mummers?" Most people do not realize that trick-or-treating at Hallowe'en is derived from Christmas mummering, but the studies in folklore have shown this to be the case.
1969
The word 'mummering' is one of the two most common terms for the activities of disguised Christmas house-visitors in Newfoundland. This variant of 'mumming' is not recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, or other such dictionaries and glossaries as are available to us.
1978
Around the age of twelve years onward you were allowed to go mummering. That was really fun! Dressing up in quilts drawn around your body or some half-worn out clothes, your face covered in muslin or an old cardboard box with a hole cut in for eyes was a big treat. Most people let you in and tried guessing who you were. If you were lucky you got a piece of cake or molasses bread with perhaps a glass of ginger-wine. More often than not, you didn't. From boxing night on mummering began and it ended "Old Christmas Night", January 6. [...]
It was really sad for us when mummering was over. Mummering was a bigger affair on the East Coast than on the West. [...]
Very often you would not go mummering with your usual close friends because if one was "guessed" while under cover the association was made. If people guessed who you were, you were expected to remove your face covering or head gear.
1988
From England, via Newfoundland, they had inherited the tradition of mumming: dressing up and going from house to house to put on a show. "People made masks out of flour bags or cardboard boxes. Men dressed in women's clothes and old coats and women dressed in men's clothes."
2000
Wondering about cross-dressing and Christmas? Yes, the encyclopedia contains an entry devoted to that subject. Apparently, festive cross-dressing had its beginnings in the Roman feast of Saturnalia held in late December and continued through the Middle Ages. In Newfoundland, the practice is sustained with mumming, where masked groups descend upon homes and demand hospitality.
2010
"Christmas at that time wasn't as really good as it is now because times were poor. You'd be saving a bit of money and trying to get something together for Christmas, like turkey and ham and liquor. You were seeing very little of that throughout the year," he says.
"I'll tell you one tradition now we did have -- what we used to call mummering. We'd get together and dress up, put on a face cloth and you'd go from one house to the other. You'd get in almost any house, probably get a bit of cake ... and at some places you might get a drop of wine," he chuckles.
2012
Mummering, an old-fashioned custom used to usher in the new year -- which Slipp likens to "Christmas carolling and trick-or-treating on crack" -- is still practised in Newfoundland. Mummers don outlandish costumes, cover their faces, disguise their voices, noisily burst into unsuspecting homes and perform plays for the bewildered residents.
"When the performance is over, it is assumed that you will be given booze, and then be joined by all the people in the house as you go to the next house." Newfies love this "roving drunken costume party."
But she is from Nova Scotia. "No one had ever heard of mummering until the year that I was 15 and my very theatrically minded mother decided that mummering was going to be our new family tradition."
2012
The folk tradition of mummering dates back to England in the Middle Ages. In Newfoundland, the mummers’ play was passed along orally and became a kind of political provocation, satirizing the upper classes. In 1835, when Henry Winton, editor of the local Telegram newspaper, took a negative view of the island’s Catholics in an editorial, he was attacked by a group of masked men. Shortly after, the practice of mummering was outlawed. The plays enjoyed a brief but fiery resurgence in the 1970s, but a decade later they disappeared again, portending the decline that followed the cod moratorium of 1992, which drove a stake through the heart of Newfoundland culture as dramatically as the resettlement programs of the early ’60s did.
References
- OED-3
- DNE
- EDD
- Halpert & Story (1969)
- Moore (2012)
Images
Image 1: Indoor mummering. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: J. Higdon
Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 15 Jul. 2013
Chart 2: Internet Domain Search, 15 Jul. 2013
