One thought on “A Short Video on Seasonal Guising

  1. Kalinysta

    This reminds me so much of when, back in the 1980s, I’d go to the local Nigerian New Years Celebration held in June (the traditional end of the harvest in Nigeria) called the Odunde Festival. Odunde literally means “happy new year”. There were various African dance/music troops there, including Babatunde Olatunji’s Drum Group (fantastic!!!), and a number of “stick dancers” who dressed up in straw and would walk and dance on stilts.

    Now where I live they also have an African festival, in August, where they also have stilt dancers and those also dressed up in straw walking, dancing and in some cases, “clowning” the crowd.

    It also reminds me of the Eastern European tradition that around the Winter Solstice, they would also dress up in various guises. “Folks would dress themselves as animals and fantastic beasts, carry the sun and the goat’s head on a stick and visit different houses trick-or-treating. They would sing special Kaliady carols in which the performers greet the house owners, wish them success and plentitude. The youth were playing games, perform in folk theater plays for public, “skamarohs” would entertain the crowd, play jokes on people.” (Sorry, got this off the internet years ago and lost exactly where I got it from; of course my suspicions is that the website I got it from is probable dead now anyhow.)

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