Mummer's Parades Cure Winter Blues
New Year's Day Rocks with String Bands, Amazing Costumes and Comics
Imported from Merrie Olde England, Mummers' antics were once reviled. Today, mumming is reborn as the visually extravagant January First Philadelphia Mummers Parade.
In Tudor times in England, "the bleak midwinter” was a fact of life, and not just the title of a best-loved Christmas carol penned by Christina Rosetti. Then, when the midwinter was indeed bleak (with food stores dwindling) and dark (before electricity, the long nights in that northern clime must have been truly burdensome), groups of masked men calling themselves mummers went abroad in the land. The masked men posed a problem; revelers—for that’s what they claimed to be—made the constabulary nervous about the potential for crime. In 1405, a municipal order forbade mumming on the streets of London. Bristol and Chester followed suit. Finally an Act of Parliament outlawed the practice, according to Ronald Hutton in his 1996 book, Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain.
Mummers Contribute to Church Funds
Still, in the remote counties of the southwest, mummers carried on. In the country parishes in Devon and Somerset, mummers’ associations made large and welcome contributions to local church coffers. Throughout the 18th century, groups of mummers continued to pay visits to large landholders, performing for money and food, Hutton notes.
Eventually, this turned into a play. Typically, says Hutton, a Mummer’s Play opened with a performer asking for a room in return for a fine performance. Two players appear boasting about their accomplishments, and then begin to fight. One is wounded, a doctor appears and revives the injured man, and minor characters—dancers, singers, jugglers—appear and ask the assembled crowd for money.
Early Colonies Adopt Mumming
While the early colonies of the United States were at least as anti-revelry as Tudor England, mumming nonetheless arrived with the early immigrants. Today, small towns and counties around the U.S. still hold Mummer’s Parades on the traditional date, January 1. But the best and the biggest is held in Philadelphia. Free to all who can line the streets, the parade is a daylong festival of tomfoolery, music, and fantastic costumes.
Descriptions of early Mummer’s Parades in Philadelphia sound suspiciously like descriptions of Mardi Gras festivities in today’s New Orleans. Dennis Clark, in his book The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience, notes that “generally uninhibited frolic” was very much a part of the parades as practiced in various quarters of the city, especially South Philadelphia, a heavily Irish area." All around the city, however, mummer’s parades were a welcome addition to bleak midwinter. Clark notes that, “Such displays were compatible with the Irish propensity for enjoyment. The folksy pantomime, the jingling music, and the ardent defiance of freezing winter weather made the Mummers famous, and the Irish were an eager part of the tradition.”
String Bands Debut Fancy Costumes and New Music
In 1901, the City of Philadelphia decided to take over the running of a single, enormous parade;t he city runs it still, with sponsorship from major corporations. Today, more than 10,000 marchers participate in the categories of Comic, Fancies and String Bands. Fancy costumes for the bands—new ones each year for each new theme—can cost as much a $30,000 for an average-sized band. The bands, which perform elsewhere during the year to raise funds, debut their new costumes and music in the New Year’s Day parade.
The 2008 parade is sponsored by Southwest Airlines, and is free to those standing along the parade route. Limited seating in front of the City Hall judge’s stand is available. An add-on, the Philadelphia Mummers Show of Shows, is held at Boardwalk Hall at noon and 5 p.m. with tickets sold in advance.
Sources:
Clark, Dennis. (1973) The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Hutton, Ronald. (1996) Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mummers.com website
Philadelphia City government website.
