Fiddles, Sequins, Feathers Ready for Mummers’ Traditional Parade

Marching fiddlers and drummers will play the “Oh Dem Golden Slippers” theme Thursday to ring in the New Year as the Mummers march in the nation’s oldest organized parade.

The party includes Mummers in fancy sequined and feathered costumes that cost an estimated $3 million, and a million people are expected to line the 2 1/2-mile route and an expected 2 million more will watch on television as 25,000 marchers compete for $318,000 in prizes.

The money put up by the city hardly pays for the multicolored threads used to sew together the elaborate suits, many of which cost more than $1,000 each.

“It’s a passion,” said Aqua String Band captain Al Primavera, who says the Mummers has been his mistress for 35 years and is counting on “smoke and fire” firefighters costumes to carry the day for his club during the four-minute competition before the judges in front of City Hall.

Most of the marchers are men--women were first allowed in the parade only half a dozen years ago--and most wear familiar gold-painted shoes as they participate in the 13-hour extravaganza that officials claim is the longest folk festival in the world.

Except for the bands, which have intricate formations, the Mummers don’t walk and they don’t march.

What they do is cakewalk in a strut that is unique and often imitated. Arms are spread, like holding an invisible cape, and the elbows pump, the body rocks forward and back, sideways and in circles.

Mummers merrymaking dates back to the 17th Century. Actually, it is said to have originated with the ancient Romans, 2,400 years ago, when masked laborers engaged in satiric gift exchanges.