The Many Mummers of Newfoundland
Christmas is close and Newfoundland is full of mummers.
Well, pictures of mummers anyway. Store shelves are filled with a (bewildering) selection of Christmas ornaments and household goods decorated with mummers.
For the most part, the mummers on sale conform to the sort of mummer described in the Simani in ‘Any Mummers Allowed In? (The Mummers Song),’ which is to say:
“There’s big ones ‘n’ small ones ‘n’ tall ones ‘n’ thin, Boys dressed as women and girls dressed as men; Humps on their backs an’ mitts on their feet”
I’m not surprised.
Simani probably deserves more credit than anyone for preserving Newfoundland mummering tradition. Their wildly popular song not only describes how mummers of yesteryear looked and behaved, but how folks felt when the mummers came calling.
Were it not for that song, I doubt people would have much interest in mummer oven mitts and aprons.
That said, there’s far more to the Newfoundland mummering tradition than any single song (or blog post) could depict.
Mummering was a fantastically diverse activity. It differed from community to community, and changed radically over time.
It’s almost frustratingly variable.
The minute you think you have a handle on how mummers looked or behaved, you’ll be contradicted by the customs in a different community. Trying to find the ‘one true mummer’ is a fool’s errand.
After lots of reading I’ve come to realize:
Newfoundland mummers were frightening, fun, grotesque, beautiful, jovial, mean-spirited, disciplined and out-of-control…
and really, that’s just the beginning.
The Many Mummers of Newfoundland
House-Visiting Mummers
Perhaps the most recognizable part of Newfoundland’s mummering tradition is the evening house-visit. From December 26 to January 6, groups of people put on disguises to hide their identities, trekked down dark streets and visited a houses.
This is the kind of mummering Simani sang about. It was popular well into the 20th century and is probably still practiced to some, small degree.
Letting Mummers In
When mummers reached their destination, they’d knock on the door and ask if they could be let it.
These days, for most of us, knocking on a door is hardly noteworthy but, in many small outports it was a bit unusual. Communities were small and tight-knit and everyone knew each other. It was understood that, within reason, they could enter a house without seeking permission. When a mummers knocked, it signified that they were strangers. Outsiders.
It was part of the game.
A big piece of the fun in mummering was for a mummer to hide their identity, while others tried to work out who they were.
Besides unusual clothing, mummers played with gender expression, spoke in unusual (often ingressive) voices and straight-up lied.
Homeowners looked for clues everywhere. They wracked their brains trying to remember where they’d seen old dresses before, or trying to recognize a familiar gait. Mummers were invited to dance in hopes a distinctive style of movement might be recognized. If that failed, in some cases, dancing might lead to an opportunity to ‘feel-up’ the body of the mummer.
I mean that, the way it sounds.
Mummering freed both mummer and participant from some degree of social convention and caused a temporary blurring of acceptable, social lines. People would touch each other in ways that might not be acceptable under other circumstances, dance with people they wouldn’t normally and sometimes say things — sexual things —they might not otherwise say.
They did this knowing most people would be unmasked at the end of the evening.
Mummering was not without social conventions, though.
Mummers generally avoided houses where people were grieving, sick or otherwise unlikely to want guests. Though this was not always the case. In her publication Newfoundland Mummers’ Christmas House-Visit, Margaret R. Robertson recounts an incident in Holyrood where mummers lured a sickly, nervous man whose grandfather had recently died into a barn. The mummers had hidden a coffin in the barn. They rigged it so that when he arrived it began to open. The ma received such a fright, he fell and broke his leg. He supposedly had nightmares for years afterward.
Nightmares? I’d imagine he did.
Similarly, Robertson shares a tale from Fogo where someone dressed up in a deadman’s oil skins and visited a grieving widow. The man had only been dead a week.
The widow fainted.
It strikes me as cruel more than funny.
Refusing Mummers
In many communities, if mummers knocked at the door and were greeted with ‘No mummers allowed in,’ they respected that and went along their way, especially if they felt there was a justifiable reason to deny the visit (like some of those listed above).
In some places, mummering worked a bit like the Halloween trick-or-treating, in that, if mummers were denied entry they might play a prank on the homeowner.
In other communities, pranks were a common feature of mummering even when mummers received a warm welcome. There are reports of horses being let loose, firewood being hidden, water barrels being spilled and air being let out of tires, to name but a few.
Courting couples were sometimes seen as particularly good targets for pranks.
Cake and Homebrew
Hosts often offered mummers refreshments. Often this was in the form of Christmas fruitcake and alcohol (maybe homebrew, maybe berry wine, maybe something else entirely)
For many mummers, drinking didn’t come into play until after a mummer’s identity had been revealed. Practically speaking, drinking would have been much easier without a face covering but, more than that, social rules had to be observed. If mummers were to take advantage of their host’s hospitality, they wanted to (or were expected to) return that hospitality at their own homes. This social contract was best fulfilled if the mummer’s identity was known.
“Mummering kept up for the whole twelve days of Christmas, ending then more because of exhaustion than lack of enthusiasm to prolong the fun further.”
After sharing a drink it was customary for the un-masked mummer to invite their host to visit their house over the Christmas season.
Mummers might visit several houses in a single evening and various groups mummered throughout the 12 nights of Christmas until Old Christmas Day, when they stopped.
Not all house-visits happened at night, though.
Big Mummers and Little Mummers
Night time mummering was for ‘big mummers;’ that is, adult mummers. Children, or ‘little mummers’ went house-visiting earlier in the day.
Little mummers engaged in many of the same activities as adult mummers. They put on costumes, visited house-to-house in the community, performed dances and songs, and were often rewarded with treats (like cake).
It was not uncommon for some houses to accept ‘big mummers’ but not ‘little mummers,’ or vice versa.
In their exuberance, ‘little mummers’ sometimes wore out their welcome by visiting the same houses again and again through the Christmas season.
The Wren
Like the activities of ‘little mummers,’ the wren custom involved christmas house-visits from children.
On December 26, children (often ‘wren boys’) visited door-to-door with a ‘wren’ affixed to a branch decorated with ribbons. The tradition came to Newfoundland from Ireland. Originally, ‘the wren’ was the body of a real wren which had been hunted for the occasion.
Wrens are pretty uncommon in Newfoundland, so sometimes a local species of bird stood in for the wren (quite unwillingly, I’d imagine).
Eventually bird hunting left the tradition all together and an effigy of a bird was used instead, sometimes it was something as simple as a paper cut-out.
Children carried the wren around the community, house-to-house looking for money to ‘bury the wren’.
They made their plea with a rhyme:
The wren, the wren, the King of all birds
On St Stephen's Day he was caught in the furze;
And though he is little his honour is great,
So Jump up lan'lady and give us a trate.
A pocket full of money, a cellar full of beer,
I wish ye Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year;
Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
A penny or tuppence to bury the wran.
There are many versions of the wren rhyme, the one reproduced above was printed in the Daily News from a recollection of Rev. Dr. Bond, who described it as being recited in St. John’s.
For an alternate take, you check out Shanneyganock’s song ‘The Wren’ from their 2004 collection, Christmas.
The coins (and treats) collected were, of course, not put towards the bird’s funeral. They were, like Halloween candy, for the enjoyment of the children.
The wren custom continued (and maybe continues) in pockets of Newfoundland, with Colliers and Renews (on the Avalon Peninsula) having a celebrated history of the tradition.
Unlike mummering, the wren tradition didn’t rely on disguises. Effort was sometimes put into decorating the tree branch/stick with ribbons but otherwise the children remained in their normal attire.
Ribbons though, featured in other mummering traditions.
Day Mummers, Fools and Ribbon Fools
Not all Newfoundland mummering involved going door-to-door, sometimes mummering looked like a festival, where mummers gathered in the streets in elaborate costumes to engage in merriment and more than a little mayhem.
The costumes (at least on the Northeast Avalon) were not like the ‘house mummer’ guises described by Simani in ‘The Mummers Song.’
These were a different kind of mummer altogether.
“These men were dressed up with high paper caps of a triangular form, ornamented with ribbons. They wore white shirts, sewn all over with ribbons and streamers. A good “ rig-out “ cost both time and money.”
As with more modern mummering traditions, mummers played with gender expression (men dressing as women was frequently described).
Others dressed in a less familiar way.
Many wore white shirts adorned with multi-colour ribbons. They often wore elaborate hats topped with spangles and plumes. The most impressive hats were were topped with paper models of rigged sailing ships.
They were impressive costumes that were sometimes the result of weeks of work.
Ribbon fools were especially popular in Flatrock and Pouch Cove, took the costuming a step further and bedecked themselves head-to-toe in flowing, crepe ribbons.
“Their costumes were made of white shirts, pants and gloves, all of which were entirely covered with crȇpe paper ribbons and holiday tinsel.”
Like house-visiting mummers, these mummers often obscured their faces with veils or masks. Some of the ribbon fool masks were described as grotesque.
There are some fantastic pictures or ribbon fools on the St. John’s Mummer Festival website.
It’s worth noting that ribboned day mummers, at least in some places, took part in house visits too.
Rev. P. Tocque recalled:
“The day mummers — the men had white shirts over their clothes, trimmed with ribbons, with fanciful hats. Each man had a partner — a man dressed in women’s clothes. Into whatever house they entered they recited their lessons, ate and drank, had a dance, their own fiddler playing the tunes”
In some instances, when day mummers and ribbon fools were prowling the streets they carried sticks (sometimes called ‘swabs’).
“The “ swabs “ were made of a bladder, covered with canvas or a switch, made sometimes of a cow’s tail fastened to a stick. ”
The swabs were used to ‘playfully’ hit other mummers and on-lookers.
Mummers in the Shadows
Sometimes ‘playful violence’ took a darker turn.
At times, mummers used the anonymity of their costumes to settle scores against people they disliked.
“Dressed in all conceivable costumes, with various weapons concealed in their clothes, the mummers held high revelry in beating up any unfortunate individual who happened to cross their path.”
There are numerous accounts of mummering ending in serious violence, arrests and prosecution.
Famously, in 1860 a group of mummers killed a man in Bay Roberts (read that story here). The murder, coupled with a general distaste for the mayhem caused by mummers, resulted in a legal ban on mummering.
The illegality of mummering might have stifled the tradition in some parts of the island, but the mummering didn’t stop everywhere.
Newfoundlanders, especially further from the urban centres, continued on. Some of the traditions they practiced, if not violent, were disturbing.
Along parts of the coast, rather than a costume of old clothes or ribbons, some mummers favoured an outfit of animal skins, heads and horns.
To have a fresh supply of meat for the holiday season, families often slaughtered livestock (cows, goats and sheep) in the lead up to Christmas. Sometimes the skins, horns and skulls were saved and turned into devilish, grotesque costumes to be worn during mummering.
According to Robertson (1984), at times the whole head of the animal was preserved and worn as a sort of mask:
“A mummer in Harbour Grace, C.B., whose identity was never discovered, wore a cow’s head over his or her own head and scared and occasionally beat with a chain anyone who he [or she?] caught without a disguise.”
In my mind, this kind of mummer is darker and scarier than any previously discussed. Some mummers were foolish, and strange, these mummers must have seemed bestial and dangerous.
For a period in history, mummers worked hard to cultivate a sense of danger and fear — nowhere was that more evident than with the hobby horse.
The Hobby Horse
Beyond costumes, mummering had distinctive props. The most famous of these was probably the hobby horse.
It was not a child’s toy.
It was often a puppet-like device carried (or, in some cases, worn) by mummers designed to look like a horse. The head was often a junk of wood which had been cut in a way that allowed the jaws to move. Sometimes, it was given nails for teeth and decorated with a real animal hide.
Fashioned by a skilled craftsperson, the hobby horse could look scary, but it wasn’t really appearance that made it so frightening — it was how it was used.
The hobby horse was manipulated so that it behaved wildly. The mummer controlling it would thrust toward on-lookers and snap its jaws shut with a loud ‘crack’.
Being confronted by the hobby horse was not for the weak of heart.
This hobby horse was used in a performance of The Mummers Play at The Beaches Heritage Centre in Eastport, NL.
“A weird figure bearing the head of a horse, nodding and gesticulating wildly to his companions, who were attired in all kinds of fantastic dress, paraded Water Street and halted at the foot of Market House Hill, where now stands the new Court House.”
Spotting the hobby horse was sometimes the first sign that mummers were near. In some communities, the horse was thrust in front of a window or through the door and made to look as if it were watching the inhabitants.
Creepy.
Some mummers took the animalistic behaviour of the hobby horse quite seriously and, if the horse were let inside it might behave wildly and tip over chairs.
The hobby horse may be one of the oldest elements of the mummering tradition on the island. On his 1583 journey to Newfoundland, Sir Humphrey Gilbert references having “Musike in good variety: not omitting the least toyes, as Morris dancers, Hobby horss…”
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There’s a similar Christmas tradition in Wales involving a skeletal horse who roams the streets, going house-to-house with companions seeking food and drink.
Watch the episode of PBS Monstrum dedicated to the tradition here.
The Mummers Play
For all that mummering was free-wheeling mayhem it could, at times, have a surprisingly methodical side.
In some Newfoundland communities mummers didn’t just come to the door looking to drink and dance, they came to perform The Mummers Play (or Lesson).
The play was a set of recitations derived from English folk plays that were popular in England at the time Newfoundland was being colonized. The date of the first plays is not known but they go back hundreds of years.
In Newfoundland the play’s recitations were kept alive by oral tradition, which lead to regional variation. Few versions of the Newfoundland mummers play survive.
One of the surviving texts was collected from Salvage, Bonavista Bay from Barney Moss.
The Salvage text was reproduced in Halpert’s book Christmas mumming in Newfoundland (1969) alongside a reflection by Moss:
“They used to start out St. Stephen’s Day and visit from house to house,” he recalled. “They would keep it up for 12 days, everyone clad in war equipment that was required to do battle in those days. It’s a great play, well worth resurrecting for the benefit of future generations.”
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It’s been suggested that the name ‘Dim Dorothy’ evolved from the character ‘Dame Dorothy’ present in some English versions of the play.
I suspect it was an unintentional shift, but it’s strangely appropriate. Part of the traditional Twelfth Night (old Christmas) revalry was merry mis-rule and role reversal (within accepted bounds). Bastardizing the honorific ‘Dame’ so that it becomes ‘Dim’ certainly subverts, or reverses, the honour.
For mischievous mummers, it’s kinda ‘on brand.’
Moss’ play had a dozen characters including: Father Christmas, Dim Dorothy, Oliver Cromwell, and King George. Because it wasn’t necessary obvious from costume or context, most characters introduced themselves to the audience before speaking. In the Salvage play Beelzebub open the play with the following line:
Here comes I, Beelzebub, and on my shoulder carries my club, And in my hand a threepenny pan; ain't I a smart jolly old man.
If you don't believe what I do say, step in Father Christmas and clear the way.
The Salvage play doesn’t have tight narrative but features several fights, a historical ‘motif’ and plenty of colonial ideology. It also features a version of the wren poem, discussed above.
The play was once an important part of the Newfoundland Christmas tradition and was performed in communities all over the island. Eventually, as public interest changed, it faded to obscurity.
And, that’s basically the story of mummering in Newfoundland too. The island once held a myriad of mummering traditions but, as public interest changed so did the type of mummering activity undertaken. People let go of the parts that no longer suited them.
I’m not lamenting that; many parts of the tradition are best left behind.
Besides, there’s no greater mummering tradition than change; it’s always morphed to suit the tastes of the people. At present it thrives in the St. John’s Mummer Festival, is made into films and, as evidenced by the many commercially available mummer products, is celebrated as part of the island’s Christmas tradition.
If that’s the 21st century versions of mummering,
I’m okay with it.
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Folklore, Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, Vol. 2
A History of Newfoundland, D. W. Prowse, 1971
Ribbon Fools, Intangible Cultural Heritage
Ribbon Fools Workshop, Pouch Cove
Memoirs of Christmas-How the Great Festival Used to be Celebrated, Alex. A Parsons, Holly Leaves, 1917
Memoirs of a Nfld. Christmas In 1842, by ‘H’ Yuletide Bells, 1844
Rambling Thoughts About Christmas in Newfoundland Years Ago, William Whittle, Evening Telegram Christmas Number, 1885
Christmas in St. John’s in the Old Days, Daily News, Dec 23, 1955
Robert John Parsons, Morning Herald, Dec 31, 1879
Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland, Herbert Alpert and G.M. Story, 1969
Newfoundland Mummers’ Christmas House-visit, Margaret R. Robertson, 1984
Mummers on Trial, Joy Fraser, Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures, Volume 3 Number 2 2009
Nalujuk Night Documentary, Product of Newfoundland
Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland, Digital History
A Newfoundland Output in the Making, Harold Squire, 1974
