“Mummers: Philly’s Best-Kept Secret” (Fall 2003)

From Issue No. 91: Stars & Stripes Summer (Fall 2003)

“Mummers: Philly’s Best-Kept Secret”

After a Sung Mass on the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, seminarians set out on their second day of exploring Philadelphia. To their surprise, the bus, wandering through the city’s streets, suddenly halted at the doorstep of an unexpected destination, the Mummers’ Museum. Once they got past the funny name and the strange costumes decorating the walls, seminarians began to realize what their unique detour was offering them: a remnant of American folk tradition preserved from money-driven media campaigns or appeals to the lowest common denominator. The Museum commemorates the Mummers’ Parade, a ten-hour New Year’s Day extravaganza, spanning more than two miles, with 10,000 marchers. These marchers are divided into four divisions, each with their own elaborate and intricate costumes and motifs. Many Philadelphians work year-round preparing for the event and, on January 1st, Philly is the Mummers’ Parade. The Parade has managed to remain practically untainted by the indecency common to such affairs, but the seminarians’ tour guide wisely expressed her fears for the future. As of now, it retains its reputation as a wholesome day for the family.

Mummery’s roots in Philly date back to the late 1700’s, when the Swedes brought in their tradition of visiting friends on “Second Day Christmas,” December 26th. As time passed, this custom grew to usher in the New Year with festive revelers holding local parades that incorporated British, Greek and Italian traditions of costuming. These local groups would parade from door to door, entertaining homes with dances and carols, receiving food and drink in return. The upper crust of Philadelphia saw these increasingly popular festivities as a problem, and in 1808, a law was passed to make proto-Mummery illegal. However, by the 1850’s, the law was abolished, and, in 1901, the City of Philadelphia sponsored the first annual Mummers’ Parade, an innocent and proud tradition which continues to the present day.

Some may dismiss such a Parade as pointless or even silly. But the Mummers’ Parade is human and real, unlike the Internet and television. What is more pointless than staring at a screen of pixels for hours on end, or more silly than writing email after email to all your friends in cyber-jargon? Much of modern entertainment is designed merely to gratify the senses, leaving the mind only with manufactured memories of unwholesome celebrity worship, rock ‘n’ roll, professional sports and so many other forms of dehumanized and unreal sources of dissipation.

The Mummers’ Parade is special because it is an inexpensive, organized social gathering intended to bring a community together. Contrast this with Disney’s Magic Kingdom, where every night ends with a plastic mock parade. In exchange for a small fortune, Mickey will give tourists all the emotional hype they could ever desire. At the end of a day at the theme park, the average family will have stood in lines nearly all day, without interacting with anyone they know, or will ever know. Perhaps the Mummers’ Parade lacks that bang-for-your-buck, over-the-top, sensory overload oomph, but it is a human drama, comedy and celebration that reminds us that life does not need to be pre-packaged for mass consumption.

The Museum showed seminarians that a few Americans still value real culture spun from real ancestors and not just anti-culture spun from the wizards of Madison Avenue. It is not perfect, and only time will tell if it can resist corruption, but it is a sign of life. In a way, every American has a bit of Mummer within him – and that’s good, because it shines as a glimmer of hope for the apostolate. Modern man has not been and cannot be entirely reduced to a stimulus-response machine. If he can still be taught to appreciate the value in a Mummers’ Parade, then he is also accessible to the more profound, yet every bit as human, culture that the Church has to offer.