LIST
OF SCRIPTURES
1. Isa. 8:11-22
(Israel's idolatrous practices)
2. Isa. 8:19
(wizards that peep and mutter)
3. Isa. 10:10-17
(chirping - chatter, peep, whisper)
4. Isa. 10:14 (or
opened the mouth or peeped)
5. Isa. 59:3 (tongue
hath muttered perverseness)
6. To Murmur (in
anger): (imagine, mourn, mutter, roar, take away)
7. See Strong's
Concordance for murmur, murmured, murmurers, murmuring
and murmurings.
MARIONETTE -
DEFINITIONS
1. Mariolater: n.
one who worships the Virgin Marry: opprobrious term.
2. Mariolatry: n.
(Gr. Marie, Mary, and Latreia, worship.) Worship of
the Virgin Mary, regarded as carried to an idolatrous
extreme: opprobrious term.
3. Marionette: n.
(Fr., from mariolette, dim. of mariole, a name
formerly given to little figures of the Virgin Mary.)
MARIONETTES
(Probably from Ital. morio, a fool or
buffoon, but also said to be derived from the
mariolettes, or little figures of the Virgin Mary),
fantoccini (from fantino, a child) or puppets (Fr.,
poupee, Lat. pupa, a baby or doll), the names given to
figures, generally below life-size, suspended by
threads or wires and imitating with their limbs and
heads the movements of living persons.
The high antiquity
of puppets appears from the fact that figures with
movable limbs have been discovered in the tombs of
Egypt and among the remains of Etruria, they were also
common among the Greeks, from whom they were imported
to Rome. Plays in which the characters are represented
by puppets or by the shadows of moving figures, worked
by concealed performers who deliver the dialogue, are
not only popular in India and China, but during
several centuries past maintained an important
position among the amusements of the people in most
European countries. Goethe and Lessing deemed them
worthy of attention; and in 1721 LeSage wrote plays
for puppets to perform.
The earliest
performances in English were drawn or founded upon
Bible narratives and the lives of the saints, in the
same vein as the "morality" plays which they
succeeded. Popular subjects in 16th century were "The
Prodigal Son" and "Nineveh, With Jonah and the Whale".
And in a pamphlet of 1641, describing Bartholomew
Fair, we read, "Here a knave in a fool's coat, with a
trumpet sounding or a drum beating, invites you to see
his puppets. Here a rogue like a wild woodsman, or in
an antic shape like an incubus, desires your company
to view his motion." In 1667 Peys recorded how at
Bartholomew Fair he found "My Lady Castlemaine at a
puppet play, Patient Grizill." Besides the "Sorrows of
Griselda", other puppet plays of the period were "Dick
Whittington", "The Vagaries of Merry Andrew", and "The
Humors of Bartholomew Fair". Powell's noted marionette
show was the subject of an article in "The Tatler",
1709, and again in "The Spectator", 1711. The latter
refers also to Pinkethman, a "motion-maker," in whose
scenes the divinities of Olympus ascended and
descended to the strains of music. An idea of the
class of representation may be gathered from an
advertisement of Crawley, a rival of Pinketham, which
sets forth--"The Old Creation of the World, with the
addition of Noah's Flood", also several fountains
playing water during the time of the play. The best
scene represented "Noah and his family coming out of
the ark, with all the animals two by two, and all the
fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon
trees; likewise over the ark is the sun rising in a
gorgeous manner; moreover a multitude of angels in a
double rank", the angels ringing bells. "Likewise
machines descending from above, double, with Dives
rising out of hell and Lazarus seen in Abraham's
bosom; besides several figures dancing jigs,
sarabands, and country dances, with the merry conceits
of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall." Yates showed a
moving picture of a city, with an artificial cascade,
and a temple--with mechanical birds in which attention
was called to the exact imitation of living birds, the
quick motion of the bills, just swelling of the
throat, and fluttering of the wings. The puppets were
wax figures 5 feet in stature. Toward the end of the
18th century, Flocton's show presented five hundred
figures at work at various trades. Brown's Theatre of
Arts showed at country fairs, from 1830 to 1840, the
battle of Trafalgar, Napoleon's army crossing the
Alps, and the marble palace of St. Petersburg; and at
a still later date Clapton's similar exhibition
presented Grace Darling rescuing the crew of the
"Forfarshire" steamer wrecked on the Fern Islands,
with many ingenious moving figures of quadrupeds, and,
in particular, a swan which dipped its head into
imitation water, opened its wings, and with flexible
neck preened and trimmed its plumage. In these
mechanical scenes the figures, painted upon a flat
surface and cut out, commonly of pasteboard, are slid
along grooves arranged transversely in front of the
set scenery, the actions of legs and arms being worked
by wires from the hands of persons below the stage,
though sometimes use is made of clockwork. In recent
days the literature for the marionette stage has had
an important literary recruit in the person of the
Belgian author Maurice Materlinck.
MUMMERY
DEFINITIONS
1. Mummer: n. 1) A
person who wears a mask or disguise for specifically,
in England, any of the masked and costumed persons who
travel from house to house, as at Christmas time,
acting out short pantomimes. 2) Humorously, any actor.
2. Mummery: n.; pl.
mummeries, (OFr. mummery, from momer, to mum.) 1)
Performance by mummers. 2) Any show or ceremony
regarded as pretentious or hypocritical.
MUMMERY
Mummers were bands of men and women in
medieval and later England and elsewhere, who, during
periods of public festivity, particularly at
Christmas, dressed in fantastic clothes and wearing
masks or disguised as animals, serenaded the people
outside their houses or joined in the revels within.
In a more restricted sense the term is applied to the
actors in the old English rural folk plays of St.
George, etc.; and "mumming" thus becomes a
contemptuous synonym for any form of stage-playing.
The origin of the word mummer (older spelling
"mommer," Fr. momeur) is not satisfactorily explained,
but the verb "to mum" means both to mutter and to be
silent, and "mummer" apparently comes from one or both
of these senses. Mumming seems to have been a survival
of the Roman custom of masquerading during the annual
orgies of the Saturnalia. "The disguising and mummying
that is used in Christmas time," Langley writes in his
synopsis of Polydore Virgil, "in the Northe parties
came out of the feasts of Pallas, that were done with
visors and painted visages, named Quinqatria of the
Romaynes." Aubanus, writing of mumming in Germany,
says that "in the Saturnalia there were frequent and
luxurious feastings amongst friends, presents were
mutually sent, and changes of dress made; that
Christians have adopted the same customs, which
continue to be used from the Nativity to the Epiphany:
that exchanges of dress too, as of old among the
Romans, are common, and neighbors by mutual invitation
visit each other in the manner which the Germans call
mummery." Christmas was the grand season for mumming
in England. Some were disguised as bears, others as
unicorns, or wore deer's hide and antler's or ram's
horns. Mumming led to such outrages that Henry VIII
issued a proclamation declaring the wearing of a mask
or disguise a misdemeanor. Stow gives an account of an
elaborate mummery held in 1377 by the London citizens
to amuse the son of the Black Prince, then living at
Kennington (Survey, 1603, p. 97). In Scotland, where
mumming still exists at Christmas, Hogmanay, New
Years's Day and Handsel Monday, mummers are called
"guisards". They usually present on these four nights
a rude drama called Galatian, which, in various
versions, is common throughout the Lowlands of
Scotland.
PUPPETRY -
DEFINITIONS
1. Puppet, n., (Fr.
poupee; L. Pupa, a puppet.) 1) A small figure that is
a likeness of the human form; a doll. 2) Such a figure
moved by attached strings or wires, or actions, ideas,
etc. are controlled by another.
2. Puppeteer, n., a
person who operates, designs, or costumes puppets, or
produces puppet shows.
3. Puppetish, a.,
like a puppet.
4. Puppetmaster, n.,
one who manages or performs in a puppet show.
5. Puppertoon, n.,
(puppet and -- oon as in cartoon.) a motion picture
made by arranging jointed puppets into the successive
stages of some motion and photographing each stage
separately.
6. Puppet Play, same
as puppet show.
7. Puppet Player,
one who works puppets in a puppet show.
8. Puppetry, n., 1)
Puppets on their actions; mummery. 2) The art of
producing puppet shows.
9. Puppet Show, a
play or performance with puppets.
PUPPETRY
Puppet: Puppets are
figures usually in imitation of life, under an
operator's control. They are used for dramatic
presentations.
Types of Puppets:
There are many different kinds of puppets. Some are
worked by strings. Others are worked by rods or held
over the hand and fingers, and there are combinations
of these types. String puppets are often called
marionettes, a word of French origin. It comes from
the religious puppet plays of the Middle Ages in which
one of the puppet characters represented the Virgin
Mary. The name Little Mary, or marionette, came to be
given the other puppets.
Types of puppets are
the hand puppet, the rod puppet, the hand-and-rod
puppet, and the finger puppet. There are also flat
puppets known as shadow figures, used to cast black or
colored shadows on a screen. Puppets may be moved by
strings, wires, rods, hands, fingers, or magnetic
attraction. They can be controlled from above, below,
at a level with the operator, or from the back or
sides of the stage, depending on the type of puppet.
A dummy, such as
Charlie McCarthy, used in combination with
ventriloquism, or "voice throwing", is operated from
the back and held level with the ventriloquist. There
are strings and rods inside such dummies and these
work the head and the features. The ventriloquist's
arm, which supports the dummy, also gives some
movement to the body. The limbs of the dummy are
usually moved only as they swing with the body. See
Ventriloquism.
Hand puppets are one
of the easiest types to make, though not to operate.
The hand puppet, in its simplest form, needs only a
head on a tubelike costume. It is drawn over the hand,
like a glove. The forefinger works the head, and the
thumb and middle finger the two arms. Such puppets are
often sold as toys, because even a child's hand can
produce entertaining movements of the figure. Puppets
made of paper bags are a popular variety of hand
puppets among amateur puppeteers, or operators of
puppet shows.
Road puppets and
shadow figures may be made simply, of everyday
materials, and they also can be worked easily, even by
young children. Varieties of these types are sometimes
found in toy stores. String puppets are the most
popular type in the United States.
Early Puppets: Greek
Literature of about 300 B.C. refers to
"string-pullers", possibly puppeteers. Small jointed
puppets or dolls with a wire attached to the head have
been found in children's graves in Greece and Italy,
and date back to about A.D. 100. After the break-up of
the Roman Empire, the puppet theater kept alive some
of the traditions of the Roman theater. It is thought
that string-operated solid puppets originated in the
Western World, then went eastward to China, and over
the Bering Strait to the Americas. American Indians
were using them before the coming of the white man.
The flat shadow figures probably originated in Asia
and made their way westward, reaching Europe and
America during the 1700's as opaque silhouettes. There
was then a vogue for black cut-paper figures.
Later European
Puppets: In the Middle Ages, people used puppets to
act out religious plays and morality plays. The
popular puppet Punchinello came to France from Italy
in the 1640's and became known as Plinchinelle. He
reached England about 1660, and his name was soon
shortened to Punch. The first text of a Punch-and-Judy
was published in England in 1828 and was illustrated
by the famous artist, George Cruikshank.
Many parts of Europe
developed puppet heroes who spoke and acted like the
people of the region. Certain places were also known
for special types of puppets. The people of Barcelona,
Spain, liked hand puppets of a special type. The
people of Cologne, Germany, were fond of rod puppets.
Flanders and Sicily used puppets of knights in armor.
In the palaces and castles of the 1700's there were
richly appointed private puppet theaters. Voltaire,
the French philosopher and playwright, helped with
puppet shows in such theaters.
Geothe, the great
German poet, received a puppet theater on his twelfth
birthday, and wrote his own plays for it. Toy puppet
theaters and small hand puppets were favorites in the
1800's. Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen, and
Tad Lincoln made their own. In Paris there were
artistic groups of people who were fascinated by the
hand puppets of the satirist, Lemercier de Neuville,
and by rod puppet shows at the Petit-Theatre and
shadows at the Black Cat cabaret.
Puppets in America
brought the theater to many people. Both children and
grown- ups who could not afford the regular theater or
who lived too far away from it, attended puppet shows
until the movies took over the low-priced field.
Around 1900 puppets were popular at fairs and
circuses, in town halls and schoolhouses, and in parks
and streets. Puppeteers presented popular versions of
old-fashioned dramas. Noah's Ark and Jeptha's Rash Vow
appeared for many years after such Biblical plays had
ceased to be done by living actors.
Gradually in the
1900's, a new kind of puppet show developed. More
skill and artistry were displayed. Most puppet
theaters today are small and easy to travel with.
Artists and writers who wanted to produce plays for
small audiences of friends used puppets. They wrote
plays especially for puppets and used puppet actors
that were works of art. The professional puppet
theater of today grew out of this type of
sophisticated artistry.
In 1915, full-length
plays with string puppets were produced by Ellen Van
Volkenburg and the Chicago Little Theater. Tony Sarg
gave his first public show in 1916 in New York, and
Ellen Van Volkenburg directed his famous production of
The Rose and The Ring. Sarg's work helped to revive
puppetry in the United States.
Many men and women
contributed to his revival. Remo Bufano used all types
of puppets in New York City. He had a little hand
puppet, Orlando Furioso, and a huge thirty-five foot
telescoping string-puppet clown, used in the stage
show, Jumbo. Forman Brown and Harry Burnett have done
string-puppet musical comedies, and had their own
Turnabout Theater in Los Angeles. George Pal and Lou
Bunin have made films with puppet actors. Puppets are
used widely in television advertising.
Publications and
Societies: As a result of the puppet revival, many
people became interested in producing puppet shows.
Puppetry became popular with school and civic groups.
Many of these amateurs had no idea how to make a
puppet. Puppeteers had always kept secret the
mechanics of their trade and they were reluctant to
give assistance to newcomers. Gradually, writers
published technical information.
One of the first
books was The Tony Sarg Marionette Book, published in
1921 by F.J. McIsaac. In 1930, Paul McPharlin first
issued Puppetry, A Yearbook of Puppets and
Marionettes. During its 16 years, it recorded
important events in puppetry throughout the world.
Other books and pamphlets on puppets also appeared.
The Union
Internationale des Marionnettes was founded in Prague
in the 1930's, and held congresses. People interested
in puppetry established national societies in many
countries, notably England, France, and the United
States. Periodicals on puppetry also appeared. The
first one was The Marionette, in 1918. These
publications contained historical articles, plays, and
construction details for puppets and stages.
In May, 1958, the
first International Festival of Puppet Theaters took
place in Bucharest, Romania. More than 300 delegates
from 27 countries and more than 30 companies
participated.
VENTRILOQUISM
- DEFINITIONS
1. Ventrilocution:
n., ventriloquism.
2. Ventriloqual: a.,
ventriloquial.
3. Ventriloquial:
a., pertaining to, belonging to, or using
ventriloquism.
4. Ventriloquially:
adv., in a ventriloquial manner.
5. Ventriloquism:
n., (from L. ventriloquus, lit., one who speaks from
the belly, from venter, belly, and loqui, to speak;
and -ism.) the art or practice of speaking in such a
way that the voice seems to come from some other
source than the speaker.
6. Ventriloquist:
n., a person who practices ventriloquism;
specifically, an entertainer who uses ventriloquism to
carry on a pretended conversation with a large puppet,
or dummy.
7. Ventriloquistic
a., of or pertaining to ventriloquism or
ventriloquists.
8. Ventriloquize
v.t. and vi,i.; ventriloquized, pt., pp.;
ventriloquizing, ppr. to utter (words or sounds) as a
ventriloquist.
9. Ventriloquous:
a., same as ventriloquial. 10. Ventriloquv n., same as
ventriloquism.
VENTRILOQUISM
Ventriloquism (lat. venter, belly, and loqui, to
speak), the art of producing the voice in such a
manner that it shall appear to proceed, not from the
speaker's own mouth but from some place altogether
distant from him. The art of ventriloquism was
formerly supposed to result from a peculiar use of the
stomach (when the name) during the process of
inhalation. As a matter of fact, the words are formed
in the normal manner, but the breath is allowed to
escape very slowly, the tones being muffled by
narrowing the glottis and the mouth opened as little
as possible, while the tongue is retracted and only
its tip moves. Gestures and facial expression are
employed at the same time to assist in the deception
by stimulating the imagination of the listeners and to
distract their attention from the speaker. "Thus,"
says Huxley, "if the ventriloquist desires to create
the belief that a voice issues from the bowels of the
earth, he imitates, with great accuracy, the tones of
such a half- stifled voice, and suggests the existence
of someone uttering it by directing his answers and
gestures towards the ground. The gestures and tones
are such as would be produced by a given cause; and,
no other cause being apparent, the mind of the
bystander insensibly judges the suggested cause to
exist." Ventriloquism, which is still a recognized
form of conjuring entertainment, is of ancient origin.
Traces of the art are found in Egyptian and Hebrew
archaeology. Eurykles of Athens was the most
celebrated of Greek ventriloquists, who were called
after him Euryklides, and also Engastrimanteis
(belly-prophets). It is not impossible that the
priests of ancient times were masters of this art, and
that to it may be ascribed such miracles as the
speaking statues of the Egyptians, the Greek oracles,
and the stone in the river Pactolus, the sound of
which put robbers to flight. Many uncivilized races of
modern times are adept in ventriloquism, as the Zulus,
the Maoris and the Eskimos. It is well known in
Hindustan and China, where it is practised by
travelling magicians.
COMMENTS
1. The above was
taken from dictionaries and encyclopedias with the
scripture from the Bible. The practices refer to
idolatrous and ungodly conduct. Some of the key words
researched are chirp, murmur, peep and mutter uttered
by people practicing the occult or talking against
God.
2. Marionettes is a
part of the worship of the Virgin Mary rather than
Jesus Christ. It is derived from the words fool and
buffoon, incubus, divinities of Olympus, Devil rising
out of hell, etc.
3. Mummery is
regarded as pretentious and hypocritical. It is
described as contemptuous, mutter, annual orgies of
the Saturnalia, unicorns, outrages, rude drama, etc.
4. Puppetry is an
imitation of life. It is described by religious puppet
plays, voice throwing, etc.
5. Ventriloquism is
the pretended conversation with a dummy. It is
described by the terms of conjuring; belly prophets;
speaking statutes of the Egyptians, the Greek oracles
and the stone in the river Pactolus; etc.
CONCLUSION
1. God is total
reality; there is no fantasy or play-acting in God!
There is no unreality in the Bible!
2. Christians should
not deal in any spiritual fantasy. Fantasy is very
simply a lie that is not from God.
3. God does not need
any human circus or side shows to sell and promote the
kingdom of God! All it takes is a straight forward
application of the Bible with signs, wonders and
miracles following the true teaching of the Word of
God to attract people to church. Jesus said if you
don't believe me then believe my miracles.
REFERENCES
1. Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary
of the English Language, unabridged, Second Edition,
1970. The unabridged dictionary is the best type of
dictionary to use to study spiritual origins of words
and practices.
2. The
Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments
in the authorized King James version along with
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with
Greek and Hebrew Dictionary.
3. The Encyclopedia
Britannica, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature
and General Information, Eleventh Edition, 1910. The
best type of encyclopedia to study spiritual origins
is the older ones. The newer encyclopedias leave out
more and more about spiritual things. 4. The World
Book Encyclopedia and The New Family Encyclopedia.