The Legends of John Kunner an 



By Carla B. Burgess 



John Kunner was dead. 



His sheepskin-covered drums 

 quieted. His contorted, gyrating dance 

 stilled. His costume of colorful rags, 

 feathers, sheep's bells and bulls' horns 

 faded into dust. 



Yes, many — including the 

 Journal of American Folklore, 

 community newspapers and some 

 historians — believed that by the turn 

 of the century this icon of African- 

 American Christmas had slipped from 

 our midst. 



But Michael Luster was skeptical. 

 In 1991, the Beaufort folklorist had 



heard an elderly black woman 

 recollect her childhood memories of 

 the "John Kunners," who painted their 

 faces and donned fantastic costumes in 

 which to haunt the streets at 

 Christmastime, singing and dancing. 



This venerable masquerade of 

 African origin was a custom called 

 John Kunner; its participants, John 

 Kunners. 



Luster went to back issues of the 

 Beaufort newspaper, searching for 

 signs of Kunner' s life in the 20th 

 century. 



He cranked through every micro- 

 filmed issue of the Beaufort News 



between 1920 and 1950, and John 

 Kunner managed to elude all but one 

 report. On the next to the last day of 

 1937 was a morsel about Jack 

 Chadwick, one of a parade of 

 costumed black men, who was struck 

 by a car, taken to the hospital, treated 

 and released. 



The news brief was lacking in 

 context or description. But the 

 presence of John Kunner — or John 

 Canoe, John Coonah, Jonkonnu or 

 any of the other names by which it 

 has been identified — in that parade 

 was unmistakable. 



Continued 



The ragman and the "fancy dress" man collect coins from the plantation owner and his family during a re-enactment of 

 the John Kunner celebration at Somerset Homecoming, a reunion of slave descendants, in 1988. Only during these 

 Christmas festivities were Somerset slaves allowed on the lawn ofJosiah Collins' Lake Phelps mansion. 



COASTWATCH 13 



