Wonder Mummer Bag

Mummers with a Twist. In Newfoundland, mummering has usually meant, in its most basic form, wearing a costume that disguises your identity and going from house to house, visiting your neighbors. It’s a game of sorts: at each stop, the hosts would try and guess the identity of the mummers. Mummers also have to disguise their faces, and they worked with what was available—an old lace curtain or tablecloth, a pillowcase or flower sack with eyes cut out and, perhaps, a face painted on it. Mummering in Newfoundland is all about reversals—turning the normal world topsy-turvy. Men might dress as women and women as men. Friends dressed in costume became strangers, and the odd creatures that visited in the night were revealed to be close friends.