Talk:Mummers' play

2005 complaints

This entry has so many errors of fact, it's difficult to know where to start.

Perhaps I should start with my credentials. I have been researching folk drama for over 30 years in association with the University of Sheffield, England, where I gained my PhD on "The Origins and Development of English Folk Plays" in 2002. I have written many papers on the subject and I am webmaster of www.folkplay.info - arguably the best website on English folk drama. I know my stuff on matters of fact, and am up to speed on the latest theories.

OK. Here goes:

1. Mummers' plays have nothing to do with Christian Mystery plays. While there are some superficial similarities of style (e.g. verse speeches), mystery plays were Medieval, whereas there is no evidence for Mummers's plays before the 18th century.

2. It is true that nowadays, many morris dancing groups also perform mumming plays. However, this is a 20th century development arising out of the English Folk Revival. In the past, morris dancers and mummers were independent.

3. It is very much a matter of opinion whether or not Mummers' plays are "highly symbolic enactments of religious significance". Most traditional performers would have been surprised by this. As far as they are concerned, they were just entertaining and collecting money. The mystery plays are something else of course.

4. While St.George is a common character in mummers' plays, the Dragon is rare. The Turkish Knight is one of St.George's main adversaries, the other common opponent being Slasher. I have no idea where the "Persian Knight" came from. It's a character I have never encountered. Ditto Old Father Abraham. Old Father Christmas yes. He is particularly frequent in southern English plays, where he is the play's introducer. There are a few Robin Hood plays in the Cotswolds, but he is not common.

5. A few mummers' plays do indeed have a "hobby horse", but these horses have no relation to the spectacular Padstow and Minehead 'Obby 'Osses (who appear on May Day). It is unlikely that there is any link with Pantomime horses either.

6. The defining feature of mumming plays is the quack Doctor, and the main purpose of the fight is to provide him with a patient to cure. The protagonists vary widely, and it is often unclear who is the hero and who the villain. In some plays there is not even a fight, just an assault. Once again therefore, whether or not "the plays contain the archetypes: duality and resurrection" is a matter of opinion. It's a valid enough interpretation, but not the only one.

7. "The performers are masked." Occasionally yes, although usually not with the sort of face masks you can buy in a shop. Rather we are talking about hats or headgear that obscure the face. More often, mummers' faces are blackened or painted red by way of disguise. Many mummers and guisers, however, have no facial disguise at all.

8. No firm conclusions have been come to regarding the etymology of the word "mummer". The alternatives given in the article are the main contenders. Some people have said that it derives from the Danish or Dutch "Mumme" or similar, which also means "Mask". There are also possible relationships with the words "murmer" and "mutter".

9. We are now pretty sure that Mummers' plays do NOT have a Pagan or pre-Christian origin, nor any origin in the Crusades. The reason is that no evidence has been found for the plays before the 18th century, despite assiduous research. This contrasts with other English customs such as morris dancing, maypoles, Plough Monday, etc., where much unequivocal evidence has been found back to the Reformation and in some cases beyond.

10. The paragraph on Mystery Plays implies that they developed from the mummers' plays. As has already been explained, this is chronologically impossible.

To conclude, the item on Mummers' plays needs totally rewriting to present an accurate description of the plays, and to remove the disproven theories re pagan origins. The material on Mystery Plays need to be moved elsewhere, and the references to the Padstow and Minehead 'Obby 'Osses also need removing. The links are appropriate (apart from the one to Padstow). More folk play links (about 1000) can be found at www.folkplay.info.

I hope that the encyclopaedia article is updated soon.

Regards

Peter Millington Webmaster, www.folkplay.info, Traditional Drama Research Group and Honorary Research Associate, NATCECT, University of Sheffield, England

Email: p.millington1@sheffield.ac.uk

you should make all those revisions yourself, that's what "wiki" is for -Hsio 04:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for continuing the grand Wikipedia tradition sometimes known as the "Complain and Leave Drive-by". We do need more expert participation here, but we need true participation from experts, complete with sources and WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, rather than just complaints. I'm removing the non-standard dispute notice, until somoene who is an actual Wikipedia editor can step up. --NightMonkey 02:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree with the above "fix it yourself" comments. Wikipedia forbids original research. Therefore, the author of a site specializing in this subject should probably not cite himself or his own research. And I do thank him for bringing his work to our attention. --Craig Stuntz 02:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adidam Mummery Sacred Theatre

Intend to include a short section on the mummery play and book, which has great significance to the new religious movement of Adidam (authored by spiritual teacher Adi Da ) located ( the annual theatre presentation ) in Nothern California , this is not intended to be any form of promotion ( for the sacred theatre performance or book ) but more to take its place in the history of mummers and mummery for readers of the article. Here is a link to get the basic feeling and background , any objections or comments please put forward, thanks --Scribe5 00:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I'm in a minority here, but I feel the essence of the Mummers Play is the presentation of a Manichaen duality. Christianity says that evil is "The absence of God", and Mani believed that good and evil are eternal opponents - two gods - in the battle for the human soul. It is a European version of the Shi'a annual passion play in Iran, a remote version of Zoroastianism. Adi Da, and the mummery link given above appear to propagate the opposite point of view, namely that there is some essential unity in a single god or spiritual awareness. As such it is anti-Manichaen, and doesn't belong here. There again, much of this article has nothing to do with spiritual duality, so I expect to loose this argument. Ogg 10:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have a point, but this is a very controversial area these days. Early scholarship and study of mummers' plays, and other seasonal customs, was very much concerned with origin theory. Victorian and later scholars delighted in finding far-flung (and, probably, far-fetched) parallels in other cultures, pointing to ancient fertility ceremonies and ritual re-enactments of death-and-resurrection, but this is very much frowned upon nowadays, for various reasons (see Peter Millington's incisive comments, above). Now scholars place much more emphasis on the social significance of the customs, and their importance to the participants. I have sympathy with both approaches, and feel sure that there must have been some common ancestor from which all those hundreds of plays must have diverged, despite the baroque accretions which have gathered round and obscured that original nucleus. But to confidently ascribe the plays a pre-Christian origin in some pagan ritual is a huge leap of faith. The same goes for the Manichaean duality struggle. Some themes are eternal and provide a good basis for drama, whether in the form of sophisticated stage plays, novels, films, even comic books... or mumming plays. SiGarb | Talk 12:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mummers vs Mummers' play

Why is Mummers' Play redirected here? Shouldn't it be the other way around? In the article the apostrophe is used... is this a mistake, is it wikipedia policy to avoid apostrophes in article titles? Oreo man 20:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And why is it capitalized? It's not a title of any particular performance and "mumming" isn't derived from a proper noun.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Both good points. SiGarb | Talk 12:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Newfoundland

Is there any evidence that the Newfoundland tradition is 200 years old? Ogg 12:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was certainly known in the 19th century, but how early I'm not sure. It might be worth checking through this lot of links if you are interested: [1] SiGarb | Talk 12:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I have time at some point, I will dig up my Cultural Anthropology notes. I had a professor that studied Newfoundland and mumming is one of the methods used to keep social control/order over the population. (71.208.252.221 23:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Edit, turns out I was using the french spelling of Janneying (I'm using this for exam review, I'm in French immersion so the spelling is different) and it was already in there (so much for my exploits of wiki editing).Hojima 20:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC) Sorry, but isn't there also a song by Buddy Wassisname called the "Mummer's song" that explains the Newfie mummer tradition? Just wondering.--Buffhistorian (talk) 01:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citation for Newfoundland mumming = Palmer, Craig T. and Christina Nicole Pomianek. 2007. Applying signaling theory to traditional cultural rituals: The example of Newfoundland Mumming. Human Nature, 18, 295-312. They have further citations which may be more useful since that article is not primarily interested in the mumming per se.--droptone (talk) 19:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm suggesting that the Newfoundland mummering tradition retain its own page, as it is only tangentially linked to the mummers play tradition, and in its current form, is largely practiced without reference to or knowledge of the play. Dalejarvis (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dadaism

I can see no justification for a link to the art movement called Dadaism so I have removed it. Ogg 15:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Social Mumming

From some texts and papers I'd read, it looks like a grab bag of practices involving costumed play and costumed performance had been categorised as mumming. I would assert that the mystery plays are a fair bit older than 19th century, some of them involve referents to Raleigh that get later changed to Nelson (that old horse one - they replace the horse torso with a ship, and keep the horse head.) The aristocratic stuff - well some people kept the receipts, and some found illuminations from the time explicitly describing a courtly mumming foray. It described a mask of Henry's in gold leaf about a foot tall. I was looking into it to see the development of anthropomorphic costuming, but admired some of the archaic references. My apologies for not citing anything tonight - this was just a casual addition because I noticed a deficit, and there's a pile of paperwork a foot tall I need to get through. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.53.25 (talk) 13:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mummer needs a disambiguation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummer_%28album%29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.90.121.26 (talk) 13:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge from Mummering

I've proposed that the recently-created article Mummering is merged here and left as a redirect. --Dweller (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm responding as the creator. I've set up the mummering article separate from the Mummers Play section, as it is clearly a distinct house-visiting tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador, which largely is undertaken without reference to or even knowledge of the more formal play tradition. More detailed references on the article page to follow. Dalejarvis (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're suggesting that quite by chance, there's a tradition of house visiting at Christmas time, which uses the same name, but it's totally not connected? Seems an unlikely bunch of coincidences. (Have you read this article? Its title is misleading) --Dweller (talk) 15:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed 'King Conor' addition to opening para

The added text suggested that there was evidence for mummery in the Annals of the Four Masters dating back to 2000 years BCE. That's basically nonsense - if you read the Annals, until they get quite close to the era of the authors (900-1600 CE) they are legends, and not in any way a reliable source. 'King Conor' usually means Conchobar mac Nessa, from the Cú Chulainn myths. Evidence from a book of legends for things said to have happened at a mythical kings court...well, it's maybe interesting (more so for the wrenboys article) but doesn't belong in the opening paragraph.

This did draw my attention to the link to the Irish tradition of wrenboys being used as a citation for mummers originating in England though(???) which turned out to have been from an anon edit that replaced 'British Isles' with 'England' with no explanation. I've reverted that too. Bazzargh (talk) 02:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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European mentions

As a layperson and non-mummery expert, I am confused by the present article and with recent changes, specifically to do with whether Mummer's plays originate in the British Isles or they are a European tradition. I have tried to resolve some content and recent amendments as follows:

Ireland: the term "British Isles" includes Ireland, so I have restored that link. I have also restored the source describing the different traditions in Ireland.

Latvia, re the image labelled "Meteņi mumming group Budēļi": this links to the article Meteņi, which does not mention mummering and only identifies the image as a "mask group"; and to the article Latvian masked processions, which only says the tradition is "similar to mummering-like traditions in other places". Latvia is not mentioned elsewhere in the present article, and the image does not contribute to it, and so I have removed the image.

Russia, re the Russian image labelled "mummers on holiday Koleda: mummering is not mentioned in either linkedthe article Koleda, nor in the file description of the image translated from Russian which says it is an image of carol singing. Again, Russia is not mentioned elsewhere in the present article, and the image does not contribute to it, and so I have removed the image.

I hope that is helpful. Masato.harada (talk) 11:06, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is, thank you. Although this article is much better than it was a few years ago - it used to be chock-full of unsourced pop history - there are always editors who are keen to re-insert unsourced purported links to "ancient, pre-Christian" origins, either in the British Isles or elsewhere. Scholars debunked such things decades ago. There is absolutely no known evidence that mumming as described here is of truly ancient origin. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:20, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]