Ch01

— Chapter One —

Fools, Natural & Artificial Among the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest, an ancient ritual of holy dancers and merry clowns is still performed today. TheHopi way of life might seem very foreign to most of us, but the comic antics of its tribal clowns are remarkably familiar. The dance of the "kachinas" (gods of fertility) is held in the plaza formed by the pueblos of the Hopi village, and lasts a full day, if not two. Early in the afternoon of the first day, as the masked kachinas dance to musical accompaniment, the audience at this sacred ceremony is suddenly distracted by the noisy and somewhat supernatural apThe charivari, a mock celebration popular with medieval pearance of several Chk'wimkya clowns on the amateur fool societies. Illumination from Le Roman de Fauvel, courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. rooftop of one of the buildings that line the plaza. The bodies of these clowns are smeared with mud from the sacred springs, while on their heads they wear improvised wigs made from stocking caps and rabbit fur. They accentuate their facial expressions with a black inverted v over each eye and u-shaped black marks under the eyes and mouth. The clowns pretend to step off the edge of the roof, one foot suspended in mid-air, then retreat in mock fear, provoking uproarious laughter from the spectators below, who quickly lose interest in the dancers. The clowns lower a long plank to the ground and attempt to slide down it headfirst, and considerable comic horseRare 19th-century photo by H.R. Voth of Koyemsi clowns entering the plaza over play follows in which they the rooftops in the traditional Hopi dance. The publication of Voth’s photographs in almost lose their balance the 1890s led the Hopi to restrict the taking of pictures during sacred ceremonies, and since then only sketches of the dances have appeared. Courtesy of the Mennonite Museum & Library.

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before finally tumbling to the ground. Parading around the plaza, the clowns suddenly feign great surprise at seeing the kachinas dancing, and immediately decide to join in. Showing little respect for the holiness of the occasion, they form their own line alongside the kachinas, dancing out of step and Rare 19th-century photo of H.R. Voth of Koyemsi stick game in Hopi Mixed Kachina even chanting irreverent Dance. Courtesy of the Mennonite Library & Archives. parodies of the kachina songs. Inevitably, their clumsy shuffling motions deteriorate into a shoving contest in which the clowns fall all over one another. The remainder of this long ceremony consists of dancing by the kachinas, interspersed with rest periods during which the clowns entertain until the kachinas are sufficiently refreshed to resume their dancing. When the kachinas return, the clowns cease their antics, step out of character, and participate in the sacred ritual of sprinkling the dancers with cornmeal. The clowns also pass out food to the audience and exchange gifts with them. At all other times, however, the clowns have free rein to do as they please. During one interlude, they might entertain with ribald songs. Vulgar skits likewise prove quite popular. During one session of dancing, another clown enters carrying a concealed wine bottle and plodding along like a feeble old man. Miming poor eyesight, he walks right up to the holy dancers and stares at them from a distance of a few inches, oblivious to all that is going on around him. Later, he and the other clowns pretend to get roaring drunk and engage in a raucous and comical conversation. Some of the intermissions will be used for games and competitions, with the clowns leading the children in barrel races and other fun-filled activities; if the clowns themselves compete, a riotous free-for-all is the likely result. As in the circus or rodeo, the role of clowns in the ceremony is to burlesque the other performers, at the same time ensuring a smooth-flowing production. (1) Similar examples of ceremonial clowning no doubt existed in prehistoric times, for the clown appears in one form or another in nearly all cultures. The clown was not invented by a single individual, nor is he exclusively a product of Western civilization. Instead, the clown has been perpetually rediscovered by society because as fool, jester, and trickster he meets compelling human needs. Historically, the figure of the clown encompasses far more than the obvious funny costume and painted face, for he represents a vision of the world that both intellectual and so-called primitive cultures have valued highly, a sense of the comic meaningful to children and adults alike, and a Zuni Kachina doll, 21 5/8” in height, dynamic form of acting based on startling technique and inspired depicting mudhead clowns trying to improvisation. climb to top of pole. It’s a bad omen if clowns fail to reach food at top. Courtesy of the Denver Art Museum.

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ABOVE: Sketch of Pueblo Indian Koshare clown by Frank Bock. LEFT: Sketch of Pueblo Indian Koyemsi clown by Frank Bock.

FOOLS AND FOLLY Throughout history, the idea of the clown has been linked with the fool. "Fool" is usually taken to mean someone lacking common sense, if not totally devoid of reason and encompasses a broad range of characters, including both the village idiot and the harmless eccentric. Today we might speak of the clinically diagnosed schizophrenic in the same sense. The fool's characteristic traits are very much those of "natural" man. Lacking social graces and blissfully operating outside the laws of logic, the clown is often seen as a child or even an animal, but only rarely as a mature adult the clown's perceptions are too crudely structured, the use of language a parody of normal speech. Unimpressed with sacred ceremonies or the power of rulers, the clown is liable to be openly blasphemous and defiant; uninhibited in sexual matters, the clown often delights in obscene humor. The prevalence of the fool in most human cultures is paralleled by the universal myth of the trickster. Although associated most frequently with the legends of the North American Indian, the trickster figure plays an important role in the folklore of most societies. He is an instinctual creature who, like the real-life fool, is often compared to a child or an animal: psychologist Carl Jung, for example, describes Trickster's consciousness as "corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level." (2) The mental aberration attributed to both the fool and the trickster is often mirrored in his appearance, his bizarre attire or grotesque deformity immediately setting him apart from his fellow man. Many fools, in fact, have been freaks of nature dwarfs or hunchbacks, for example of quite normal mentality. (3) In many cultures the trickster spirit is incarnated in an animal such as the sly fox of 1—3

European folk tales or the cunning coyote-clown of the California Indians. Society may ostracize those it considers to be fools, but it also has shown an abiding interest in them. On one level, this paradox reflects man's recognition of folly as an unavoidable part of his life. The stupidity we laugh at in the fool reflects our own potential foolishness, the realization that we too may slip on the proverbial banana peel. The clown's antics, although exaggerated, are not as removed from our own realm of experience as we might choose to believe. "If every fool wore a crown," goes an old proverb, "we should all be kings." (4) On another level, the fool represents the free spirit, the unconventional thinker whose example encourages others to view the world in new and extraordinary ways. Most cultures recognize, consciously or unconsciously, the value of the fool's perceptions. Often he is seen as an inspired madman or even as a spiritual prophet. In the trickster cycle of the Winnebago Indians, he evolves into a hero, a healer, and a bearer of culture, who eventually ascends to his rightful place in heaven. Likewise, many psychiatrists today argue that the madman's modes of perception represent a way of structuring reality that is not necessarily incorrect, and that may in some cases prove quite illuminating. But if the fool's vision is to be of any use to society, it Great Doctor mask of Iroquois False must be presented in a more palpable form. While the real Face Society. Made of basswood with fool, the village idiot, may merely be an object of pity, the horsehair trim, it represents Hadúigona, performer who can present the fool's perceptions in a sothe Great Humpbacked One. Courtesy cially acceptable manner often proves quite popular even if of the Museum of the American Indian. everything he stands for runs counter to prevailing beliefs. A formal distinction is therefore often made between "natural" and "artificial" fools. In the first category is the legitimate idiot, in the second an entertainer who plays the role of the fool. In many cultures, the artificial fool the clown, the jester is an individual selected by society to enact a very important role, and clowning thus becomes institutionalized, an integral part of the community life.

CLOWN SOCIETIES Many communal cultures, especially those of the North American Indian, possess indigenous clown clans or societies. One anthropologist, surveying 136 cultures throughout the world, found that at least forty had ritual clowns. (5) Some of the groups are devoted exclusively to clowning during public ceremonies, but many have other cultural functions as well. In many cases these clown societies come in pairs, each society representing a different type of clown. Sometimes there are separate male and female clown groups. Membership is likely to be hereditary, as with the Kwakiutl Fool Dancers of the 1—4

Northwest coast, but performers may at times be drawn from outside the clan. The Hopi concept of burlesquing the sacred while also supporting it is repeated in most North American Indian cultures. In the Navajo Night Chant, the clowns join directly in tile masked dances, getting in the way of the holy dancers and even trying to usurp the leader's function by giving signals to the other dancers before he can do so. These Navajo clowns also burlesque performances of magic, revealing the sleight-of-hand technique underlying the illusion. The clown of the Jemez Pueblos mocks the cornmeal offering by sprinkling the spectators with ashes and sand. Members of the Zui Ne'wekwe clown society joke with the gods in Spanish and English a practice strictly taboo to ordinary mortals and even rig up a mock telephone to carry on an animated conversation with Zui heaven. In all of these performances, the clown's role is officially sanctioned by the culture. The clown keeps the people in touch with everyday reality while fulfilling the need for a connection with the sacred. While ostensibly mocking the entire performance, he also supports and embellishes it. The clown's role is especially ambivalent in the Easter ritual of the Southwest Yaqui Indians, a re-enactment of the crucifixion that was undoubtedly introduced to the Yaqui by Spanish conquerors: the chapayeka clowns are cast as the villains, but each clown holds between his teeth a small cross, unseen behind his mask. (6) The positive social role of the ceremonial clown is reflected in his other functions as well, including that of sergeant-at-arms during the dances. He may also announce the ceremony and, like the stagehands in a theater, help the sacred dancers solve any small problems that may arise. The clown's role as social regulator is even more in evidence in the comic skits they perform. With their freedom to publicly ridicule whomever they please, the clowns represent strong deterrents to antisocial behavior. Among the Tbatulabal of California, in fact, the clown's opinions are held in such high esteem that if he criticizes the chief, a new leader is likely to be selected. In the Hopi kachina dance described at the beginning of the chapter, the clown skits are very often satirical. The drunken scene with the old man, for example, is understood by Hopi audiences as an attack on growing alcoholism within the community. Other activities contrary to the Hopi way of life are likewise ridiculed in public. The actual target of the clown's scorn is often a member of the audience and it is usually perfectly clear to the spectators just who the individual is. This public chastisement may be quite harsh, yet it serves many of the same functions as do legal sanctions in our society. "The clowns can make the individual comments about the people, and the people can get mad or not, whatever they want, it's up to them," explained a Hopi clown. "We simply come out and show the people what they are doing is wrong, and through the social pressure of having it done in public, we don't need the jails as the bahana [white man] does." The clown's satire is also frequently directed at elements outside the community. Poking fun at foreigners is certainly nothing new, but among "primitive" cultures threatened by attempts to "civilize" them, the burlesque of outsiders is more than mere xenophobia: it reflects a crucial need to resist the

Assiniboin Fool Dancers (1906), one of the few Northern Plains masked dances. The dancers wore canvas costumes and masks and exhibited contrary behavior during the two- to four-hour ceremony. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Collection.

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imposition of a foreign culture. Through comic ridicule, the clowns bolster the collective ego while discrediting the ways of the enemy. This is particularly true of the American Indian, who has seen his culture decimated since the arrival of Europeans on the American continent. Accordingly, the Indian clown's sharpest satirical thrusts are directed at the white man. His mannerisms and dress are caricatured, as are the personality traits the Indian clowns attribute to him: boorish behavior, gluttony and drunkenness, and vicious exploitation. In recent years, with most Indian reservations open to the public, burlesques of American tourists both middle-class and "hippie" have become quite common. The impact of the ceremonial buffoon on his audience is derived in part from his portrayal of a grotesque yet comic spirit, in many ways just as supernatural as that of the shaman. His makeup and costume, of course, contribute to the creation of an other-worldly character, but equally important is the clown's behavior, which is variously described as "contrary," "backward," or "crazy." Inverted speech, illogical actions, animal mimicry, and difficult acrobatic stunts are common examples of this contrary behavior. Among the Plains Indians, there are many "contrary societies" whose clowns specialize in such actions. (7) Among the Crow Indians, ludicrous antics on horseback and absurd dances are the contrary's stockin-trade. The Thanigratha ("those who imitate madmen") contraries were known to ford a stream by stripping one leg and then hopping across on the clothed leg. The Real Dog contraries use several forms of eccentric speech, including howling like dogs. Members of the Cheyenne contrary society dress in rags, walk on their hands, run backwards, stand on their heads rather than sit on their rear ends, say the opposite of what they mean, and awkwardly dance and tumble about. Some Cheyenne contraries rode their horses while facing the wrong way and shot their arrows back over their shoulders, yet would revert to natural behavior in critical situations and were said to make the very best warriors. The Windigokan, clown-doctors of the Plains Ojibwa, also had an original approach to battle: meeting a large Cayuga Indian wearing a false face mask and carrying a turtle-shell rattle (1907). Courtesy of the body of enemy, Sioux, they danced and danced until Museum of the American Indian. the Sioux took them for deities and, so the story goes, made offerings to them. The similarity between contrary behavior and circus clowning was noted by several Cheyenne Indians when they paid a rare visit to a show. "They told about a circus they saw," recounted Mari Sandoz in Cheyenne Autumn, "with elephants and the clowns who seemed to be like the Indian contraries, doing everything foolish and backward to lift the hearts of the people from the ground in unhappy times. Black Bear here among them did such things in the ceremonies." Much of the humor of the ceremonial clown tends to be therapeutic, and may even include curing functions the comic exorcism of the demons believed to be the cause of disease. (8) This varies from culture to culture: Hopi clowns do not cure, but the Ne'wekwe clowns of the neighboring Zui Indians are a medicine society and are also said to possess the power of black magic. 1—6

Any illness diagnosed as spirit intrusion is treated by the clowns of the Plains Ojibwa by dancing, singing, whistling, and the shaking of rattles. Members of the Iroquois False Face society wear basswood masks and perform violent theatrics to exorcise the demons of disease. The Canadian Dakotas believe the clown to be the most powerful of shamans, for he is said to derive his curing ability from the guardian spirit, "Clown." As many as eighteen sanni demons play a role in the dahaata pelapaliya comic demon play of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), each one representing the major symptoms of an afflicted patient. "Deliriums," "cannot eat," "obscenity, confused behavior, timidity," and "performs pranks and utters nonsense" are just a few of the major symptoms represented. Each scene in the drama consists of a comic portrayal of a set of symptoms, after which the demon tells the patient "it is done" and leaves the performance space, an indication that the disease he represents has left the patient. These performances, along with other shaA clown in the Dance of the Moors and Christians, a ritual drama performed in Papantla, Mexico, on the Catholic holy manistic curing practices, often have been clasday of Corpus Christi. Courtesy of Frank Bock. sified as worthless "witch doctor" remedies. In recent years, however, more objective anthropological and medical investigations have come to recognize the value of this kind of cure, at least in dealing with the psychosomatic dimension of disease. The clown's humor is also considered to be of therapeutic value when it deals explicitly with sexual and scatological matters. Phallic clowning, which Aristotle believed was essential to the development of early Greek comedy, has been especially popular among the Pueblo tribes of the American Southwest. Many of the comic skits performed by their clowns involve the wearing of false genitals and the simulation of intercourse. Although many early anthropologists were repulsed by this obscene clowning, it has proved surprisingly popular among cultures with puritanical standards of morality, for they recognize it as a necessary safety valve. By laughing at taboo subjects, the community confronts the inhibition in an open yet vicarious manner. (9) Although the function of clown societies can vary considerably, they all share one common trait their value as entertainment, as "delight makers." The clown's image may at times approach that of a fearsome, supernatural figure, but he is also a laughable buffoon, a fool whose message is delivered in an enjoyable form. The clowns' descent from the rooftops in the Hopi kachina dance, although seemingly symbolic, is explained by the clowns as simply the most effective way of catching the audience's attention and getting them to laugh immediately. If the spectators fail to laugh, say the clowns, then the educational value of their presentation will be lost. Those clown societies that have survived the impact of Western civilizations have done so only with considerable difficulty. Much of the opposition to them has come from crusading missionaries, their prime target the ceremonies at which native deities were worshipped especially if the ceremonies 1—7

included elements considered lewd and distasteful by the outsiders. No doubt few of the missionaries who objected so strenuously to clown societies operating within the culture's religious framework were aware that for hundreds of years the Catholic Church had sanctioned similar clown festivities the medieval Feast of Fools.

THE FEAST OF FOOLS In 1445, the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris addressed a letter to all French cathedral chapters condemning certain popular church festivities: "Priests and clerks may be seen wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of office. They dance in the choirs dressed as women, panders, or minstrels. They sing wanton songs. They eat black puddings at the horn of the altar while the celebrant is saying mass. They play at dice there. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes. They run and leap through the church, without a blush at their own shame, Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby traps and carts; and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances with indecent gestures and verses scurrilous and unchaste." (10) The subject of the harsh criticism was the Feast of Fools, a New Year's celebration during which the minor clergy were allowed to usurp the functions of their superiors and engage in a wide range of blasphemous yet officially approved clowning. The prevailing theme was the inversion of status, usually reflected in the elecThe Bishop of Fools, bauble in hand. tion of a humble subdeacon as bishop and the staging of a mock Mass. Many of the revelers wore masks, laity and clergy exchanged costumes, and men even dressed up as women. The most common item of apparel, however, was a peaked hood with two donkey ears. Although in many ways similar to the kalends and Saturnalia of ancient Rome, as well as to certain folk festivals, the Feast of Fools was first seen in twelfth-century France. It appeared in various forms throughout Europe, among them the popular Feast of the Ass (asinaria festa). In Beauvais, France, this featured a burlesque reenactment of the flight into Egypt, with a caparisoned donkey leading a mock procession through the town. Upon arriving at the Church of St. Etienne, the ass and its followers were welcomed inside and a Mass was said. Instead of chanting the traditional Latin responses to the Mass, however, the congregation brayed back, "Hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw." Despite its enduring popularity, there were many intermittent attempts by some of the higher clergy, including several popes, to suppress the Feast of Fools. Nevertheless, the celebration persisted until the time of the Protestant Reformation and was still seen occasionally in the 1600s. "Never did pagans solemnize with such extravagance their superstitious festivals as do they," complained one writer in 1645, in reference to sacrilegious clowning at an Antibes monastery. "The lay brothers, the cabbage1—8

cutters, those who work in the kitchen, occupy the places of the clergy in the church. They don the sacerdotal garments, reverse side out. They hold in their hands books turned upside down, and pretend to read through spectacles in which for glass have been substituted bits of orange peel." (11) The Feast of Fools survived for so long because of its widespread popularity, not only among the clergy, but also with the inhabitants of the cathedral towns of Europe. In some cases they valued these festivities highly enough to enforce them long after the clergy itself had lost interest. In Tournai (now a part of Belgium), for example, the townspeople required the local clergy to offer one of their number as mock bishop on Holy Innocents' Day. In 1489, the churchmen obtained a royal decree from Charles VIII restraining the town from forcing them to go through with the ceremony. In 1498, however, the laymen's carnival spirit and respect for tradition prompted them to kidnap eight clergymen and hold them hostage until one would agree to perform the role of the Bishop of Fools. The church, of course, protested to local authorities, but to no avail, for the mayor himself had led the raid. The next day, townspeople succeeded in anointing a clergyman "bishop." The celebrants baptized their new spiritual leader with several buckets of water, paraded him around town for three days dressed in a surplice, and performed coarse farces for their fellow citizens. These and other daring acts led to a long-drawn-out legal battle between the church and the town, resulting in the formal abolition of the Tournai Feast of Fools in 1500. When the spirit of folly was no longer welcome within the doors of the church, it moved outside and was manifested in a secular form. In France, this resulted in the creation of amateur fool societies, the sociétés joyeuses ("joyful societies"), whose members devoted themselves to providing the same brand of irreverent fun. A large number of these groups existed throughout France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, many of them professional guilds that counted revelry among their social activities. Among the most prominent were the clercs de la basoche, a fraternal organization of law clerks, and the enfants sans souci ("carefree lads"), a group of university students in Paris. These sociétés joyeuses followed in the tradition of the Feast of Fools, electing a King of Fools to celebrate Twelfth Night and other festive holidays and staging their own burlesque ceremonials, as well as mock processions characterized by loud, cacophonous music. The spirit of parody and role reversal so evident in the ecclesiastical celebrations reappeared in the sermon joyeux, a travesty of the church sermon, which mimicked its pedantic structure, frequent Latin citations, and majestic conclusions. These discourses like the vaudeville and minstrel show "stump speech" of a later era dealt with such eternal themes as the evils of alcohol, the battle between the sexes, and the triumph of folly. These amateur fool societies also performed satirical clown plays called sotties, which portrayed everyone, from the lowly peasant to the king himself, as a sot (fool). All the world was seen as wearing the fool's cap and bells and the characters were dressed accordingly. Physical comedy was combined with clever repartee, usually delivered in rhymed The money of the Pope of Fools. Medieval fool societies couplets, to form topical skits that satirized a set up their own by-laws, elected officials, and even wide range of social and ecclesiastical abuses. issued their own mock currency. Motto on token at right The dialogue, which was sometimes partly reads: numerus stultorum 1—9

improvised, combined French with local dialect. A few sottie performers already may have had experience as itinerant minstrels (chapter 2), while many others went on to become professional entertainers. The performers, however, were mostly amateurs. But they were young, agile, and quick-witted, and their texts represent, with the exception of a few fragments of Greek and Roman mimes, the earliest extant scripts of pure clown performances. The sottie later evolved into a more subtle, if less direct, dramatic form, foreshadowing early French farce. It developed its own famous actor-authors, such as Pierre Gringoire (1475-c.1539), chief fool of the enfants sans souci, as well as its own form of theater clown the badin. A comic servant rather than a sot, the badin was especially known for his sharp wit; it is from this trait that we derive the word badinage, meaning banter. (12) The social function of the “sociétés joyeuses” in many ways paralleled that of the clown societies of the North American Indians. The history of the amateur fool society of Dijon, France, officially known as “L'Infanterie Dijonnaise” but nicknamed “Mère Folle,” gives us some idea of how strong an influence these companies could have on their communities. (13) When church authorities suppressed the Dijon Feast of Fools in the mid-fifteenth century, Philip the Good, the independent, fun-loving Duke of Burgundy, granted a charter (written in rhymed couplets!) for its continuation outside the church. By the second half of the sixteenth century, this secular tradition had evolved into the powerful Mre-Folle company of fools, consisting of some 500 active members, including princes, lawyers, government officials, and merchants. Their motto was numerus stultorum infinitum est ("the number of fools is infinite"), while their nickname was taken from the title of their elected leader, the Mère-Folle or "head fool." (Although mère means "mother," the role was rarely if ever filled by a woman.) As was the case with many other sociétés joyeuses , the Mère-Folle became a strong force for justice and reform in Dijon. Misers, corrupt officials, and brutal husbands were common objects of scorn. "This company took it upon itself," wrote a Dijon historian of the period, "to correct improper social conduct, and if someone transgressed, they were immediately apprehended and subjected to a pitiless public censure." The culprit could easily become the subject of a satirical skit exposing his reprehensible behavior, or the chastisement might consist of parading him or an effigy through the streets. This chevauche, or charivari, as it was called, was seen in Dijon as late as 1700, when a respectable citizen who had a nasty habit of beating his wife was placed backwards on a jackass and exhibited all over town. At the height of the Mère-Folle's popularity in the late 1500s, the power of the society to discipline indirectly by means of ridicule was devastating, and often was extended effectively to important government officials. Of course, the Mère-Folle created enemies for itself in Dijon, among them certain entrenched powers who found such satire threatening. In 1630, the town was rocked by an uprising in protest of a tax peremptorily levied by King Louis XIII, and pictures of the monarch were burned in public. The revolt was eventually crushed and, although the role of the fool society in it was unclear, the result was a royal edict banning the Mère-Folle . All such festivities were thereafter strictly censored. Subsequent celebrations had to be offered in praise of the state and were licensed and promoted by the municipal police. The demands of folly in Dijon and elsewhere came to be served by carnivals, which provided a festive atmosphere and the trappings of masquerade without the satiric substance of the Feast of Fools and the sociétés joyeuses .

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COURT FOOLS & JESTERS The fool, whether natural or artificial, traditionally has been valued as an entertainer and was often retained as a more or less permanent member of royal households, the fool "by right of office." Many fools even dressed like ordinary courtiers, while others wore a more distinctive multicolored costume, which included a cap with bells and either horns or donkey ears. A bauble with a carved replica of the fool's head was a popular prop, and an inflated animal bladder tied to the end of a stick was a common weapon for the fool's slapstick clowning. Some fools were true simpletons, subjects for condescending laughter, while others were intelligent and talented acrobats and musicians who were held in high esteem by their masters. All were viewed as important status symbols; popes and kings had their fools, as did their imitators aristocrats, city governments, and even tavern owners and brothel keepers. (14) Although most prevalent in medieval and Renaissance Europe, the court fool has been a popular institution throughout history. When Cortes conquered the Aztecs in the 1520s, for example, he discovered fools, dwarfs, and hunchbacked buffoons at the court of Montezuma II, some of whom he brought back as presents for Pope Clement VII. Russia's Peter the Great had more than a hundred fools. Court fools were also known in both the Near and Far East long before they became common in Europe; ancient Chinese emperors had court fools, as did many African potentates. Legends have been spun from the adventures of the fool, Bulhul the Madman, at the ninth-century Islamic court of Haroun-arRashid. Nasr-ed-Din, fool to Tamburlaine, the powerful fourteenth-century Mongol ruler, was believed to be a medium for spirit voices; after his death, his life took on the proportions of a myth, and tales about him are still told today. There have also been many female fools throughout the ages. The wife of Seneca, the great Roman philosopher, retained a woman fool. Seneca did not approve, however, declaring that if he wanted to waste his time looking at a fool, all he had to do was stare into the mirror. The most famous female fool was no doubt the flamboyant Mathurine, who presided at the French court from the reign of Henry Ill to that of Louis XIII. She walked the streets dressed like an Amazon warrior and was noted for the fervor with which she attempted to convert Huguenots to Catholicism. The name of this pugnacious and outspoken jester was adopted as a pseudonym by contemporary satirists, and a specific style of burlesque writing was given the name mathurinade. The first known court fool was a pygmy who presided at the court of Pharaoh Dadkeri-Assi of ancient Egypt's Fifth Dynasty. Although he was a physical curiosity from an exotic A selection of jesters’ baubles. Note bladder attached to end of stick (#2), foreign land, this fool was apparently an able entertainer and as well as phalluses, ass’s ears, and by no means an idiot. In the public mind, however, the idea of replicas of fool’s head on other the fool as madman often overlaps with that of the fool as physibaubles. Reproduced from Willeford, cal freak. The Fool and his Scepter, by permission of Northwestern University

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Just as many cultures interpret madness as evidence of clairvoyance or spirit possession, physical deformity is often seen as proof of supernatural forces at work. While in some cases the physical freak is viewed merely as an interesting oddity, at other times he has been regarded as a seer and even as a kind of good-luck charm. The fool's value as entertainer thus might be derived in part from his grotesque appearance (the freak), his lunacy (the natural fool), or his ability to counterfeit simple-mindedness for comic effect (the artificial fool) or from a combination of these qualities. Most court fools, however, were clever artificial fools, who developed a reliable repertoire of humor guaranteed to delight aristocratic audiences because of its insight and pungent wit, or as was more often the case because the fool himself was the butt of the joke. Many of these jests had been well known in the Orient long before they became standard in Europe. They tell, for example, of the fool who stood before the mirror with his eyes closed so that he could see how he looked when he was asleep; or of the fool who clung to the anchor when the ship was sinking; or of the one who carried around a brick from his house in order to show everyone exactly what the building looked Perñia, buffoon at court of Philip IV. Painting like; or, finally, of the simpleton who was convinced he by Velazquez, finished by Carreno (c.1637). could teach his horse to live without food, and who later Courtesy of The Prado. concluded that he would have succeeded had the animal not died before the experiment could be completed. The court fool's popularity and prestige led to the preservation of many of his quips and pranks in the form of jest books, which first became popular in Germany in the sixteenth century. (15) Collections of anecdotes, witticisms, practical jokes, and comic sermons, each book supposedly contained the humor of a single court fool. The material was not always original, but the books nevertheless represent the first appearance in print of traditional verbal humor, which, not so coincidentally, later reappeared in the clown-ringmaster exchanges of the nineteenth-century circus. Riddles and burlesque sermons were also an important part of the fool's verbal arsenal, as was his knack for capping his speeches with rhymed couplets. Forging provocative letters that were guaranteed to create a series of comical misunderstandings was one of their favorite forms of practical joking. Many fools were also excellent tumblers and jugglers. England's King Edward II especially enjoyed those court fools who clowned on horseback, like the later circus clown, by pretending not to know how to ride. And an eighteenthcentury tarot card of the Fool depicts a dog pulling down the fool's pants to reveal his bare buttocks once again, a standard piece of business in the circus (although the circus clown's rear end is rarely bare). The fool as daring political jester who took advantage of his free license as a buffoon to engage in satirical comments on the affairs of state is also historical fact, but may not have been as common as certain novelists and playwrights would have us believe. The jester was no doubt an artificial fool, for the delicate care that this dangerous meddling required would have been far beyond the pure lunacy of the natural fool. "His jokes did not proceed from folly or poverty of mind," wrote an admirer of the 1—12

Italian jester Gonella, "but sprang from his vivacity, his acuteness and his sublime genius; he did everything thoughtfully, and, when he was planning to play some fine trick, he would consider both the nature of him whom he intended to ridicule, and the pleasure that the Marquis could derive from it and of all the tricks he has played at diverse times, I have never heard of one that had been directed against the Marquis." (16) A similar appreciation of the jester's keen sense of psychology is given by Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: This fellow's wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit. He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at ev'ry feather That comes before his eye. This is a practice As full of labour as a wise man's art; For folly that he wisely shows is fit, But wise men, folly fallen, quite taint their wit. The jester is traditionally known for outrageous pranks that would normally result in severe punishment. As a licensed buffoon, however, a certain amount of insolence was to be expected of him. Edward IV's jester, Scogan, was known especially for his practical jokes. Having failed to pay back a considerable sum of money, which he had borrowed from the king, the jester chose death as the only reasonable solution. But Scogan's sudden death, of course, was as phony as the elaborate funeral he had contrived. When Edward paid his respects to the mortal remains of his favorite jester, he had many kind words to offer in Scogan's praise, even going so far as to forgive him his large debt. Upon hearing these words, Scogan leaped from the coffin, humbly thanked King Edward for his act of generosity, and then prudently had all those present bear witness to this royal dispensation. "It is so revivifying," explained Scogan, "that it has called me to life again." On one occasion, Scogan carried his impudence too far and was forbidden upon pain of death ever to set foot again on English soil. After a brief sojourn in France, however, he returned to his native land, his shoes full of French soil and once again the jester Festivities at the wedding of Henry IV and Marie de Medici in 1600.

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escaped punishment. The same story, however, has also been told of many other fools and, whether true or not, certainly reflects the uncertain social position of many of these jesters. Another similar tale has as its subject the Italian dwarfjester, Bertholde. When asked by the king what he sought at court, Bertholde dared give an honest answer and one that was obviously unappreciated: "What I have not been able to find," he replied, "for I had imagined a king to be as much above other men as a steeple is above common houses, but I have found that I have honored them more than they deserve. . . . You cannot give me what you do not possess. I am in eager search of happiness, of which you have not a grain." When the king promptly exiled him, Bertholde remarked that jesters were like flies: the more you drove them away, the more insistent they were about returning. The king accordingly granted Bertholde safe return if he arrived in the company of flies. The jester did precisely that, riding back to court on an old jackass whose infected hide had attracted swarms of them. (17) Other reports of foolish disrespect abound. When Marot, Fifteenth-century French or Flemish painting a sixteenth-century plaisant (jester), saw his nation's amof jester. Courtesy of the Gemäldegalerie, bassador to Rome kiss the Pope's foot, he cried out, "MerVienna. ciful heavens! If the representative of the King of France kisses his Holiness'foot, what may a poor fellow like me be called upon to salute?" A German "merry councillor" by the name of Nelle attended a high-level government meeting at Ratisbon in 1613. Later he presented the emperor with a beautifully bound volume, which he claimed contained a full account of all that had been accomplished. When the German ruler opened the book, he found nothing but blank pages. Anecdotes such as these have contributed to the court fool's romanticized image as a daring political jester whose sharp wit served to deflate the king's arrogance. Much of the jester's comedy was indeed based on parody and the inversion of status: there are many stories, for example, of the jester who is so foolish as to make himself comfortable on the royal throne; and an equal number of jests that show the king to be the greatest fool of them all because as Shakespeare intimated he is the last to acknowledge his own folly. When Marot walked alongside the king, the sovereign told him he could not bear having a fool on his right-hand side. "Is that so?" replied Marot, as he moved to the left of the king, "I can bear it very well." Courageous court jesters succeeded in bringing a spirit of free speech and healthy criticism to the royal court at a time when there were few viable checks on the monarch's power. Unfortunately, the jester was not always a force for social enlightenment. While ideally he might serve the same function as a North American Indian clown society, the jester did not receive the same degree of support from the community, for all the power lay in the hands of a king who was apt to be arbitrary and unpredictable in his reactions to social satire. Too close an association with the king could result in the jester being reduced to a sycophant. Often he became merely a tool in the hands of politicians, parroting the official line and showing more concern with the preservation of royalty than with human rights. "You do well not to love the 1—14

Reformers," a seventeenth-century French writer warned the court fools, "for they intend to reform you out of existence." Indeed, most jesters lived in luxury only so long as they pleased their patrons, and consequently were quite willing to limit their barbs to officially approved targets. "Those who live to please," wrote Samuel Johnson, "must please to live." ©1976, John Towsen

Chapter 1 Notes Click on any highlighted book title to go to its information page on Amazon.com Click on “Return to text” to go back to the line where that footnote appeared in the text. 1. This ceremony was described most recently by Frank Bock in his excellent Ph.D. dissertation, "A Descriptive Study of the Dramatic Function and Significance of the Clown during Hopi Indian Public Ceremony"; a similar ritual was witnessed by Alexander Stephen in 1893 and recorded in his Hopi Journal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936). Return to text. 2. "On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure" by Paul Jung, in Paul Radin's The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, p. 200. Jung also discusses the trickster in relation to the medieval Feast of Fools. Radin's analytical study includes oral texts of several North American Indian trickster myths. In tarot cards, the fool is both the first and last card. Alfred Douglas writes in The Tarot (London: Penguin Books, 1973): "When he [the fool] appears at the beginning, he can be interpreted psychologically as representing the newly born child. . . . He is shown setting out on his journey into life, entranced by the bright butterfly of sensory experience.... The negative aspect of the Fool reveals the Joker, who chases in pursuit of extravagant amusements, heedless of the chaos and anarchy he leaves In his wake. The heady joy of the moment is his only concern. . . . When he appears at the end of the sequence, the Fool has completed his journey, and he passes gaily through the world, the appearance of which has been transformed by his own inner transformation. Where once was discord, all now is harmony; where despair held sway, fulfillment now reigns." The joker in a modern deck of playing cards is derived from the tarot fool. Return to text. 3. Throughout history the demand for freaks has been greater than the natural supply, and consequently there has always been a thriving business in creating artificial freaks through grotesque medical practices. The history of freaks, real and man-made, is covered in C. J. S. Thompson, The Mystery and Lore of Monsters (New York: Citadel Press, 1970), which contains a long bibliography; Daniel Mannix, We Who Are Not as Others (New York: Pocket Books, 1976); and Gould and Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (1897). Return to text. 4. The classic defense of folly was put forth by the philosopher Desiderius Erasmus in his The Praise of Folly. William Willeford's The Fool and His Scepter is a theoretical study of the fool's appeal, drawn from English- and German-language sources and enriched by the author's experience as a practicing psychotherapist. It is also interesting to note that most cultures stereotype some real or imaginary outside group as being composed totally of fools and numskulls, and standard jokes about stupidity are brought forth to describe their behavior much like modern-day "Polish jokes." See Katherine Luomala, "Numskull Clans and Tales" in The Anthropologist Looks at Myth, compiled by Melville Jacobs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966). Return to text. 5. Lucille H. Charles, "The Clown's Function," Journal of American Folklore 58, no. 227 (1945). The earliest full-length work on North American Indian clowns was Adolf Bandelier's The Delight Makers, but the first true scholarly study was Julian Steward's Ph.D. dissertation, "The Clown in Native North America." Important articles on the subject include Steward's summary of his findings, "The Ceremonial Buffoon of the American Indian," Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 14 (1931): 187-207; and Elsie Parsons and Ralph Beals, "The Sacred Clowns of the Pueblo and MayoYaqui Indians," American Anthropologist n. s. 36, no. 4 (October-December 1934): 491-514. A thorough bibliography is given in Bock's dissertation. Return to text. 6. Valentine Litvinoff, "The Yaqui Easter," The Drama Review 17, no. 3 (September 1973): 52-63. Return to text. 7. Verne F. Ray, "The Contrary Behavior Pattern in American Indian Ceremonialism," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Spring 1945, pp. 75-113. Return to text. 8. E. T. Kirby, in "The Shamanistic Origins of Popular Entertainments," The Drama Review 18, no. I (March 1974): 5-15, theorizes that this healing function is the source for all clowning, but his evidence hardly seems conclusive. The Ceylonese

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demon plays are discussed by Gananath Obeyesekere in "The Ritual Drama of the Sanni Demons: Collective Representations of Disease in Ceylon," Comparative Studies in Society and History 11, no. 2 (April 1969). Return to text. 9. See, for example: Jacob Levine, "Regression in Primitive Clowning," Psychoanalytical Quarterly 30 (1961). In 1893, Alexander Stephen observed a forty-minute Hopi skit burlesquing a wedding, in which the young couple wore false, exaggerated genitals and simulated copulation, with the groom eventually collapsing in exhaustion. Other skits involved urine and fecal matter. In Ceylon, reenactments of religious myths are sometimes transformed in performance into overtly sexual clowning that deals directly with castration anxieties and fears of impotence. See: Ranjani and Gananath Obeyesekere, "Comic Ritual Dranias in Sri Lanka," The Drama Review 20, no. 1 (March 1976): 5-19. Return to text. 10. Quoted in E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage (1903; reprinted. London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 1:294. Other sources on the Feast of Fools include: Du Tilliot, Mémoires Pour Servir l'Histoire de la Fête des Fous (Paris 1741); Enid Welsford, The Fool: His Social and Literary History, an important work that traces the social history of the fool and relates it to the fool figure in literature. Harvey Cox's The Feast of Fools is a theological study of the meaning of Christianity in the Middle Ages and in modern times. The same spirit of masquerade and role reversal evidenced in the Feast of Fools exists in most cultures, from the Dionysian rites of ancient Greece to the modern New Orleans Mardi Gras. For a somewhat polemical discussion of the social function of these festivals, see Michael Bristol's essay, "Acting Out Utopia: The Politics of Carnival," Performance 1, no. 6 (May-June 1973): 13-28. Return to text. 11. Quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. "Feast of Fools." Return to text. 12. Many sotties have been preserved in print, although they have not been translated into English. See: U. Picot, Pierre Gringoire et les Comédiens Italiens (Paris, 1878); Picot, Recueil Général des Sotties, 3 VoIs. (Sociétés des Anciens Textes Français); Pierre Gringoire, Oeuvres Complètes (Paris, 1858); L. Petit de Julleville, Repertoire du Théâtre Comique en France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1886); Grace Frank, Medieval French Drama (London: Oxford University Press, 1954); and Welsford, The Fool. Return to text. 13. L. Petit de Julleville devotes a chapter to the Dijon Mère-Folle in his excellent history, Les Comédiens en France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1885); there are also chapters on les basochiens and les enfants sans souci. Return to text. 14. The standard work on court fools is Welsford's The Fool; other worthwhile studies are listed in the bibliography, and Welsford's own bibliography is quite good. Return to text. 15. Many of the English jest books are still available in the following two anthologies: William Hazlitt, Old English Jest Books ("Shakespeare's Jest Books"), 3 vols. (London, 1864); and John Wardroper, Jest Upon Jest (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1970). Return to text. 16. Welsford, The Fool, pp. 128-129. Return to text. 17. Maurice Sand's History of the Harlequinade includes the popular legend of Bertholde in his chapter on Pierrot.. Return to text.

©1976, John Towsen

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