Memories of Mummering

Elizabeth: We were up, it was fairly late when they came, probably like 11 or 11:30  and we let them in the house, 2 o’clock in the morning, I looked at the clock, and Joey was singing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”.

Mrs. Ann: In the rain, yeah [laughing]

Elizabeth: And because like it was still a big part of Christmas even up to then, and that was probably around 92 or 93. After that like, when there was more movement of people and stuff, it kind of really died out.

Mrs. Ann: Everything changed so fast, I mean …

Mary: We used to look forward to Old Christmas Day, because you could go mummering twice. You could go in the afternoon, then you’d go in the night. That was the only time during Christmas that you were allowed to go mummering twice. We’d say to mom, we got to get another outfit for the night, something to put on.  Mom would say  “the only thing I knows for to do now,  is what you had on today,  [pointing opposite] you put on tonight”. Because where were you going to get it all to?

Mrs. Ann: Where were you going to get it all to, was right.

Interviewer: There wasn’t much false faces [masks] or anything was there?

Mary: There were no false faces. We made our own. You got whatever and hauled down over your head, cut two eyes in it. Because you certainly couldn’t take a pillow case like you can now and cut eyes in it, you only had enough pillow cases for yourself. So if you did put on a pillow case, you had to be able to get it up a little bit and see out underneath it.

Elizabeth: And you’d be dropping that when you’d be going down the road because someone would be coming up the road, and if you had your pillow case hauled up,  you didn’t want them to see your face.

Mary: So you’d be dropping it down and walking blind.

Mrs. Ann: That was the good old days you know. You can say what you like, that was the good old days.

Elizabeth: It was very community oriented. People were together more than what they are now.

Mary: Yes that’s right. And now I mean, like we were saying a while ago there, people don’t want you [mummers] in their houses now, especially if you’re coming in [your boots on] and we know mummers don’t take off their boots. They’re not required to.

Mrs. Ann: They are not supposed to.

Elizabeth: It would ruin the dancing.

Mary: I remember one year, it was after Christmas, Mom said to Dad “God, Thomas, we’re soon going to have to get a bit of canvas to put on the floor” she said, “the paint is gone”. He said, “There wouldn’t be as much paint gone of off it if you didn’t let so much mummers in here during Christmas” So that’s how …

Elizabeth: I’d say I might have scrubbed a bit off.

Mrs. Ann: It was a good many my darling. And he was so happy when they all came.

Elizabeth: Everybody used to look forward to it, pretty much you know.

Mrs. Ann: But he’d say, when they’d all go, “Now that was a nice bit of fun wouldn’t it?’.

Mary: Aunt Sis used to play the mouth organ, didn’t she ?

Mrs. Ann: Aunt Sis did.  She could do anything and dance, my God.

Elizabeth: Now Mom and Lorraine, I think they started the mummering in July.

Mrs. Ann: Oh, your mother she was fun.

Mary: Is that right!

Elizabeth: I think that they started it, because back in the late 70s, like 76, 77, I don’t know for anybody to be having Christmas in July.

Mrs. Ann: That’s right.

Elizabeth: But Lorraine would come home from Labrador City and her and mom, they’d be saying “Oh, it would be some nice if you could come for Christmas”, but they would never be able to come Christmas very easily. So then, she’d say ” You know what me and you should do now. We should go over to Mike Dicks.” And Lorraine would say “Yeah, but you know we should get rigged up.

Mrs. Ann: My God!

Elizabeth: And the two of them used to get rigged up then [as mummers] and they’d go by the back path so the people in Rushoon wouldn’t see them. They’d go by the back path up to Mike Dicks’, they’d have a few steps and all that stuff up there, then they’d go to Dick Bennett’s , where you’re [the interviewer] living and have a few steps there, and then over to Mabel’s, and once they got to Mabel’s, they were done, because they’d have so much fun at Mabel’s they’d be too wore out to go anywhere else.

Mary: No you couldn’t go anywhere else after that.

Elizabeth: That’s how far they would get, the four houses you could go to by the back path, as far as Hannah Emberly’s and then they’d come home. Sometimes, they brought their own liquor with them and sometimes they got a drop from Mike Dicks.