ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to describe the Notes and Queries and considers the ways in which the interjection of the idea of Edmund Tylor’s ‘cultural survivals’ impacted on further accounts of mumming. The account describes something that is neither non-play mumming nor a mummers’ play, but in some respects carries connotations of both. The family lived in Polperro, so his account, which clearly distinguishes between non-play mumming and a Christmas play, is made with reference to a small-town setting. The reasons for replacing mumming with ‘niggering’ – that is a small group of men in blackface, playing musical instruments and singing minstrel songs – was financial. Mumming capitalised on its history of entrances ‘to stretch the parameters of curiosity’ by drawing on a broader history of theatre, collecting and imperialism. Mumming is ‘softened down by centuries’ and interest in contemporary activity runs in parallel with its perceived historical validation.
