Hockey and Mummers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 27, 2009
Dr. Chad Stebbins

(417) 626-9736
         
JOPLIN, MO (SNS) – Dr. Craig T. Palmer, associate professor of cultural anthropology and director of graduate studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, will deliver two lectures at Missouri Southern State University on Thursday, Sept. 3.

 

Both presentations are free and open to the public.

 

* “The Cultural Anthropology of Canada: As Viewed Through the Lens of Ice Hockey”  will be presented at 9:30 a.m. in Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall at Missouri Southern State University.

 

What does the most famous speech in Canadian history, the largest quick service restaurant chain in Canada, the only event resembling a race riot in Canada during the second half of the 20th century, and the song sent to a soldier in Afghanistan on Canada Day to make him know he was not forgotten by those at home have in common? The answer to this question is ice hockey!

Although the role of ice hockey in Canadian society and culture is usually dismissed by social scientists as just a stereotype, and a superficial stereotype at that,  Dr. Palmer suggests that viewing Canada through the lens of ice hockey provides insights into many important (and trivial) aspects of Canadian culture and society.

 

* "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 will be presented at 11:00 a.m. the same morning in Corley Auditorium.

 

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. . Far from being a unique event, the changing social environment of Newfoundland is a microcosm of a change taking place throughout the world.

Dr. Palmer 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.

 

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