Do you like wearing a bra outside your clothes? Do you own long underwear? Is your idea of the perfect musical instrument an ugly stick? Then we have a volunteer opportunity for you!
The Mummers Festival will soon be here, and volunteers play a vital role in this community event! We hope you enjoy working as a volunteer as much a we, the organizers do! Community involvement can be a very gratifying experience.
All volunteers will receive a 2013 Mummers Festival T-shirt for their help. They are beautiful, just like you!
The ICH office is currently working with the Bay Roberts Cultural Foundation on a project to record local stories. While the focus is on stories and memories concerning folk belief, traditional cures and charms, and superstitions, we are also recording some general oral histories with locals.
Last Friday, I sat down with local historian and author Mike Flynn to talk about the Bay Roberts of yesteryear. Mike had lots of stories, including some great bits of local folklore, including legends about the Devil and buried treasure.
We also had a chat about janneying (mummering) in the region, and in particular, about the murder of Isaac Mercer by mummers in December 1860. You can read a bit more about that case here.
After we talked, Mike took me to see an old wrought-iron gate, the location where the murder took place a century and a half ago. It is near a spot once known as Wilcox's Lane, a now mostly-forgotten laneway that today is on private property. It is a spot I've driven past hundreds of times, but which I'd never explored. It is a good example of the history that is right under our noses, and often overlooked. So here it is, in the photo above, the gate to the former Wilcox's Lane, with Mike Flynn standing guard.
The interview with Mike will eventually be up on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative, as part of our ICH inventory, in the Bay Roberts collection. Stay tuned!
This past Monday, some of us at the Heritage Foundation took part in a television shoot for a CBC crew out of Quebec, doing a piece on Newfoundland. You have to guess for yourselves who is who in the picture above.
We sure are! This year promises to be the biggest and best Festival to date. We’ve got some exciting new events lined up and our much loved Hobby Horse and Ugly Stick Workshops are set to go!
Expect to see more oversized bras and long underwear than ever before! The Mummers Parade is growing each year, and the energy levels keep rising! There will be a few new surprises along the Parade route this year too!
This year marks the 150th year of the ban on mummering (which was later overturned). On Sunday, December 5th, Folklorist Joy Fraser will be discussing the alleged murder of fisherman Isaac Mercer by a group of men disguised as mummers in Bay Roberts in 1860. It is one of the most notorious episodes in Newfoundland’s history, prompting a legislative ban on mummering that remained in force for over a century. Joy’s lecture, Mummers and Murder, reveals a remarkable collection of archival discoveries that shed new light on the circumstances surrounding Mercer’s death.
Also new this year: Mummer-oke! If you’ve ever felt the slightest bit shy about singing in front of a crowd, fret no more! When you’re in disguise, who cares?! Mummer karaoke at the Georgestown pub will challenge you to sing your favorite tunes in your best mummer voice. It’s gonna be ugly, so bring an ugly stick.
If you don’t know much about mummering come out to our event “How Do You Mummer Anyway” and meet two of the most vivacious mummers out there! Direct from the Southern Shore, these two will give you the lowdown. We’ll ask all the vital questions: Which houses have the best food and drink?; What are the best ways to disguise yourself?; To knock or not to knock?; And how do you go to the bathroom in a disguise like that?
Of course we’ll also be hosting the Province’s largest dress-up party just prior to the Parade. So if you don’t have a disguise, come to the Rig Up an hour before the Parade and sort through the endless supply of ridiculous clothing on hand.
The Parade ends at The Rooms for a hard-stepping mummers dance to some high energy live music. We’ve got some tasty baked goods and enough Purity syrup to make yourself sick! So pace yourself! And, as always, you can strike your best pose at our “Mummeries Forever” Photobooth.
And remember...the Mummers Parade needs YOU!! Yes you! YOU! People love this event because they get to participate! Talk to anyone who’s been in the Parade and they’ll tell you how something funny happens to them...something odd, wondrous, magical. This is the effect of dressing in disguise. You get a bit more freedom to be foolish. We all want that, yes? And bring your friends! Bring your family! It will make your experience all the richer!
There are lots of tips for new mummers and some colourful photos on our website if you need a little guidance and inspiration.
These two pictures were snapped by artist/photographer Dominique Hurley at the Mummers Parade, and I'm hoping some of you can help. She is looking for permission to use these images, and needs consent from the mummers themselves.
She writes:
"Do you, by any chance, know who these two accordion-playing mummers are? And if not, do you have a way of getting word out that I need help identifying uncovering their identity? If so, please ask people to contact me via my website at www.DominiqueHurley.com."
The poster above was one designed by Target Marketing for the 2011 Mummers Festival. It bears the caption "Terrifying and delighting children for over 400 years" and the image of a handsome mummer (yours truly) peeking out from inside a great grey horse's head. This is a hobby horse - and not the child's riding toy hobby horse most North Americans are familiar with. The hobby horse of Newfoundland's mummering tradition is much more fearsome beastie, with big eyes, and a wooden jaw with nails for teeth, which snock together as it nips and bites at the people it meets along its route. It is an archetypal figure associated with chaos, unpredictability, fertility, and, as the poster suggests, even a little terror.
When we started planning the very first
mummers festival in 2009, we went looking for hobby horses. Chris Brookes, who
started the Mummers Troupe in 1972, had a couple, one of which, "Old Ball" is shown to the right. Local actor Andy Jones had one. One was found tucked away in the MUN Folklore and Language Archive. The Kelly family in Cape Broyle had another, made of styrofoam to replace an older, wooden head.
But other than those few models, very few
existed outside of reminiscences. Andrea O’Brien contributed memories of hobby horses from the Southern Shore, and a man from Bonavista Bay remembered a hobby horse made out of an old cardboard beer carton.
The
hobby horse was a Newfoundland Christmas tradition which, not particularly widespread in the twentieth century, had seemed to have faded from both the cultural landscape and popular memory in the twenty-first. It was a shame, for hobby horses have a long and complicated history.
Hobby horses (along with their colourful cousins hobby cows, hobby goats, hobby sheep, and hobby bulls) have been here on the island
of Newfoundland for a long time. In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote in his "Voyages and Enterprises":
Besides for solace of our people, and allurement of the Savages, we were provided of Musike in good variety: not omitting the least toyes, as Morris dancers, Hobby horsse, and Maylike conceits to delight the Savage people.
"Hobby horse" and "Horsy-hops" both get their own entries in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English, and folklorist Dr. Joy Fraser has included references to hobby horses in her stellar research on mummering and violence in nineteenth century Newfoundland. Fraser includes one account, where a complainant in a legal case describes how “I heard some person running and turned round I was struck on the head with something like a horses head and knocked down I rose on my knees to get hold of the man who struck me and he kicked me on the breast”.
A 1913 Christmas engraving by John Hayward includes, in the background, what can only be a hobby horse (detail below).
Folklore research in the 1960s and 1970s uncovered many stories and references to hobby horses and bulls, but by the time the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador instigated its first Folklife Festival in 2009, very few hobby horses existed, no one had made any for years, and most people had never heard of the tradition.
Mummers Festival coordinator Ryan Davis, working with long-time Lantern Festival organizer Kathleen Parewick, designed a cardboard template to make a hobby horse head, and the hobby horse workshops which were first offered in 2009 have since become a firm part of the annual festival.
The hobby horse workshops have been taught outside of the festival, as part of ICH workshops, community centre outreach programs, and workshops for high school teachers.
Ron Delaney of Bay Roberts has made his own
hobby horse from wood, based on his own memories. In December of 2011, Delaney wrote,
“As a child , growing up in the 70’s and
early 80’s I was mortified of Jannies, I use to hear my relatives talk about
good and bad Jannies , as a result , in my mind they were all bad, especially
the hobby horse. The hobby horse usually was the last Jannie to enter the
house; I could remember scooting in the room as fast as I could when I heard
the SLAP of its mouth.”
One of the participants in a hobby horse
building workshop I taught in Bay Roberts, Delaney brought along Meggie
and Kaegan, who now represent a new generation of hobby horse owners. Another horse foaled that day made its way back to Ontario, to take place of honour as Bottom's Head in a Grade 8 student production of Midsummer's Night Dream.
One of the participants in a 2011 Arts Work Conference hobby horse making workshop I taught in St. John's was teacher Amanda Gibson, who teaches at Amos Comenius Memorial School in Hopedale. She made her hobby horse, then went off to Labrador armed with her new skills. Horses not being common along the northern Labrador coast, Gibson adapted the template, adding hobby polar bears to the list of hobby animals now made in the province.
"The kids had a fun time making them and loved choosing the colors for their 'bears'" she wrote me. "It took a few hour-period classes, but it was a great way to end the unit in Grade 8 NL history on 19th Century Lifestyles for students that are hands-on learners."
This year, 2011, there were hobby horses galore at the Mummers Parade. Everywhere you turned, a gaudily-decorated horse's head was poking up above the sea of mummers and janneys, including one devilishly fine, black and red steed, crepe paper fire billowing from its nostrils.
For me, it was a particularly moving sight, and proof that tradition is sometimes more resilient than we give it credit for. For whatever reason, hobby horse making has struck a chord with a new generation of janneys, and I look forward to new additions to the herd in 2012.
And next year, I think the parade needs at least one hobby goat...
Earlier this year, the Provincial Historic Commemorations Board designated the Christmas tradition of mummering and janneying as as a Distinctive Cultural Tradition or Practice of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
As part of that commemoration, the province set aside funds for some type of Legacy Activity project which would promote the tradition.
We started off with a series of questions. We all know what mummers look and sound like, but there’s much more to it than dressing up and dancing around. What do mummers do? What is a hobby horse? Where do mummers come from? What are the best ways to disguise yourself? And does the current generation of students, particularly urban students, know much about the tradition at all?
With those thoughts in mind, HFNL's ICH office sponsored a Mummers in the School program as part of the 2011 Mummers Festival (www.mummersfestival.ca). The program is designed for grades 4-6, and this year is lead by Ryan Davis, who is the coordinator of the annual festival.
All this week, Ryan has been touring schools in St. John's, Goulds, Paradise and Portugal Cove-St. Philip's with a slide show on mummering, his own hobby horse, and a tickle trunk of mummers costumes to get kids excited about this old Newfoundland tradition. Kids (and teachers) have been given a chance to dress up and give their classmates a chance to guess who is under that old lace tablecloth.
Feeling left out? No problem, the Mummers Parade is this Saturday, and we want YOU to be in it, in costume! See you there!
Some comments so far:
Hi Dale, I just wanted to send you an email to say Thank you for setting up the presentation for today. The kids and teachers absolutely loved it. It was very well done and interesting. Tell Ryan how much we enjoyed it!!! Thanks again.
Krista Molloy, Larkhall Academy
Thanks for an interesting and timely presentation for our students.Ron Parrott, Principal, Larkhall Academy
Thanks so very much!! Great sessions today! The kids are so very excited. Several want to go home and make a hobby horse, including a few teachers!! Thanks again!
Jill Moores, Paradise Elementary
The photos below are from Larkhall Academy in St. John's:
We need your help! Volunteers play a vital role in these events. Even the smallest efforts have big effect. We hope you find as much joy as we do by participating in this community event!
Below is a list of roles we need filled. To sign up, please send an email to:
Hobby Horse Training:Learn how to make a hobby horse and then help us as a trainer. You will show others how to make them at our workshops. You will need to attend our training session on Tuesday, November 29 from 7:00-9:30 pm. Then sign up for at least 1 of our 3 Hobby Horse Workshops: Dec. 3 (10am-2pm), Dec. 6 (7-9:30pm), Dec. 10 (10am-2pm). *If you have made a hobby horse before, you can skip the training session.
Postering:This one requires many hands! We REALLY need help with this one by putting up posters and distributing postcards. We need help with the following areas: Throughout St. John’s, Mount Pearl, Torbay, Flatrock, Pouch Cove, Portugal Cove/St. Philips, Bell Island, CBS, Goulds, Southern Shore, Placentia/Argentia, Conception Bay North. This will happen late November/early December.
Materials Collecting:Help us gather up the needed materials for our workshops. You will need a car for this one. We have a list of items and locations for pick up. This will be ongoing between now and mid-December.
Sign Making:Help us paint and design various signs for the Festival. This will be ongoing between now and mid-December.
Parade Marshals:We need mummer marshals at our Rig Up and Parade. Various tasks include: setting up clothing stations, offering directions and information, monitoring the parade as we move along. Marshals will be briefed on Parade Day (Dec. 17) at 11:30 am.
This week, I taught two train-the-trainer Hobby Horse workshops here in St. John's. One was for the Arts Work conference, for teachers from across the province. The second was for MacMorran Community Centre, who plan on running hobby horse workshops for interested people in the neighbourhood.
Both sessions went extremely well, with a lot of laughter, and some gorgeous hobby horses. I'll be adding some more hobby horse instructions to the Memorial University ICH page soon, but in the meantime, here are a few shots of our new hobby horse builders in action.
Latest Historic Commemorations Designations Announced
Six new designations under the Provincial Historic Commemorations Program were announced by the Honourable Terry French, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, during a ceremony held at The Rooms.
The latest designations were made under the following categories:
Places of Provincial Significance
• The Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital
• The cultural landscape that includes The Beaches and the Bloody Bay Cove Quarry
Distinctive Cultural Traditions and Practices
• Mummering
• The rescues associated with the wreck of the Waterwitch
Event of Provincial Significance
• The U-Boat attacks on the Bell Island ore ships in 1942
Person of Provincial Significance
• Edward (Ted) Russell
“The tangible and intangible heritage of Newfoundland and Labrador plays a vital role in the province’s history,” said Minister French. “Through the Provincial Historic Commemorations Program, we have honoured an additional six designations for the important and lasting impression each has made in Newfoundland and Labrador.”
The Provincial Historic Commemorations Program is a citizen-driven program administered by a six-member board. The program welcomes individuals or groups to nominate people, places, events and traditions they feel are provincially significant and worthy of official commemoration.
“During our first two ceremonies, we made five designations of significant places, events, and traditions,” said Françoise Enguehard, Chair of the Provincial Historic Commemorations Board. “This ceremony makes 11 designations in total, but as with any new program, there are still many opportunities for future nominations – especially in the categories of significant people and traditions.”
Past designates include: Kelly Russell, Dildo Island, the founding of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, the Tsunami of 1929 and rescues at sea, rescues made by Ann Harvey and her family in 1828 and 1838, rescues associated with the wrecks of the USS Truxton and USS Pollux in 1942, and a rescue made by Captain William Jackman in 1867.
For more information about the Provincial Historic Commemorations Program, including further information on these new designations as well as nomination criteria, visit: www.seethesites.ca/commemorations or contact the Commemorations Office at 709-729-6901.
Establishment of the Provincial Historic Commemorations Program was among the objectives outlined in the province’s cultural strategy, Creative Newfoundland and Labrador: The Blueprint for Development and Investment in Culture (2006). Since the launch of the strategy, the Provincial Government has invested more than $56 million into the arts, culture and heritage sectors.
This is it, the last day of the Christmas season in Newfoundland and Labrador. After today you can take down your tree and stop mummering. But chances are there is still one big party left to go to tonight, somewhere (I'll be at one!)
One of my favourite Old Christmas Day customs is from the north coast of Labrador, where today is the day the Nalujuit come out to see who has been good, and punish those who haven't. For those of you who don't know what a Nalujuk is, they are related to mummers and janneys, but slightly more bad-ass! Like mummering on the island, the tradition seems to be enjoying something of a revival. You can learn a bit more about nalujuit below:
