Masks and Mummers in the Nordic Countries.
A Synchronic, Diachronic and Comparative Investigation in Folklore and
Related Disciplines
Terry Gunnell
MAIN PROJECT DESCRIPTION
|
I: The Project: The final aim of this project is to produce a book
(and related data-base) containing the first overall survey of Scandinavian
disguise, or mumming, traditions that has ever been carried out. We believe
that this work will provide a necessary theoretical and practical basis for
all future research into this much neglected field, not only in Scandinavia,
but also the rest of the world. Simultaneously, the work will almost
certainly prove to be of great value to theorists, practitioners and
historians of drama who in recent years have been investigating the roots of
drama as a psychological, social and anthropological phenomenon. We believe
that this study will demonstrate for once and for all exactly how
wide-ranging and socially important the dramatic impulse is, and has always
been for the people of the Scandinavian countries, and underline the fact
that when we are looking for the origins of drama in Scandinavia, and indeed
northern Europe as a whole, we should not always look outside our own
national boundaries.
II: Definitions: 1. When referring to drama, it should be stressed that we are not using the commonly
misunderstood idea of a play performed in costume on a stage (an idea that
tends to come from literary scholars), but the idea of drama understood by
performers, directors, folklorists and anthropologists of a performer being
“engaged in the momentary creation of an alternative world (or a section of
it) within this one, to the extent
that what he/she is acting is not him-/herself but someone or something else
that ‘belongs’ to a different time and/or place. This ‘illusion’ of double
reality creates its own costume and setting in the minds of both the
performer and beholder. It is in these features, the imposition of
‘make-believe’, the creation of the living double reality, and in the ‘act’
itself that the essence of drama is to be found” (Gunnell 1995, 12). 2. By disguising,
or “mumming”[1] traditions,
also often referred to as “house visiting traditions”, we mean the range of
seasonal traditions that have taken place all over Scandinavia over many
centuries, whereby people disguise themselves in one way or another, and
visit homes (or other places where people are gathered), singly or in groups.
They often disguise their voices, as well as their appearances, and request
entrance, whereupon they proceed to behave in a particular way (sing, dance,
perform a small play), and then often receive some form of gift before
departing (often in a formally decided fashion). In Scandinavia, we are
therefore referring to traditions like those related to the julebukk/ julegeit, Lucia, Lusse, Knut or Nuutti, stjärnespel, and Staffan
at Christmas, and at other times, figures like those related to St Martin’s
and St Catherine's Mass (Estonia), Lent (Fastlavn, Shrove Tuesday, and Ash
Wednesday), Easter (the Swedish Easter witch tradition), Valborgsspringandet (from Western Finland for instance), and more
recently Halloween (which is spreading fast all over Scandinavia). Closely
related to these are the mock-wedding traditions (many of which are now dying
out), such as the Maj- or Pingstbrud and those related to the jonsokbryllup in western Norway, and
the earlier Maigreve and gadebasse traditions of Denmark and
southern Sweden, as well as the now extinct Icelandic vikivaki dance games).
Less well-known or investigated, but of equal importance for an overall study
of this subject are the disguised bear dance ceremonies of the Finno-Ugrian
peoples (which have very ancient roots), and the much more recent traditions
related to initiation and graduation from schools in Scandinavia. (In
Reykjavík, Iceland, students planning to graduate in the coming exams
disguise themselves and visit classes - and shops - as well as putting on a
performance for the whole school. The parallels to the Christmas mumming
traditions are clear, yet intriguing because they appear to be wholly
coincidental.) The relationship to the dramatic phenomenon
is not only seen in the element of costume and performance, but also the
creation of an acting space, and the temporary introduction into the room of
a certain atmosphere of “play” (in the Huizinga sense) or “sacred time” (in
the Eliade sense), whereby the visitors are treated with a certain “respect”
and daily rules are altered. Close parallels can be seen here to van Gennep’s
ideas of temporary dynamism granted to figures in the transitional, liminal
state associated with human or seasonal rites of passage. The traditions in
question are essentially social, rather than individual, and are closely
related to particular social festivals, and times of festivity. For this
reason, many of them tend to have longevity, especially when related to the
earlier farming society. They should not easily be dismissed lightly as
fashionable “fads” easily adopted from abroad. At the same time, however,
people move, times change, and new models of behaviour arise. New performers
add new emphases. It can never be taken for granted that all traditions have
deep roots in the past. In short, all of the various factors need
consideration, ranging from historical records, to statistics, human records,
international distribution, outside influences, and examination of social
circumstances, and resources. Such an overall study has never yet been
carried out into these traditions. III: Scholarship in
the Past As has been stated above, there has never yet been any
form of overall study of Scandinavian disguise traditions, something that has
helped foster the idea (especially among English-speaking academics) that
‘drama’ and dramatic traditions must have been imported to Scandinavia from
Germany, France or England, through the church, foreign traders, and the
Latin schools. While this certainly applies to some traditions, there are
obvious weaknesses in this Darwinistic approach, which is indirectly based on
the inherently mistaken idea that culture follows the development of
historical written records; the idea that since there are more, or earlier
records of a tradition in one country, then the tradition in question must
have begun there. This is an idea reflected in most
of the early investigations of Scandinavian disguise traditions around the
turn of the last century, which tend to follow on from the ideas of the Grimm
brothers, Mannhardt and Frazer, all of whom were essentially interested in
finding ancient Germanic (or Classical) roots to present day traditions,
thereby aiming to reconstruct ancient religious rituals related to the
fertility of the soil. The same ideas, of course are seen in the work of the
Cambridge anthropologists like Jane Harrison, Gilbert Murray, and Francis
Cornford who were examining the origins of Greek drama. Influences from these
quarters are clearly apparent in the discussions of costumed traditions
carried out by scholars in the first two decades of the twentieth century,
like Nilsson, Celander, Troels-Lund and H.F. Feilberg who (at least
initially) dealt with local dramatic customs as part of wider ranging studies
of Christmas traditions in Sweden and Denmark, and then Magnus Olsen, Henrik
Schück, Axel Olrik and Bertha Phillpotts who took these traditions up as part
of their investigations into the background of Old Nordic religion and literature.
All of the above are primarily concerned with examining roots, and linking
most traditions to ancient rituals. An exception is the slightly more
objective publication of Swedish primary material concerning Christmas
traditions by Nils Keyland in Julbröd,
julbockar och Staffanssäng in 1919. In the following years, following
these impulses, there was a great increase in the collection of material
concerning native costumed traditions, and related to this a growth in the
output of individual studies. Some followed on from the ideas of the scholars
mentioned above, while others increasingly adopted the more purely functional
ideas of von Sydow. Key studies from this period are the early studies
carried out by Nils Lid (Jolesveinar og
vegetasjonsguddom and Jolesveinar
og grøderiksdomsguder), and then Hilding Celander’s Stjärnegossar, deres visor och julspel and Lily Weiser-Aall’s Julenissen och julegeita i Norge, both
published in the nineteen fifties. Each of these works, while strongly
influenced by the theoretical fashions surrounding their origin, contains a
wealth of material that had previously never seen the light of day. The problem was that owing to the
earlier associations with the outmoded myth/ritual theories of Mannhardt,
Frazer and the Cambridge Anthropologists (and of course the uncomfortable
suggestions of pan- Germanic traditions) that seemed to permeate studies of
Scandinavian disguise traditions, the question of examining this subject
seems to have fallen out of favour since the war. While a number of key works
on folk drama in England, Ireland and Newfoundland have been published (by
Helm, Brody, Alford, Cawte, Gailey, Halpert and Story), the Scandinavian
output has been limited to a few often very valuable studies of individual
traditions in the various different countries of Scandinavia (most of which
have taken the form of journal articles). One can mention here in
particular Carsten Bregenhöj’s Helligtrekongerløb
på Agersø (1974), which raised the study of Scandinavian disguised traditions
to a new plane by placing them in an essentially social context,
concentrating on their nature and function, while retaining awareness of the
age of their origins, and their relationship to other similar traditions
throughout Scandinavia. Carsten has since gone on to carefully document on
film and via interview a range of other related traditions all over
Scandinavia, and with work experience in both Denmark and Finland, and
contacts in Norway, Sweden and Estonia, probably has the greatest knowledge of
the nature of living Scandinavian traditions. Two other important studies
involving careful examinations of all available archive material from the
viewpoints of origin, function and social importance are Christine Eike’s
“Oskoreia og ekstaseriter” (1980), which examines the possible relationship
between the oskoeria (wild ride) traditions in Norway, and those related to
Staffan and the julebukke, and their possible associations with an early
system of unofficial social punishment and reward by local male groups; and
John Granlund’s extensive article on “Pingstbrud och lekröllop i Sverige”
(1970). Recently other small studies have been carried out into Halloween
traditions in various countries, and school leaving traditions (see for
example Wyller, Lilja, and Saarikoski), but no overall, up-to-date study of
Scandinavian traditions has ever been carried out. The scholars involved in
these works have never met to discuss their ideas. A mountain of archive
material is lying untouched in all the various countries, and other new
traditions are going undocumented and unanalysed. IV: The Development of the
Present Project The idea for the present project
has its roots in Terry Gunnell’s doctoral thesis, published in 1995 as The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia.
This work centred around a reevaluation of the ideas of Bertha Phillpotts and
others about the question of whether any form of drama existed in Scandinavia
prior to the advent of medieval liturgical drama, and whether such traditions
might help to explain the obviously dramatic nature of some of the Eddic
poems (proved by marginal markings in the manuscripts, and their demands they
make on any oral performer). As part of its investigation, the book involved
a detailed and objective overview of all the material available on disguise
traditions in Scandinavia, emphasis being placed on the traditions of the julebukk, Halm-Staffan, Lusse,
and the jonsokbryllup, all of which
are seen as being (in essense) old and deeply rooted in Scandinavian
tradition, not least because they are also found in the north Atlantic
Islands, in records in some cases going back as far as the thirteenth century
(related to the Icelandic, Færoese and Shetland Grýla tradition). The book
thus contained the first ever general overview in English of Scandinavian
costumed traditions from Reykjavík to Estonia, with a detailed accompanying
bibliography, and has received a great deal of positive attention. The
main points of The Origins of Drama in
Scandinavia, however, was not to give a complete review of the
traditions, but rather provide a background for the discussion of the Eddic
poems. It was obvious from the work on the book that there was a great deal
left to do, and exactly how much was lacking. What was needed first of all
was some pulling together of resources, and meetings of the experts in the
subject. Therefore, when Terry Gunnell took over from Prof. Jón Hnefill
Aðalsteinsson as head of Folkloristics in Iceland, he contacted Carsten
Bregenhöj (now archivist of the East Bothian Archive in Vaasa), and raised
the question of cooperation on towards the assembly of a joint project
whereby all the available material on Scandinavian disguise traditions would
be assembled in one place, and a book published on the results. An
application was made for a NOS-H Grant for Preparatory Work for a Project in
February 1999. The grant was then awarded in June 1999. The first meeting
took place in Helsinki and Tartu, Estonia in November 1999. A further meeting
will take place in March 2000, and Terry Gunnell will be visiting the
Shetland Islands to meet archivists there and carry out related research in
June 2000. Alongside
the preparatory meetings held in Helsinki between Terry and Carsten, other
meetings took place with the Professors Satu Apo and Lauri Harvilahti in
Folkloristics at the University of Helsinki, with Urpo Vento of the Finnish
Literature Society (who expressed great interest in representing the Finnish
side of the project), with Professor Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhöj of the
University of Turku, and with researcher Susanne Österlund and archivists
Anne Bergman and Carola Ekrem of the Swedish Literature Society. Terry and
Carsten then travelled to Tartu where contacts were made with Prof. Mare
Koiva (and later researcher Ülo Tedre in Tallinn) both from the Estonian
Literature Society, alongside practical fieldwork, which demonstrated
effectively that everybody was thinking along the same lines. Other meetings
also took place during the summer and autumn of 1999. Terry discussed the
project with Prof. Reimund Kvideland in Bergen (currently working on the julebukke songs); with Prof. Seamus
O’Cathain in Dublin (presently working on the Irish Strawboy traditions), and
Bengt af Klintberg from Stockholm, who has a wealth of material on Swedish
traditions that he is ready to make available to us for our project. Carsten
spoke with Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, Professor of Folkloristics at Åbo Akamedi, and
Curator Inge Adriansen, Epiphany mumming specialist at the Museum of
Sönderborg Castle. All of the above showed particular interest in the
project, stressing its use and importance, as well as expressing willingness
to help as well as take part in any eventual conference. Contacts
were then made with all the other potential members of the project, and at
Christmas, Carsten assembled a new questionairre on present day traditions
which has already been sent out to a number of newspapers in Norway and
Sweden (see Appendix A). Our plan
is that the same questionairre will be sent out by the national folkloristic
archives of all of the involved countries (including Estonia, the Faroes and
Shetland), thus allowing direct comparison, and a data-base compilation of
material from all over Scandinavia (available to all on the internet) and the
creation of valid distribution maps. The Icelandic Ethnological Archive, and
the Norsk Etnologisk Gransking (NEG) have already agreed to carry this out.
Discussions are taking place with the other archives. One
of the most exciting (and innovative) aspects of this project is related to
the numerous different viewpoints that the various participants will be
bringing to bear on the material. All have been involved with folk
traditions, but each will have a different national experience that they have
personal association with, and different backgrounds of study. To give
particular examples, Carsten Bregenhöj studied in Denmark, and has
concentrated on the social functions and behaviour in these traditions; Terry
Gunnell initially studied Drama and Theatre Arts (and later Icelandic Studies),
and is particularly interested in the element of the oral performance itself
(and the roles of performer and audience); Christine Eike studied in Vienna,
and with Lily Weiser-Aall, and has a background in the Austrian theoretical
approach; Susanne Österlund has recently been carrying out research into
English mumming, and has experience of recent approaches there; and Hanne Pico Larsen
will be working directly with the people who introduced the sociological
approach to mumming activities in St. John’s, In short, the contacts have now been
made from Estonia to Copenhagen to Reykjavík, and the interest is clearly
there. The next step is to actually bring the project to fruition. V: The Units of the Project It is evident that the first
thing that needs to be done is create a coordinated and standardised factual
survey of the history, nature and distribution of the various disguise
traditions in each of the Scandinavian countries (and Estonia), past and
present, including lists of the names used in each area, the various datings
when the traditions take place, complete bibliographies of all relevant
available material (written and on film) and details concerning costumes and
masks in museums etc. Standardised, up to date questionairres concerning
present day traditions will also be sent out in all of the countries
involved, enabling us to put together standardised distribution maps, and
compile an accessible database of material which can be put on the web. At
the same time, it is necessary, and useful for students and scholars of
folkloristics and other disciplines to see examples of how such traditions
can be analysed on the basis of modern theoretical approaches (many of which
have never been applied to this material previously). One can mention not
only the social and functional approach demonstrated by Carsten’s book
mentioned above and that of Halpert and Story’s Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland, but also the ideas of Richard
Schechner on space and performer in ritual and performance (e.g. Performance Theory 1977), Eugenio
Barba on the semiotics of performance (e.g. The Secret Art of the Performer, 1991), Victor Turner’s
anthropological approach (e.g. From
Ritual to Theatre, 1982), and of course Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas
concerning the Carnival spirit (Rabelais
and his World, 1984). The project has been set up in such
a way that each country has a key representative who has previously been
involved in research into costumed traditions. Unless otherwise stated, these
scholars, most of whom are working with folkloristic institutions at the
present time, will arrange, and oversee the work of compiling material for
the national surveys (which will be carried out by research students interested
in the field who are either engaged in MA studies, or have completed them).
As the application shows, we have applied for work grants for each of these
research students, Hanne Pico Larsen (3 months), Ane Ohrvik (6 months), Eva
Knuts (6 months), Susanne Österlund (6 months) and Maris Müürsep (12 months)
to enable them to spend time working solely on compiling the survey (or, as
in the case of Ane Ohrvik from Norway, to work on a particular project
relating to the "stjernegutt" tradition in Grimstad). In addition
to overseeing this work, the main representatives will be working on
individual projects related to particular traditions. Terry Gunnell will be
working on the Icelandic disguise traditions concerning initiation and
graduation from the menntaskólar (gymnas)
- as well as compiling a survey of North Atlantic traditions; Carsten
Bregenhöj will approach the questions of host-group repartee in the masking
tradition on Agersö, Denmark, the changing elements in the Ostrobothnian
Christmas mumming, and the links between early mumming and Old Norse rulings
on brewing; Christine Eike (in addition to working on an Norwegian overall
survey) will examine Norwegian "russe" traditions as modern forms
of rites of passage; Lise Høyrup (the Danish representative, working with
Carsten, for who we have applied for a three month grant to concentrate on
the project) will be doing a modern analysis of Danish Fastlavn traditions; and Fredrik Skott (while overseeing the
review of Sweden traditions) will be dealing with the relatively untouched
area of the Swedish "Easter witches" (påskkäringen/
påskgubben);
Urpo Vento and Ülo Tedre, both highly respected experts in the fields of
Finnish and Estonian mumming will continue their work on both general surveys
as well as collecting new information on present day traditions. (With regard
to the work Ülo Tedre, for which we are applying for a special grant, it
cannot be stressed enough that in the cultural maelstrom of the last 1000
years, It should also be noted that Kristín
Einarsdóttir, a mature prospective MA student in Folkloristics at the VI: The Plan The
plan is to hold three meetings (each of which will be assocaited with field
work of some kind) and then a conference in Finland in 2002. The first meeting
(just the main representatives from each country, although it is evident that
Ülo Tedre will also need an interpreter) will take place in Agersö, Denmark
between 5th and 7th January 2001 (at the time of the Helligtrekongerløb). The second (for all
representatives) will take place in Lofthus, Hardanger, in Norway between
23nd and 25th June 2001 (the time of the jonsokbryllup
there). Both of these
meetings will primarily involve reports on the work being carried out, and
discussion of standardisation of results, map construction and so on. The third meeting
(for all project participants) will then take place on Åland, in January 2001
at the time of the tjugondag
traditions that take place there. This meeting will be primarily directed
towards preparation of the conference. The final
confererence/ seminar where results will be announced and discussed, along
with the reading of various papers by partipants will then take place in
Åbo/Turku, Finland in August 2002. As will be seen in the budget, we have
also applied for travel grants for Reimund Kvideland (Norway), Bengt af
Klintberg (Sweden), Agnete Lilja (Sweden), Seamus O’Cathain, Mare Koiva
(Estonia) and one folklorist from Newfoundland (hopefully one of the authors
of the ground-breaking Christmas
Mumming in Newfoundland: for present professors Gerald Thomas, Paul Smith
or Martin Lovelace) who will be able to inform us about traditions in
northern Canada (especially valid as comparative material to that found in
Iceland, which must also have been taken across the sea). It is obvious that
these respected scholars (who unfortunately cannot take part in the project
itself for one reason or another) will add valuable extra dimensions to the conference,
and bring a wealth of additional knowledge and experience to bear on the
subject. As has been mentioned above, a further travel grant has been applied
for (for the final meeting) for an Icelandic MA student, Kristín
Einarsdóttir, who will hopefully be writing an MA thesis at the University of
Iceland on Icelandic “Ash Wednesday” mumming traditions under Terry Gunnell’s
supervision during the period in question. The material from the
conference will then be assembled for a book edited by Terry Gunnell and
introduced by Carsten Bregenhöj, containing national surveys, particular
articles, maps, tables and photographs, which we aim to have completed and
ready for publication by the summer of 2003. VII: The Value of the Project As we have stressed, no overall
Scandinavian survey has ever been made of all the existing material
available on disguise traditions, and no overall investigation has been
carried out into the international distribution of these traditions across
Scandinavia, their historical and cultural backgrounds, their social value or
their comparative characteristics.[2] No
scientific survey of this kind has ever been carried out anywhere in the
world to date. Furthermore, the lack of a comprehensive study of Scandinavian
traditions has led many European scholars to the false conclusion that the
carnivals and masquerades of the Catholic
countries must be the point of departure for all traditional mumming. It is
clear that the material assembled here will be a highly important contibution
to not only folkloristic and anthropological studies, but also studies of
culture and especially drama (where early natural ritualistic and
folkloristic elements have been starting to form a central feature of many
recent dramatic works, like for example Vincent Woods’ At the Black Pig’s Dyke (Straw Boys) and Tom Murphy’s Bailegangaire (oral storyteller) in
Ireland, Sveinn Einarsson’s Bandamannasaga
and Amlóða saga (vikivaki
games) in Iceland and Peter Brook’s Mahabharata
(ancient Indian oral literature) in France. As
pointed out at the start, we believe that the results of our work (if we are
permitted to carry it out) will not only awaken interest in the subject, and
demonstrate how deeply rooted these traditions are in Scandinavian culture,
but also form a necessary basis for any future study of the subject. Without
question it will set the direction for scholars to come. |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
last
updated: 8 February 2003