Please have a look at the following x-posting from PERFORM--It looks
like a query which some on this list may be able to help. Please copy
any responses to Max Harris directly (address below), since he is not
a member of this (reed-l) list.
Abigail
Records of Early English Drama/ Victoria College/ 150 Charles Street W
Toronto Ontario Canada
Phone (416) 585-4504/FAX (416) [log in to unmask]
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html => REED's home page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed-l.html => REED-L's home page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/stage.html => our theatre resource page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/archive.html => library & archives page
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 10:28:24 -0500
From: Max Harris <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: PERFORM - Medieval Performing Arts <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Matachines
A very good question! The danza de los matachines, not unlike the Morris
dance in form, is popular among hispanic and indigenous peoples in parts of
Mexico and the southwestern US: see, for example, John Forrest, _Morris and
Matachin_ (Sheffield, 1984). The term was first used in a New World context
by Bernal Diaz, c. 1550, to describe dancers he had seen at Moctezuma's
court. The term is also used, from about the same time, in Spain, Italy,
France, and England to describe varieties of sword dancers, buffoons, etc.
In Europe, its usage seems to have died out sometime in the late 17th
century. Arabic, Italian, Spanish, and Nahuatl etymologies have been
suggested for the word and its meaning (as distinct from its referent)
varies with the etymology. My question has to do with the relationship
between the European and Mexican usages. A single, verifiable use of the
word in Europe before, let us say, 1520, would verify the theory that the
word (although not, perhaps, the dance) traveled westwards across the
Atlantic. But, if there is no such mention . . . .
Renaissance Drama scholars may recall the exchange from Webster's _The White
Devil_, V, vi:
"We have brought you a mask."
"A matachin it seems by your drawn swords,
Churchmen turned revellers."
>> Does anybody know of early European references to Matachines?
>
>Okay, I'll bite...what IS a Matachine?
>
>Jesse
>
_________________________________
Max Harris, Executive Director
Wisconsin Humanities Council
802 Regent Street, First Floor
Madison, Wisconsin 53715-2610
tel: 608/262-0706
fax: 608/263-7970
http://www.danenet.wicip.org/whc
