Les: Caribbean mumming stuff. Have just had a re-listen to my old tape. It was recorded(I think, I have no sleeve notes) in the Dominican Republic, which is mainly Spanish speaking but there is an English speaking enclave of people who moved there from St Kitts and Nevis, and that is the people who do the mumming play.
    I can't decipher all the words , but here are a few lines which show you the kind of thing.

Good morrow friends and neighbours here
We are quite glad to meet you here
For Christmas come but once a year
And when it come it bring good cheers
And when it gone it is no longer here
May luck attend your milking pail
???????

Room room room here
Gallants give us room to sport
For we are the merry actors that(??) in the street


So stand forth great St George
And boldly clearly the way.

I am the King of Egypt
(???)plainly does appear
Where I am come to seek my son
My only son and heir


(Then some stuff about St George fighting Saladin the Turkish Knight).

The format is set piece speeches alternating with music. The music is fife(or whistle??), snare and bass drum, and a triangle(or possibly a stirrup, from the sound). Some of the music is fast drumming with fife doing high improvised stuff(I guess from the sound he is improvising while watching the action of the fights etc in nthe play...I've done it often on whistle myself,I know the effect!). other times the music is quite formal, a steady pure English dance tune sound(I would guess, I dont know the tune).
   The instrumentation and general sound is identical to some recordings I have, made about 20 years ago in Georgetown,Guyana(N coast of S America); this was a recording of a Mother Sally processional money collecting performance. Also similar to some Jamaican stufff I've heard.
    I would reckon the Caribbean is a place where there are a great many traditional relics of English ceremonial/ritual type stuff(possibly more than there are in England??).