The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78005 Message #1397795
Posted By: Azizi
03-Feb-05 - 09:15 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Mummer's dance
Subject: RE: Origins: Mummer's dance
Susan-Marie,
an excerpt from your post reads:
"Mumming usually involves a group of performers dressed up in masks (sometimes of straw) and clothes bedecked with ribbons or rags, and setting out on a procession to neighbouring homes singing songs.."
IMO, this is very much like the John Canoe {Kunnering} processions that was performed by people of African descent in the Caribbean and in the US South in the 18th century and are still performed by people in the Caribbean in the 21st century...
In 1720 an observer by the name of Long described the 'John Canoe' dancers as being "tall & well built men dressed in peculiar clothes , carrying wooden swords, and followed by a group of drunken women [!]. On the head of each John Canow dancer was a "pair of ox-horns, sprouting from the top of a horrid sort of visor, or mask, which about the mouth is rendered very terrific with large tusks.' This man, according to Long, danced at every door, bellowing out 'John Canoe' with great vehemence."
Source: Lynne Dauley Emery "Black Dance from 1619 to Today" p. 30
In my opinion, the standard explanation for the name "John Canoe" is bogus. See this quote: "The origin of the word "Junkanoo" is said to have come from the name John Canoe, an African prince and slave trader operating on the Gold Coast in the seventeenth (17th) century. To the slaves, he was a hero and was worshipped and idolized by them"
click here for one of many websites on a John Canoe Caribbean parade.
But here's my question: Why would enslaved people idolize and consider a hero a slave trader? Because he was an African prince???...Come on now. Get real....It's time for that simplistic, folk etymological explanation to bite the dust...
There are a number of processional, masked events associated with religion in West Africa..The two which seem most credible to me are the Moko Jumbies [spirits on stilts] and Egun {Egungun}worshippers of Southern Nigeria.{simmplisticaly summarized, Egun was [is] associated with ancestors & fertility}.
It seems to me that Junkanno is a prime example of African traditions merging with European traditions [mummering] to create something unique.
Ms. Azizi