Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
History
Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
Curiosities and wonders; Encyclopedias and dictionaries; Folklore
A suitable place for the performance is selected in the neighbourhood
of their huts. Here a fire is built by the women and boys, while
such of the men as are to take a share in the exhibition, usually
about twenty in number, disappear to arrange their persons. When
these preparations are completed, and the fire burns brightly, the
performers are seen advancing in the guise of as many skeletons. This
effect is produced by means of pipe clay, with which they paint broad
white lines on their arms and legs, and on the head, while others of
less breadth are drawn across the body, to correspond to the ribs. The
music consists in beating time on their shields, and singing, and to it
the movements of the dancers conform. It must not be supposed that this
exhibition is a dance in our sense of the word. It consists of violent
and odd movements of the arms, legs, and body, contortions and violent
muscular actions, amounting almost to frenzy. The performers appear
more like a child's pasteboard supple-jack than anything human in their
movements.
This action continues for a time, and then the skeletons, for so they
appear to be, since they truly resemble them, suddenly seem to vanish
and reappear. The disappearance is effected by merely turning round,
for the figures are painted only in front, and their dusky forms are
lost by mingling with the dark background. The trees, illuminated by
the fire, are brought out with some of the figures in bold relief,
while others were indistinct and ghost-like. All concurs to give an
air of wildness to the strange scene. As the dance proceeds, the
excitement increases, and those who a short time before appear only
half alive, become full of animation, and finally are obliged to stop
from exhaustion.
A PUDDING AS AN ADVERTISEMENT.
The following fact is interesting, inasmuch as it gives us an insight
into the popular tastes of the period, and the power of mob-law:--
In 1718, James Austin, inventor of the Persian ink powder, invited his
customers to a feast. There was a pudding promised, which was to be
boiled fourteen days, instead of seven hours, and for which he allowed
a chaldron of coals. It weighed 900 pounds. The copper for boiling it
was erected at the Red Lion in Southwark Park, where crowds went to
see it; and when boiled, it was to be conveyed to the Swan Tavern,
Fish Street Hill, to the tune of "What lumps of pudding my mother gave
me." The place was changed to the Restoration Gardens in St. George's
Fields, in consequence of the numerous company expected, and the
pudding set out in procession with banners, streamers, drums, &c., but
the mob chased it on the way and carried all off.
THE DESOLATION OF EYAM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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