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1. A Mumming Season
- Indiana University Press
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c h a p t e r o n e A Mumming Season Two periods of concentrated mumming activity bookend winter in Bulgaria, with a large number of villages performing the rites in early January and others in late February to mid- March. Commonly the former are linked to New Year’s celebrations and the latter to the beginning of Lent. Prominent festivals are scheduled purposefully between these periods of intense activity, or soon after the last events in March, so as not to conflict with local practice. Together the extended preparations, ritual enactments, follow- up banquets for participants, and the festivals make winter in Bulgaria a mumming season. New Year Nineteen miles southwest of the capital city of Sofia, well within commuting distance and connected by regular train service, sits the industrial mining town of Pernik. This city of more than eighty thousand hosts the largest and most famous mumming festival in the country, held every other year in late January. As a relatively new city that grew up with the expansion of coal mining in the twentieth century, Pernik has no tradition of these rituals being performed in town, but the villages west of town, which supplied much of its population, provide ardent exemplars of the custom. As a result, the town and its surrounding area are recognized as a center of Bul garian mumming (see Bokova 2000). Not only do most villages in this area have vital mumming traditions , they are similar enough in practice to justify a composite description. A Mumming Season 29 Every year, on the evening of January 13, large bonfires inaugurating the ritual dot the hills around Pernik, and the noxious fumes of burning rubber from discarded car tires, which have increasingly replaced valuable and depleted firewood for this purpose, waft across the area. If you venture into one of these villages you’ll likely encounter a small crowd of villagers gathered around the fire, close enough to be slightly illuminated but too far away to benefit fully from the fire’s warmth, suggesting a prohibited or reserved proscenium. You may hear the music of a small band playing Bul garian folk themes off to the side and then the sound of bells in the distance, not a tinkle or a jingle but the deeper, sonorous reverberation of large heavy bells, growing louder as they approach. As they get closer you may also recognize a different sound, more like the hollow and tinny sound of a cowbell but far too loud and deep to be the ordinary variant. These combined sounds advance in unison with a regular rhythm—two slow peals, followed by a quicker three. This sound gradually overwhelms the music of the instruments, except for the drum which takes up the beat of the bells. The atmosphere among observers is anticipatory, and one might even say festive, but to the uninitiated outsider it is also a bit ominous. Nervous children clinging to their parents with unusual fortitude add to a gnawing sense of unease. As the ringing gets louder and its source becomes visible uncertainty matures into anxiety. Advancing slowly toward the fire is what could only be called a monster. Nearly eight feet tall, covered in animal skins, carrying a large staff topped with boxwood greens, the creature advances with steps in the previously described rhythm: a measured right and left, then a quicker right, left, right, now again a slower left and right, followed by a quicker left, right, left. Each step is more like a small leap which jostles a collection of enormous brass bells tied around its waist, producing the previously described soundscape. As it comes into clearer view, the creature’s head, itself nearly three feet high, is mesmerizing. The face appears to be made of wood carved with exaggerated human features and a threatening grimace, the rest of the head is a combination of animal skins and horns put together in a way that is simultaneously artistic and terrifying. One’s gaze is shaken from the figure only by the recognition that there is another behind it, and another behind that, until you realize it’s a troop of forty or more in all, explaining the increasing decibel level. Just to the side near the front of the line is the group leader, dressed in what might either be an antique military dress uniform or a contemporary drum major outfit. The whistle he blows constantly to mark the [44.205.2.188] Project MUSE (2024...