The Past and Present Behavior of Mummers:
What the Reinvention of a Traditional Ritual
in Newfoundland Tells Us about Worldwide
Changes in Human Social Relationships
11:00 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: free

Folklorists tell us that prior to the 1960s the cold nights around the start of the new year would find groups of disguised figures walking the streets of the small fishing communities along the coast of Newfoundland. These disguised figures, often carrying sticks and sometimes frightening fur-covered “hobby horses” complete with clopping jaws lined with “teeth” of nails, would enter a house and engage in what would appear to an outside observer as aggressive and threatening behavior. An outside observer, however, would have realized that they had misinterpreted the behavior involved in this traditional ritual known as “mummering” when the residents of the house responded, not with fear, but with jovial laughter as they calmly attempted to determine the identity of the masked figures. A mid-winter visitor to Newfoundland today might see similarly disguised people, but they would be as likely to see them in a public establishment as an individual’s private home. Further, the jovial atmosphere of the event would remain, but behavior appearing to threaten violence would be diminished to only the slightest hints of mischief or absent altogether. Although much of this change can be traced to a single popular song that reinvented the tradition of mummering in 1983, Craig Palmer suggests that the change in the basic structure of the ritual reflects a more fundamental change in the social environment in which the ritual takes place. The foremost aspect of this change is a declining familiarity and trust concerning the people who might be in one’s social environment. Far from being a unique event, the changing social environment of Newfoundland is a microcosm of a change taking place throughout the world.

Craig T. Palmer is an associate professor of cultural anthropology and director of graduate studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Arizona State University in 1988. His research focuses on kinship, religion, ritual, cooperation, migration, sports and the ecological adaptations of fishing communities to their environment. His experience working in the commercial lobster fishery of Maine for five years during the 1980s led to his anthropological fieldwork in fishing communities on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Canada. This research started in 1990 and initially focused on the social consequences of the collapse of the cod stocks that had been the primary economic resource in the area for centuries. More recently his research has followed the residents of Newfoundland as the collapse of the fishery has caused them to have to migrate to western Canada in order to find jobs in the oil industry of northern Alberta. His current research focuses on how these individuals maintain many of their Newfoundland traditions and use these to create networks of social relationships with other Newfoundlanders to help meet the many challenges faced in the new environment of western Canada.