Classic Christmas Stories (23 page)

by Cyril Byrne

T
HE PRACTICE OF MUMMERING at Christmas was a
custom brought over from the British Isles to Newfoundland by
the early settlers. The question of when the custom came into
general practice is unclear. Certainly as early as 1770 mention is made in
the Diary of George Cartwright then resident of Labrador of some of the
Christmas customs generally associated with mummering being practiced there. The first specific mention of mummering in Newfoundland
occurs in Rev L. A. Anspach's
A History of Newfoundland
which was published in London in 1819. In that work Anspach mentions mummering
in a context suggesting that it was of relatively recent introduction and
that its practice was resisted by the native population of the Bay. G. M.
Story suggested some scepticism about what Anspach says about the native resistance to mummering when Story wrote that Anspach may have
had some ulterior motives for saying what he did: “Anspach's desire (nat
ural, perhaps, in a man who belonged to the Anglican ‘Establishment')
to present Newfoundland to English readers as an eminently respectable
and orderly society led him to minimize the prevalence of Christmas
mumming and the period of its introduction to Conception Bay; . . .”
Story then goes on to suggest that Anspach may have been writing out of
only partial knowledge of the whole of the Bay and to have had in mind
the practice in the part of the Bay he knew best, i.e. Harbour Grace and
Carbonear. However, another ecclesiastic, Rev. Patrick Lambert the second Roman Catholic Bishop of Newfoundland in a letter written in 1807
to the Archbishop of Dublin suggests much the same state of society in
Conception Bay as the Anglican cleric Anspach. Lambert wrote that the
planters of Newfoundland i.e. the natives were fine, constant and steady
people if left on their own were it not for “the unprincipled and ignorant set of lawless wretches that come out every year from Ireland and
the west of England.” This would seem to confirm what Anspach represents and that the “lawless wretches” who arrived annually to the shores
of Newfoundland from the West Country and Ireland may indeed have
been responsible for establishing mumming as a tradition in the Conception Bay area. What that mumming practice was like in the early years of
the 19th century comes to us in a unique recollection of his boyhood in
Carbonear written by Rev. Philip Tocque in 1897. The years Tocque recalled are those circa 1825 and what he remembered about the Christmas
of that time is worth quoting in full:

When I was a boy, Christmas was a time of great rejoicing
and hilarity. It was kept up for twelve days, during which
there was ball-playing, wrestling matches and games of
various kinds. In every house was placed on the table a
decanter of rum with a very large sweet cake, baked in a
Dutch oven, or a large iron bake-pot. Those who could
afford it, in addition to the rum, had also gin, brandy and
wine placed on the table. All visitors were expected to
help themselves. Then there were the mummers—those
who went round by day and those who went round by
night. The day mummers—the men had white shirts
over their clothes, trimmed with ribbons, with fanciful
hats. Each man had a partner—a man dressed in women's clothes. Into whatever house they entered they recited their lessons, eat (sic!) and drank, had a dance, their
own fidler (sic!) playing the tunes. The night mummers
were dressed in the most grotesque manner: some with
humpbacks, cow hides and horns projecting, with hobby-horses, small bags of flour, which they used to throw
over their followers. Then there were the boy mummers,
who went round day and night. On two Christmases I
had John Bemister as a partner. He acted as the Duke of
Wellington, and I personated Oliver Cromwell.

This account is most interesting: for the first time one is presented with
an array of mumming practices—two kinds of adult mummers with a sort
of shift-work approach to the Christmas pastime and with two species
of mummers one of which, the night mummers, corresponds generally
to other later accounts of mumming in Newfoundland. There is also for
the first time in the mumming record, mention made of boy mummers
going the rounds obviously enacting a version of the mummers' play:
Philip Tocque as Oliver Cromwell and John Bemister as his partner must
be the earliest known assignment of roles in that play. This recollection
also suggest that mumming was not simply the Christmas pastime of
the “lower orders” as is so often suggested by commentators writing
a generation or so later: Tocque's father was a well-to-do Carbonear
merchant as was the father of John Bemister (John Bemister later served
as Colonial Secretary.)

Mumming obviously took on a very different tone some time after
the period recollected by Tocque, for those comments about it both
from Conception Bay and St. John's which date from approximately
1830 onwards are all characterized by both violence and a distinct
association with what is labeled “the lower orders.” Was Tocque in his old
age remembering his youth with the romantic selectivity of an old man?
Perhaps, but I would suggest no. In the period about which Rev. Tocque
was writing, Newfoundland society appears to have been much less
divided along the political/religious lines which became evident in the
1830s following the introduction of Responsible Government. Colonel
Chichester, an English army officer who visited Conception Bay in 1824,
remarked in a journal he kept of his voyage, how undivided was the state of
society in Newfoundland, especially how easily Catholics and Protestants
lived amicably together. Similar comments occur in Newfoundland
newspapers of the period. It is possible that the mumming practiced
before 1832 was an innocent and harmless Christmas pastime and one
in which all segments of society could and did take place. However, the
social circumstances after 1830 were such that mumming could not
remain an innocent, harmless pastime for the whole community.

The first account of violence associated with mumming in
Conception Bay occurs in the reports of two Harbour Grace magistrates
Thomas Danson and Philip Buckingham written in January of 1831 to
the Colonial Secretary in St. John's. In one report written on the 20th. of
January the magistrate states that “since Christmas many complaints have
been made of Assaults and Batteries, as the lower order of persons are
mostly accustomed to spend twelve days in idleness and pastime, that of
Mumming has for many years prevailed here and Carbonear particularly,
also in other parts of Conception Bay, some persons in Carbonear have
had lime or flour thrown on their clothes by such disguised persons when
going to attend Divine Service these Mummers appear in the streets, with
their faces blackened or covered, also men dressed in womens clothes,
and of the lowest order of persons. Flour etc. has also been thrown on
persons in the streets at Harbour Grace by such disguised characters,
who have received too much encouragement from respectable persons,
residing at Carbonear and Harbour Grace they not being aware of the
laws existing in England against such offences.” The letter proceeds in an
interesting manner suggesting that since the population of the district is
increasing rapidly “the custom of mumming and persons going abroad
disguised” ought not be allowed to go unpunished.

With this letter is another dated six days earlier (January 14th) setting
out a case in which on Old Christmas night, in fact at one o'clock in the
morning of the seventh of January, mummers broke into the house of
a “respectable planter” Mr. Mansel Alcock where a party, obviously an
end of Christmas one, was in progress. The mummers entered the house
armed, as the magistrates report, “with bludgeons and swabs dipped
in blubber.” The mummers then proceeded to beat James Thompson,
described as a dealer and chapman, and Henry Stowe, a master cooper.
Following this they are described as having destroyed two sets of China
Ware besides glass and earthen ware, not to mention the supper which
had been prepared. Guns were presented at the windows from outside
causing great consternation to the females at the party. The magistrates
confess that neither the perpetrators “nor those who instigated them to
commit . . . this vile outrage” had been brought to justice.

The two letters confirm a good deal of what Tocque reported from
memory about the custom of mumming when he was a boy, especially
that it had been a custom engaged in by both the well-to-do and the
“lower orders” but that the custom was becoming the preserve of “the
lower orders” almost exclusively and was becoming used by them as in the
case of the attack on the Alcock party, as an attack on the wealthier and
more privileged part of society. The lower orders whom the magistrates
refer to were, I submit, almost exclusively Irish: this is born out by the fact
that the magistrates single out Carbonear as a place where this custom
of mumming was especially strong; Carbonear had, at that time, a very
large Irish population. The Irish extraction of the mummers is of great
interest and may shed some light on the political aspects of mumming
post 1832: Irish political agitation in the home country, especially that in
the countryside, was very often carried on in circumstances where masks
and disguises were used.

One of the most vigorous supports of Catholic Emancipation in
Newfoundland before 1829 had been Henry Winton, the editor of the
Public Ledger
. However with the rise to prominence of John Kent as a
Catholic politician allied with the powerful Rev. Michael Anthony
Fleming, Catholic Bishop of St. John's (Kent was married to Johanna
Fleming, the Bishop's sister) Winton took up a political stance which
can variously be interpreted as anti-clerical, anti-Irish or anti-Catholic.
Winton's stance against the growing power of what he saw as an ignorant
Catholic oligarchy earned him the enmity of the mob. Most likely
expecting the worst from the Christmas Mummers whom Winton saw
clearly as nothing more than the bully boys of the clerical party, Winton
had the temerity to publish a letter and an editorial against the mummers
on Christmas Eve in 1833. “It is an old but senseless practice with a
certain portion of the inhabitants of this town to celebrate the Christmas
holidays, by dressing themselves up in the most ludicrous, the most
fantastic shapes and under the character of ‘mummers' parade the public
streets, carrying with them all kinds of offensive and defensive weapons.”
The letter goes on to decry the authorities' permitting the mummers to
parade, since the mummers took upon themselves “the right of insulting
all those whom they look upon as enemies.” Pointing the finger quite
clearly at Winton's political enemies the writer of the letter denounced in
advance the violence unleashed against Winton on Christmas night. “We
have all, ” the letter continued, “reason enough to perceive the excitement
under which a certain party or faction, is now at work, a party who only
wait (sic!) an excuse (and what better excuse for them than this meeting
of mummers), to inflict on their adversaries the produce of their evil
passion.” The letter signed “Lover of Peace” was followed by some editorial
comment which was more restrained than the letter by “Lover of Peace.”
In the commentary, Winton, wearing his editorial hat, states that he is not
opposed to mummering as such which he called “innocent amusement”
but to the political purposes imposed upon it. It is interesting that in the
same issue of the paper is a very strong attack on the political influence
of the Catholic priesthood upon the “lower orders” who were the very
persons whose custom of mumming was condemned on the same page.
On Christmas Night the troops had to be called to restore order after
Winton's house had been burnt by the mummers. Thereafter some
exchanges went on between Winton in the
Ledger
and Valentine Nugent
the Catholic editor of the
Patriot
about whether military force had been
called for in the circumstances.

The list of assaults upon members of the public by mummers, especially
in St. John's during the period between 1840 and the ultimate banning
of the custom by the legislature in 1861 is not large but it is significant.
In 1842 a well-to-do member of the community Pascoe Carter was
assaulted by a mummer James Walsh in St. John's. The correspondence
about the incident shows that although Walsh was arrested he was very
quickly released with the assent of the man he had assaulted, Pascoe
Carter. Walsh is reported to “have learned his lesson” and the incident
was seemingly accepted as an accidental event in a customary celebration
which was treated with a great deal of toleration by the establishment.

However people like Winton of the
Ledger
who saw the outrages
of the Christmas mummers in a darker light continued to cry out
against the continued toleration of the custom. In 1853 he fired a
broadside against the mummers whom he said “in all sorts of grotesque
dresses . . . parade, and almost . . . take possession of the streets of this
town.” This editorial was reprinted in another St. John's newspaper the
Newfoundland Express
. It is clear that these editors saw the behaviour of
the mummers as controlled by political agents and their acts of violence
as clearly political acts. In 1855 Responsible Government was granted to
Newfoundland and the first two governments after that event: those of
Little and Kent were seen as clerically dominated Catholic governments
and the politics of the period between 1855 and the election of 1861
were years of a good deal of factionalism and occasional violence. It was
only natural that, in the context of Newfoundland, these disturbances
would be reflected in the mumming. Possibly in anticipation of expected
violence during Christmas of 1860 the local magistrates had posters put
up in St. John's stating that anyone appearing on the streets of the town
“masked as fools” would be arrested and prosecuted. Those few who
ventured out on Christmas night are reported as having been arrested.
However, in typical Newfoundland fashion where persistence is nine
tenths of the law, the fools continued to come out in clear defiance of the
law and, apparently got away with it.