Douglas Kennedy (2)

This book is a strange animal. It's copyright 1964, within my own lifetime, and yet our knowledge of folk dance and its historical origins have changed so much that this book now amuses more than it informs.

Kennedy is able to state with complete confidence that that the blacking of the face "to disguise the person and turn him into a ritual actor is a device inherited from the stone age". He says this with particular reference to the Bacup dance, even suggesting that the name 'morris' was given because the black faces made the dancers resemble blackamoors.

Ironic, given that the reality as we now understand it is pretty much the other way round. ie. The black face is fairly modern and probably copied from negro minstrel shows.

Kennedy is completely sold on the pagan origins of everything folk related. Hobby horses are 'animal men', etc.

To give him his due, the research simply hadn't been done back then, but even so, he is remarkably accepting of a load of utter tosh. He can't distinguish between 'ritual' acts and things done simply to entertain an audience and earn a bit of cash.… (more)