"Just like John Kunner is not a 

 pure African tradition — first of all, 

 Christmas isn't an African holiday — 

 (Old Christmas) draws on the Euro- 

 pean and the African," he says. "All 

 over the British Isles, people practice 

 mumming at Christmastime, that is, 

 people putting on costumes and going 

 door to door." 



It was through a conversation with 

 now-deceased Emma Chadwick that 

 Luster recovered many precious 

 strands about 20th century John 

 Kunner in Beaufort. The rest was 

 woven from the boyhood memories of 

 some of the Menhaden Chanteymen 

 — a group of African- American 

 menhaden fishermen whose folk 

 songs preserve their oceanborne 

 heritage. 



Jack Chadwick, the hapless John 

 Kunner who collided with the car of 

 that 1937 newspaper article, probably 

 had the additional misfortune of 

 arriving at the hospital in playful 

 attire. Luster speculates that he was 

 wearing makeup and a dress and 

 carrying a purse at the time of his 

 injury because that was his traditional 

 role in the John Kunner pageant. 



Through the Chanteymen 's 

 recollections, a scene was conjured up 

 for Luster of "six-foot-three-inch 

 Willie Fulford, who wore a white 

 spike-tailed coat and carried a walking 

 cane." 



Buster Branche dressed like a 

 clown, Pete Hyman pounded the bass 

 drum, Charley Taylor rapped the 

 snare. And there was an air of the 

 gospel according to John Kunner. 



"When they arrived at the next 

 house, the drums would stop and 

 Walter Joyner would step forward in 

 some approximation of a preacher's 

 garb, clutching a catalog or other large 

 book to serve as his mock Bible," 

 Luster wrote. "He would intone in 

 preacherly cadences, 'I'm taking my 

 text from chapter two-twotie-two, 

 'Dry Bones in the Valley, Biscuits in 



the Oven and Molasses on the Table,' 

 and deliver his comic sermon to the 

 congregational shouts of 'That's 

 right. Tell it, Brother.'" 



Sometimes the John Kunners and 

 their entourage ventured beyond 

 Beaufort, marching across the bridge 

 to Morehead City or out to North 

 River, a 17-mile trip there and back. 



The Kunner faithful, which 

 consisted mostly of menhaden 

 fishermen, carried on the tradition 

 through the latter years of the 1940s, 

 until a marching band at the all-black 

 Queen Street School debuted in 

 1948, perhaps stealing the thunder of 

 the John Kunners and allowing the 

 aging revelers a welcome retirement. 

 The last of the gang passed away in 

 1989. □ 



Chuck Davis 

 takes a 

 respite from 

 the John 

 Kunner 

 re-enactment 

 at Somerset 

 Homecoming 

 in 1988. His 

 costume was 

 patterned 

 after a 

 description 

 of Somerset 

 "John 



Kunnering" 

 by Dr. 

 Edward 

 Warren that 

 fitted the 

 "ragman" 

 in strips of 

 colorful cloth 

 and a 



headdress of 

 raccoon skin 

 and ox horns. 



With a roar 

 like a Nofeaster, 

 fiery nostrils and 

 magnificent great horns, 

 Old Buck emerged 

 from the pine forests 

 of Cape Hatteras 

 each Old Christmas 

 to inquire about 

 misbehaved children, 



COASTWATCH 17 



