Religious and Moral about Clowns
Clowns are generally considered that they exist for fun and entertainment, but when one who has clear knowledge about a clown and his job, one will understand how powerful clowns are. Barbara Tedlock has studied a lot about clown across the world and he wrote an essay called, ‘The Clown’s Way’.
In fact main job of clowns is to entertain, give fun and make the people laugh. Clowns often remind us about circus, how they entertain the crowd with their funny words and deeds. They are professional clowns who are into the job for earning. There is also another kind of clowns who do such things for their religion and with a fear of religious beliefs. They are religious clowns.
The best moral to learn from religious clowns are to make others laugh irrespective of one’s own worries and day to life tensions. Every clown is a human in fact, and they too have some worries of life. But once they wear clown mask, they forget all their personal worries and issues, and everything they do is laugh and let others laugh, which is very healthy to anyone.
Different religious clowns entertain people in different ways. Heyoka clowns do things the other way like they read backwards, walk backwards, ride the horse in backward direction, moves counter-sunwise. His voice is a thunderclap. In few religions, during festivals, the clowns open the baggage of the guests, though such things are annoying, the guest burst up in laughs looking at the way the clowns behave.
In some religion, clowns pour water on the guests and they also throw coal. This is always ends up with fun, but not into fights. In few religions, clowns go door to door to beg food and tobacco, if anyone refuses; they are allowed to do anything to fetch food from any house. The theft of food is a very common issue in California.
The theft of food sometimes leads up to sexual show ups like they talk or sing about sex, or they perform sexual displays in the public at women. According to Tedlock,
Jemez clowns “make advances toward women”; Ponca clowns “crawl up and touch a woman’s genitalia in full daylight”; and Kwakiutl clowns jest with chiefs’ daughters, often making pointed references to sex. In the Southeast, Creek clowns, while singing obscene songs during the Crazy Dance make sexual motions and even come into bodily contact with women. (p.6).
Generally it is considered by many religious clowns that they believe they will die if they do not do their job properly. Though they show things in a funny way, many of their deeds share knowledge about the religion or they teach us a moral of life. One of the best examples said by Tedlock is about Pueblo Indian Clowns. On the occasion of feeding the katchina dancers, clowns substitute ashes or sweepings for corn meal as their own sacred offerings, and they make people laugh.
But this deed has a hidden moral. It shows the religious deeds of Zuni woman, who deposit sweepings at the corn field and say, “I now deposit you as sweepings but in one year you will return to me as corn”. It is just like instead of wasting corn on the floor as sweepings, they will make it purpose for future food.
