These are Christians:
These are not:
Now which seems more “pagan” to you? Or, more importantly – which ritual would you rather attend?
A comparison
08/25/2011 by thehouseofvines
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged christianity, paganism, religious practice | 27 Comments
27 Responses
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Well, my answer should be obvious. What we could use is someone doing an analysis of what goes on in the more “Carnival” type festivals and figuring out how to recover those activities in areas (like the US, say) where they are not common at this time. Excerpts from a 2 minute, context-free video aren’t enough to know what’s going on there. What’s going on in the rest of the city, for instance? Is that part of a parade route, or is it all just in one city square? And so on.
Well, it would be difficult to build, from scratch, a carnival type mumming tradition that actually took place in, and incorporated, a whole city here, it just wouldn’t make sense to most people. But you *could* gather together enough people to create the costumes and build rituals around them and go out somewhere – city or forest – and do the mumming without explanation to the larger community…we’ve done it, and if I could find enough willing participants (like the number of people at that Wiccan ritual above), I’d be happy to do it on a much larger scale. There is certainly enough material out there on traditional mumming customs from many different countries to create a similar tradition for oneself. But unfortunately, the aspects that require participation from the larger society would be almost impossible to carry out. Still that’s no excuse for the anemic sorts of rituals one sees from many pagans these days.
Exactly! There’s already an abundant literature on the subject – not to mention scores of videos from all over Europe and Asia – detailing this stuff, so if there was interest it would be easy enough to incorporate. It just seems that most pagans aren’t aware or inclined to engage in this type of worship.
There is an abundant literature on the subject – from the point of view of folklorists who don’t have any interest other than an antiquarian, or at best scholarly, sort. What I’m saying that we need is a book, or several books really, which describe all of the concepts from the point of view of someone who is intending a practical application of the folklore.
For instance, I’ve been considering setting up a variation of Perchtenlauf on an annual basis in Seattle. I have plenty of pagan and artist friends who, I think, would be interested in participating. What I don’t know is, do I need a permit? What are the practical concerns of building such costumes? And so on. I can, of course, find the answers to these questions by looking around and doing extensive research in a variety of areas, but it would be nice to have just one book to go to that gave those answers, or at least gave the direction to look for some of them. Heck, it would be nice to know if there are questions that I haven’t thought to ask!
While that’s true for the majority of the literature, not everything is written strictly from a scholarly / anthropological viewpoint. Noted Pagan author Chas Clifton, for instance, has a great book on the ritual use of masks and costumes called Sacred Mask Sacred Dance that I believe covers some of the practical concerns you raised. (I read it when it first came out back in 1997 so I’m not 100% certain what it contains anymore, but has left a fairly positive impression with me.) For the rest you might want to contact some of the larger mumming/masqueing troops that we’ve got here. For instance there are a number of them up in Portland that put on big events around May Day and other seasonally appropriate times. One year they even did a rendition of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance – though I have no idea if that is a regular feature of their May Day celebrations, as it was Dver who had the pleasure of attending. I’m sure that they would be more than willing to answer your questions and offer some tips as well. Also, it might be worth contacting organizers of Mardis Gras and similar parades, as I’m sure they’re aware of all the legal issues involved.
Thank you. And now, for the edification of others, someone should write all of that into a book – that would encourage such rites, especially among those pagans who hadn’t even thought of the idea. They are given Buckland’s Big Blue Book, which has its more somber, solitary-friendly rituals, and similar books, but are given no (or few) alternatives.
I am in complete agreement. To be perfectly honest I hadn’t even considered some of the issues you raised because there’s only ever been a handful of us in Eugene interested in this kind of thing and the city is so freak-friendly that legality and zoning, etc. just hadn’t really come up. So yeah, I think there absolutely should be such a book out there covering all the technical and legal issues. Hell, for all I know it could already exist. Most of the research I’ve done has focused on such traditions in Greece in Italy or is stuff I’ve gleaned from Dver who is interested in the German and English traditions. So there may very well be a hands-on primer out there that I am completely unaware of – and if you find one or write one, let me know!
The groups in Portland are Morris dancers, not really mumming groups per se. They do put on a big event every May Day that involves the Horn Dance, up in the Rose Garden, for which I’m sure they need some sort of permit, considering the location and number of attendees. Though at least it shows that in a bigger, fairly artsy city, there is enough interest to warrant a big show like that. The atmosphere was also such that while most were probably there because of the music, dancing, and tie to old traditions, one could experience it as a spiritual thing easily, and I’m pretty sure some were pagans.
Woops. Big difference between Morris dancing and mumming.
Also, it’s really exciting to hear that someone else is interested in doing a variation on Perchtenlauf and I wish you the absolute best of luck in getting something started.
Great idea! And good questions. I have often been frustrated by the lack of information on how to make some of the more elaborate costumes – although I finally found a great how-to on making a Mari Llwyd type horse-skull effigy. I did also get a book on Alpine mumming customs from Germany – but will have to learn enough German to read the text before I can tell if it’s practically useful. I wonder if there might be more resources in the languages of countries where these things are still practiced – then again, it may all be passed down orally still.
As for legal questions like permits – I would guess that depends on how big you want it. No one can stop you from taking a few people in costume down the sidewalk, or down a footpath, but if you had so many that you’d want to use the street, or if you were extremely loud at night, there might be regulations involved. Then again, I worry that such a display might become only that – something for the locals to gawk at, but without the traditions in place in the community, it wouldn’t mean much to them. I would personally prefer to do it somewhere a bit more private, for the benefit of the participants rather than an audience (we usually go down footpaths through parks which are fairly desolate at night). Obviously, these practices originated in communal settings, but without the shared cultural context, I don’t know if it would work today. If you do ever set anything up, please let me know!
You’re right though, a book might be warranted. Awhile back Llwellyn even published a book (Make Merry in Step and Song) that had mummers plays and folk songs, all part of the same canon of tradition – maybe that shows a renewed interest?
Exactly so, and that was my own hope. I was interested in the practical considerations involved, as I listed in another comment.
I don’t think it’s necessary for the whole city to participate for a group or even a couple of individuals to do mumming or engage in carnivalesque worship. Indeed my partner and I perform masked revelry and it’s often just the two of us. Clearly that has a very different energy and effect than if you’ve got a whole throng participating – but it’s certainly not impossible to do, regardless of one’s circumstances.
Also, I didn’t really think of the idea of the whole city participating. I was more thinking of the context in which those images from the video are placed. Is this occurring during working hours, or on a day off? Are there other, similar parades going on? And so on.
Ah, gotcha. Online communication is so perilous and fraught with easy misunderstanding. I apologize for not reading your comment correctly. As far as timing and other things go, alas, I’m not sure. However there are a bunch of other videos up on YouTube dealing with the Carnival traditions in Sardinia and the Maimone/Mamutzone figures (which are thought to derive from earlier Bacchic mumming) – for instance, here’s an extended clip – so perhaps you’ll get a better sense of time and setting from those.
You can, btw, get some of the information you’re looking for by delving into one particular tradition, especially one that still exists. For instance, if you look up only Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, you will find quite detailed information for what they do – I believe in their case, it is always a Monday, it is in one specific village, they do one main performance in the square and then travel from place to place (maybe pub to pub?) doing smaller routines throughout the day. There are hundreds of specific mumming traditions all over Europe, but if you isolate one or another you may be able to get at more detailed information, and then compare between them. (Though in the end, you’ll still have to adapt quite a bit to account for the difference in cultural context here.)
It’s apples and oranges. It boils down to: “What kind of ritual do you like better?” And not everybody is going to chose the big, public parade kind of ritual. I’m in the middle – I like public revelry, but I like quiet, somber rituals, too.
Oh, agreed. I have a fondness for simple and somber rites as well. It just seems that a lot of pagans aren’t aware that there’s even an alternative to standing around reciting bad poetry – and that’s a real shame.
It just seems that a lot of pagans aren’t aware that there’s even an alternative to standing around
I think that part of the problem might be that a lot of people come from a religion where worship services are largely composed of sitting and listening to one person talk. And – at festivals, at least – I think a lot of the more ecstatic worship takes place after the formal ritual, dancing ’round the fire. :)
I think you hit the nail on the head. So much of the bad ritual we see in Paganism is a direct result of a Protestant or modernist Catholic upbringing, and it can be really difficult for people to break out of that mould. (Which is a little ironic since so much of contemporary Paganism seems to be a rebellion/rejection of precisely these elements of Christianity.) But I think you’re right that ecstatic celebration is also present in the dancing and fire – I just wish that was less of an afterthought and more the point of the worship. But hey, vive la différence.
I just wish that was less of an afterthought and more the point of the worship.
Well, who knows where the culture will be in 5 or 10 years time? After all, we have folks leading by example (like you and your partner); sometimes, all that’s required is a little inspiration.
It’s true. Sometimes merely putting out the idea that such things are possible can galvanize others.
That was my feeling as well. It’s why I like looking at videos like the carnival one, and videos of traditional Nubian weddings. It gives me an idea of what *could* be. especially after having experienced my share of boring Protestant weddings, with the partying afterwards, as is “proper”. I was told long ago that Kemetic religion comes from buoyant, joyful roots.
I’m not really familiar with Nubian weddings … are there any decent videos available?
I agree 100% about the buoyant, joyful roots of Kemeticism – though, really, the same could be said of almost any traditional polytheist faith.
For me, the difference in those two isn’t that one is big and public and the other small and private, but that one is theatrical, powerful, and gets at the roots of some of the very real spiritual processes that are taking place at that time of year, viscerally connecting the participants to it, whereas the other could be any ritual at any time of year and the participants barely look engaged, relying more on their little sheets of paper than a sense of the spirits abroad and powers moving through them. There’s definitely a place for small, private, quiet ritual, but that’s not the kind of ritual that drives the dark away. I think a lot of pagans have lost touch with what makes a ritual powerful enough to DO something.
That’s an important distinction to make.
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