What a splendid description and anlysis, Sabina! I
hope when your documentary is complete you'll lodge
copies in the EFDSS and FLS and CECTAL libraries. Are
you in contact with Doc Rowe, who has been filming
Padstow every year for decades, interviewing
participants, etc?

Jacqueline




--- Sabina Magliocco <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Thanks for that link, Pitch; it's great to see clips
> of that film, although they do not contstitute the
> entirety of it.  I must disagree with you, however,
> when you write that: 
> 
> <...after watching this short film, I found it
> difficult to 
> tell the Padstow event from Berkeley's. Except that
> California is somewhat further removed from sturdy
> English yeomanry. And that Berkeley's oss capers in
> the middle of a Neo-Pagan ritual.>
> 
> There are a number of differences between the two
> customs; I have summarized a few below.
> 
> 1) Padstow's rite truly involves the entire town;
> not a single family is untouched by it.  Every
> family participates in some way; and participation
> is exclusive to persons whose families have lived in
> Padstow for generations. Berkeley's ritual involves
> only the local Neopagan community (although friendly
> outsiders are occasionally drawn in).  Participation
> is not limited by family or social class in quite
> the same way it is in Padstow.
> 
> 2)The context of Padstow's rite is a small-scale
> community in which people have long-term social,
> economic and kinship bonds.  The context of
> Berkeley's rite is NROOGD and the larger Bay Area
> Neopagan community, which is significantly less
> dense (in terms of "dense networks") and of much
> more recent creation.  The long-term kinship ties
> that characterize Padstow's 'oss teams (there are
> two of them; the Lomax film does not touch on this)
> are absent from Berkeley's rite; the roles of oss
> and teaser are not handed down from father to son.  
> 
> 3) Berkeley's ritual starts around 1:00 PM and lasts
> for about two hours.  Padstow's celebration lasts
> for two days.  It begins on May Eve with the night
> singing, in which the teams, sans 'oss and band,
> gather outside the homes of prominent community
> members and sing the Night Song until they are asked
> in for a drink.  This activity begins around 10:00
> PM and continues all night; by morning, team members
> are well-oiled, to say the least.  Likewise, the
> dancing, accompanied by drumming and accordions,
> begins at 11:00 AM and continues until 6:00 or 7:00
> PM.  Each team has several people who take turns
> carrying the oss, as well as several teasers, as
> opposed to single individuals who carry out these
> functions, as in Berkeley.
> 
> 4) At least some of the function of the Padstow 'oss
> custom is economic: the teams collect money.  Today
> they solicit for charity, but until the early 20th
> century, they collected for drinking and partying --
> at least the Old Oss team did.  The Blue Oss or
> Temperance Oss was created at the beginning of the
> 1900s as a more sober alternative. Today, the custom
> brings 30,000 tourists annually into this fishing
> town of 3000 people, further bolstering the economy.
>  This economic motive is absent from NROOGD's
> ritual. 
> 
> 5) In Padstow, the ritual has many levels of
> meaning: besides the sexual tension that is a part
> of it, it's also about social reproduction, that is,
> the reproduction of social class.  The Old Oss team
> is markedly working class, while the Blue Oss team
> is made up of shopkeepers, teachers and middle-class
> families.  Also involved is the family of the local
> squire, Peter Prideaux-Brune, into whose 16th
> century hall only the Blue Oss is permitted to
> dance.  The playing out of inter-class tensions is
> not present in Berkeley's ritual.
> 
> 6) While the oss costumes are similar in Padstow and
> Berkeley, the style of dancing, and the intense
> music and drumming that accompany the former, but
> not the latter, make the traditons significantly
> different.  In Padstow, the music sweeps you along;
> it enters you, possesses you, so that for weeks
> after returning from Padstow I would wake up in the
> morning in California and think I heard the drums
> beating outside my window.  I could still feel them
> in my body.  Apologies to my Berkeley friends, but
> this cannot compare to the sometimes desultory
> singing of the May Song in Berkeley.
> 
> 7) Finally, as Pitch pointed out, the Bekeley rite
> is part of a Neopagan ritual.  The interpretation of
> the oss, its role, the fact that the rite also
> incorporates a May Pole dance (absent in Padstow)
> and a conflict between the May and Winter Queens
> makes it a very different event.
> 
> Please understand that I am NOT trying to make
> academic distinctions of authenticity, nor is there
> a value judgement in what I describe.  They are
> simply two different customs, although the Berkeley
> rite is inspired by Padstow's tradition.
> 
> John Bishop and I are working on a documentary about
> this process featuring both the Padstow and the
> Berkeley event; we hope to have it finished by this
> summer.  It will be distributed by Mediageneration
> Films (see www.mediageneration.com/).
> 
> BB,
> Sabina
> 
> Sabina Magliocco
> Associate Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> California State University
> 18111 Nordhoff St.
> Northridge, CA  91330-8244
> 



		
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