Throop. "He wears a mask too and 

 sometimes a stuffed coonskin above 

 it so arranged as to give him the 

 appearance of being some seven or 

 eight feet tall." 



Musical instruments of 

 "Kunnering" included "animals' 

 bones, jew's harps, triangles and 

 cows' horns," wrote Kane. The 

 participants were predominantly men, 

 but women and children often 

 brought up the rear of the proces- 

 sional. The "ragman," or chief John 

 Kunner, led the gala; the others 

 dressed in "Sunday-go-to-meeting- 

 suits" or donned women's clothing. 



Though plenty has been written 

 about John Kunner, its existence was 

 downplayed or vaguely described in 

 the media reports of its day. In the 

 1850s, the Wilmington Daily Journal 

 labeled John Kunner "feeble," citing 

 a lack of audience appreciation as a 

 possible culprit. It continued after the 

 abolition of slavery, but declined 

 among blacks just before the turn of 

 the century, possibly because of the 

 racially motivated riots in Wilming- 

 ton in 1898. Accounts in the early 

 1900s point to the tradition's later 

 adoption by white youths in 

 Wilmington. 



With the exception of its 1937 

 accident report, Beaufort's 

 "boosterish press" ignored the 

 celebration taking place before them, 

 wrote Luster in a 1991 eulogy, even 

 though it appears that the water town 

 harbored all that remained of the 

 tradition in North America. 



Meanwhile, the celebration of Old 

 Christmas in the tiny, Outer Banks 

 village of Rodanthe was thoroughly 

 reported. The celebration there dates 

 back to England's shift from the 

 Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 

 1752, which moved the date of 

 Christmas from Jan. 5 to Dec. 25. 



"The news took awhile to reach 

 outlying areas and was not warmly 

 received by a lot of people," says 



Wynn Dough, curator of the Outer 

 Banks History Center, "especially out 

 on the coastal fringe, far from the real 

 centers of population." 



The tradition of Old Christmas, 

 which is still celebrated in Rodanthe 

 to this day amid roasted oysters, 

 music and dance, was once observed 

 with a processional between the north 

 and south ends of the community. 

 The music spilled from fifes made 

 with local reeds and drums crafted of 

 home-tanned sheepskins, wrote 

 Richard Walser in the N.C. Folklore 

 Journal. 



But the most consistent thread of 

 Rodanthe 's holiday was and is the 

 appearance of "Old Buck" or, as 

 Walser penned, "the wild bull of 

 Trent Woods." 



Continued 



— 



On plantations 

 in North Carolina 

 in the 1800s, 

 many black slaves were 

 allowed to celebrate 

 John Kunner and 

 the uncharacteristic 



freedoms it 

 afforded between 

 Christmas and 

 New Year's. 



The African- 

 American 

 Dance 

 Ensemble, 

 performing as 

 John Kunner 

 musicians, 

 beat drums 

 and replicas 

 of "gumba 

 boxes," or 

 wooden frames 

 covered with 

 tanned 

 sheepskins. 



COASTWATCH 



