Rahere wrote: Let's teach you something about military cam paint, as it keeps haunting this. It's not blackface, this is why:
Thanks for that - it serves to make an important point. In my area the dancers used 'raddle' an red iron oxide which was put on their faces to conceal the features as a disguise. Contemporary reports talk of them as looking like 'red indians' - that is to say they used exactly the 'streaking' method which Radhere describes. In East Yorkshire they burned wine corks and did the same thing but it was black streaks not red. However, once you start covering the entire face in uniform black - that may be a different issue
I have in front of me a photo of the Marton cum Grafton plough bullocks from the late 19th century. Their faces are blackened and then white streaks seem to have been added to give an 'animal-like' appearance. Their costumes also serve to indicate that they represent animals. By the same token, the Ecclesfield Plough Bullocks procession from around the same period shows, uniformly black faces with lighter eye sockets and lips - with the top hats, despite their being harnessed to a plough, there is little doubt about what they are representing -