By Rebecca L. HorstVolunteer, Sequim Museum and Arts
May Day is known as a festival of spring and the first day of summer. Originally celebrated as an agricultural festival, its customs, like the maypole, originate in ancient Egypt and India. The oldest May Day celebration is in Cornwall England that started in the 14th century.
The oldest unbroken procession is in Hayfield in Derbyshire, England. The longest running celebration since 1870 is in the British Commonwealth held in Westminster, B.C.
The modern celebration has its roots in the Roman Republic 509-29 BC. The “Festival of Flora” honors the Roman goddess of spring, flowers, and fertility. She was celebrated with wreaths of flowers, primarily roses as symbols of fertility and Chariot races were held.
Medieval customs involved the men picking Hawthorn blossoms, blowing of cow horns, and young women washing their faces in the morning dew. Superstitions followed the holiday such as: children born the first week of May having magical powers and second sight, dew soaked blankets cured children, sleeping girls must be wary of being kidnapped by beauty loving fairies, fear of fairy magic, and archetypal witches transforming to hairs.
Garlands were made of “The shrub of Beltane,” known as Marsh Marigolds, to ward off fairy power. Continuous May fires warded off bad luck. Should they extinguish, only sod from a priest’s house could fuel relighting the fire with the former ashes spread over the house floor. Water, milk, salt, or fire could not be shared, except in the case that milk is given with salt and only drank inside the owner’s house.
Maypoles were banned through an official act of Parliament until 1660. King Charles II reinstated the maypole during the restoration. April 1661 General Wade raised the largest and most famous maypole on The Strand in London. It was at least 130 feet high. Sir Isaac Newton later purchased it and used it as a support for his “Great Telescope.”
John Ruskin 1819-1900 was a leading artist, thinker, and critic. He is responsible for the modern May Queen Festival, which was performed in Sequim beginning in 1908 as part of the Irrigation Festival. Ruskin’s festival was held at Whiteland College in Roehampton, southwest London.
Maypoles are made of hawthorn or birch with colored ribbons suspended from the top, decorated with flowers or greenery. The May Queen symbolizes purity, wears white, and leads the May Day parade and all events. She presents a speech before the maypole dance. Otherwise, she does not participate in festivities, but watches over like a Queen in a flower decked chair.
The maypole dance was adapted with ribbons pairing males and females of similar age that alternately wove the ribbon into a plate design until they met at the base of the pole. Garlands of straw bands and posies are worn in the hair. Schools practice for weeks to perfect the plaited pattern.
The oldest maypole in America is 1628. Indentured servants in Massachusetts rebelled against the Puritans. They built “The Maypole of Merrymount,” an 80-foot pine tree covered in buckhorns. It was removed over issues of morality due to the party getting out of hand relative to moral expectations of the time. US traditions include leaving May baskets (small baskets with flowers), ringing the doorbell, and running. If caught a kiss is exchanged. This tradition dwindled during the 20th century.
In Hawaii, Lei Day is celebrated to celebrate Native Hawaiian culture. And here is Sequim, we continue our May Day celebration in the form of the Irrigation Festival that is celebrating its 120th year.
The Sequim May Day picnic that marked the opening of the first irrigation ditch was the start of Sequim’s Irrigation Festival. Pioneers are quoted in The Evening News in 1959 stating how the event was like a family gathering. In the early days before cars transportation was a chore and the celebration gave an excuse for a reunion uniting the entire community. Imagine the excitement at the first picnic when not one, but two bicycles were on display!
Also quoted in the book “Dungeness: The Lure of the River,” Mrs. Alfred W. Robb states, “May Day was just a picnic with the Maypole dances. So much work went into the children’s clothes. They were handmade with frills and fancy for the maypole dance. There would be eight, nine, or ten maypoles, one for each grade in school … It was a special day for everyone to dress up. Girls on the maypole had to have different colored dresses to match the ribbons on the Maypoles, later they had paper costumes for the dances.”
“Dungeness: The Lure of the River” retells a small portion of our festival history. In 1908, Gladys Long was elected May Queen by the Sequim grade school. Later, the queen was chosen from the high school. The first Royalty festival float is recorded as 1948, built of crepe paper by Kay Gizinski. Prior to that, the queen sat on a platform and watched after the procession through the athletic field. “The band will play, wee little flower girls will come forth from the schoolhouse followed by Queen Elinor, the crown bearers, pages and other attendants and finally by the dancing class, all will be in uniform.”
“Lure of the River” quotes a description from the May 22, 1928, fifth edition of “May Day Celebration”: “The queen and attendants enter a decorated car and are driven to the park where the flower girls strew the pathway with beautiful blossoms, as all pass up to the platform with it’s throne, the band plays and the chorus sing, the mayor of Port Angeles is introduced by the mayor of Sequim, and proceeds to crown the queen, who thereupon issues a proclamation, through her secretary to her subjects. Joy reigns and the May Poles are the center of the nimble footed fairies.”
In 1953 the crowning moved from the maypole dance celebration to the auditorium. Around that time of mid-20th century our official maypole tradition ended.
Through the years, various community members have attempted to revive the maypole dance. According to retired Sequim Middle School teacher Barbara Jo Jacobs, kids would get out of school at noon Friday of the festival and amongst the activities was a revived maypole dance.
Get involved
This year after the parade The Museum and Arts Center in the Sequim–Dungeness Valley will be giving the community a chance to attempt a trial of the maypole dance. Guests will be offered a ribbon position and walked through a few patterns.
Upon completion, participants will receive a picture postcard of past dances that includes a photo of one of our youthful Grand Pioneers, Helen Bucher.
A note from our museum: When cleaning out old barns and any storage areas with boxes of, what we call primary source documentation, ephemera; diaries, letters, photographs, even receipts, etc please consider its importance to the history of Sequim. You may not know who is in those photos or where they were taken, but we might.
These items contain factual information that allow researchers a chance to “check and balance” our information. Please, before throwing any articles away, bring them to the museum to be reviewed for archival purposes.
