Subject: RE: BS: Mummers and Rascism
From:
Azizi
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 11:26 AM
I would like to join your conversation by first saying that I regret that I never had the pleasure of seeing actual or even videotape of Morris dancers.
As very much an outsider to this tradition, but one who THINKS I might like the dancing sans the blackface, I agree with GUEST [Dec 10, 2004 at 2:08 PM] that "What matters is how the blacking up of mummers faces is perceived by Britain's black population....mummers SHOULD take into account how British blacks feel when they see the mummers in blackface, and not do it. Period. And they should not do it out of consideration for Britain's black minorities."
That being said, I want to re-post an excerpt of a comment that I made in an earlier thread which referred to the custom of "blackening up":
"Last year in one of my scavenger hunts at a used book store, I was pleased to find a 1935 book "The Traditional Dance" {Violet Alford & Rodney Gallop: London; Methuen & Co.} "The Traditional Dance" includes a number of passages on the origin of the term "Morris".
I will quote rather extensively from one of these passages:
"When we were speculating on the origin of the Morris dance in the last chapter we saw that Cecil Sharp, having accepted the theory of Moorish origin [i.e. from the Moors], came later to reject it. His principal reason for doing so was that by 1912 he had come to realize that all over Europe the dance does not stand by itself, but is associated with 'certain strange customs which are apparently quite independent of the dance itself.'. From this he concluded that 'the Morris dance is a development of a pan-European or even more widely extended custom', and that 'faces were not blackened because the dancers represented Moors, but rather the dancers represented Moors because their faces were blackened'.
It never occured to Sharp to connect the Mooris dance with the numerous cermonial combats between 'Christains' and 'Moors', all more or less choreographic in form, which are found throughout southern Europe, from Dalmatia in the east to Portugal in the west. Perhaps he had no opportunity of hearing of them, but a connection with the Morris is evident from their appelation of Morisca,,Morisma, Moreska, Mouriscada or some similar name.
The Moreska, performed every year in September in the Dalmatian island of Korcula {Curzola}, consists of a play and Sword dance prepresenting a combat between two groups of dancers, a White King {Christain] contending with a Black King {Moorish} for the hand of a beautiful slave called Bula. Needless to say, as in all such mock battles, the Christians emerge victorious.
In Spain, the battle of Moors and Christians goes back at least to the twelfth century, one such having been performed in 1137 at the betrothal of Count Ramon Berebguer of Barcelona and Queen Petronila of Aragon. Aragon, as has already been stated, is still to-day [1935] a land of Morisca dances, and a few more striking performances could be found than the Morisma of Ainsa. This takes place in the middle of September every year...."
end of quote.
Given this historical overview, I disagree with the premise that blackening up started as a means of disguise. I also do not feel that simply telling the history of the custom of blacking up would make the experience less offensive to people of African descent and other darker skinned people in the viewing audience.
I agree with the poster who said that some folk traditions should be allowed to evolve. It seems to me that this is one of them.
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sj
