From conway@juggling.org Fri Nov 15 06:02:35 GMT 1996 Article: 39093 of rec.juggling Path: news.scruz.net!noos.hooked.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!nntp.crl.com!news.pbi.net!news.pacbell.net!user From: conway@juggling.org (Andrew John Conway) Newsgroups: rec.juggling Subject: Ramo Samee - the first modern juggler. Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 21:39:49 -0800 Organization: ROTFL Lines: 81 Distribution: world Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-206-170-1-10.snfc21.pacbell.net In one of his articles on the History of Juggling (Natural History Vol. 88 No. 10, December 1979, also in the papers section at the JIS) Marcello Truzzi states: ------------- Begin quote ------------------ By the early nineteenth century, juggling was becoming a specialized entertainment. An advertisement in the Salem Gazette of October 5, 1819, describes the "East Indian" Ramo Samee as having performed "for some time past in the metropolis of England, and before all the crowned heads of Europe, who have unanimously pronounced him to be the first master of the art in their dominions." Among his many feats, he included "a Series of Evolutions, with four hollow brass Balls, about the size of Oranges"; "Stringing Beads with his Mouth, and at the same time, as he balances, turning Rings with his Fingers and Toes"; and a "manly activity in throwing a ball, the size of an eighteen-pound shot, to different parts of his body with the greatest of ease." Samee closed his act with a demonstration of sword swallowing so did not juggle exclusively, but he may be our earliest recorded "modern" juggler, antedating the Chinese juggler Lau Laura, who performed at London's Drury Lane in 1832 and who has usually been considered to be the first. --------------- End quote ------------------ Samee gets several mentions in Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor", published from 1851 to 1862. Describing a street juggler, Mayhew says: ------------- Begin quote ------------------ As proof of his talents and success he assured me, that when Ramo Samee first came out, he not only learned how to do all the Indian's Tricks, but also did them so dextrously, that when travelling 'Samee has often paid him ten shillings not to perform in the same town with him.' 'I'm a juggler,' he said, 'but I don't know if that's the right term, for some people call conjurers jugglers; but it's wrong. When I was in Ireland they called me a "manualist", and it was a gentleman wrote the bill out for me. The difference I makes between conjuring and juggling is, one's deceiving to the eye, and the other's pleasing to the eye - yes, that's it - it's dexterity. 'I dare say I've been juggling forty years, for I was between fourteen and fifteen when I begun, and I'm fifty-six now. I remember Ramo Samee and all the first processes of the art. He was the first I ever knew, and very good indeed; there was no other to oppose him, and he must have been good then. i suppose I'm the oldest juggler alive.' --------------- End quote ------------------ There are at least two other references to Samee in Mayhew. First a puppeteer describes one of his marionettes, '...and next the Indian juggler - Ramo Samee, a representation - who chucks the balls about under his feet and under his arms, and catches them on the back of his head, the same as Ramo Samee did.' Then a fire eater says: 'The other trick is a feat which I make known to the public as one of Ramo Samee's, which he used to perform in public-houses and tap-rooms, and made a deal of money out of. With the same plate and a piece of dry tow placed in it, I have a pepper-box, with ground rosin and sulphur together. I light the tow, and with a knife and fork I set down to it and eat it, and exclaim, "This is my light supper."' It is probably Samee, or one of his imitators, who Hazlitt described in his 1821 essay, "The Indian Juggler" ------------- Begin quote ------------------ Coming forward and seating himself on the ground in his white dress and tightened turban, the chief of the Indian Jugglers begins with tossing up two brass balls, which is what any of us could do, and concludes with keeping up four at the same time, which is what none of us could do to save our lives, no if we were to take our whole lives to do it in. [...] Some of the other feats are quite as curious and wonderful, such as the balancing the artificial tree and shooting a bird from each branch through a quill; though none of them have the elegance or facility of the keeping up of the brass balls. You are in pain for the result, and glad when the experiment is over; they are not accompanied with the same unmixed, unchecked delight as the former; and I would not give much to be merely astonished without being pleased at the same time. As to the swallowing of the sword, the police ought to interfere to prevent it. When I saw the Indian Juggler do the same things before, his feet were bare, and he had large rings on his toes, which kept turning all the time of the performance, as if they moved of themselves. [...] --------------- End quote ------------------ Andrew conway@juggling.org http://www.juggling.org/~conway/