Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland: Essays in Anthropology, Folklore, and History

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta,
co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views of
Canada, 1880-1914, and co-editor of The Collected Works of E.J. Pratt.

From Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve it was (and still is in some
communities) a Newfoundland tradition to “go jannying.” Dressed in
odd clothes, often from the opposite sex, with faces covered in rag
masks (sometimes with faces painted on them), we traipsed through the
snow, knocked on doors with pieces of kindling, and begged the occupants
in weird voices to “let the jannies in the night.” Inside we sang
songs and danced or did whatever the hosts requested, relishing their
“zirup and cake” while they tried, by fair means and foul, to
“giss’oo wuz under dem sheets.”

It was great fun and we, of course, knew nothing of the historical,
anthropological, or folkloric import of what we were doing. It is,
however, delightful to now find out, from some of the best scholars
around, that we were engaged in “a ritual of social relations”
dating back to medieval times and practised, according to “A Typology
of Mumming,” in many other cultures (though the word “janny”
itself seems to be peculiar to Newfoundland). Indeed, the 13 essays
collected here are instructive in both the academic and popular sense:
they revive memories of the custom but go well beyond to examine the
diversity of folkloric tradition in the Newfoundland community. When it
was first published, in 1969, Christmas Mumming was very well
received—indeed, highly praised. This handsome paperback version makes
available to a new generation of students (and to those who missed it
the first time round) a book that brilliantly depicts a unique feature
of our society. It is again highly recommended.