The Demonic Origins of Ventriloquism

It may not surprise you to know that the popular entertainment has some very dark roots.

[MARCH 28, 2016]

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-demonic-origins-of-ventriloquism

YOU MIGHT NOT THINK OF Lamb Chop, the adorable hand puppet that graced the appendage of world-famous ventriloquist Shari Lewis or the impertinent wooden dummies operated by Edgar Bergan as having ancestors, but they do.

One of them is a snake in a human mask. But let’s back up.

Ventriloquism—altering your voice to make it sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else—is familiar to most as entertainment. Performers beguile audiences by making their voices seem like they belong to a dummy (or some other figure like Lamb Chop), chatting with their playful, inanimate partner. It was a smash on the vaudeville stage and stayed popular through the 60s. The heyday has passed, but there are still bold name acts like comedian Jeff Dunham, who tours the world and makes frequent television appearances, such as one on 30 Rock in which his character’s dummy calls Liz Lemon a “ferret-faced skank”. But ventriloquism is not a modern art—it dates back to at least the classical Greece, when it really freaked people out.

Back then, ventriloquists were called “engastrimyths”. Writes Steven Connor in his book Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism, this was a mashup of “en in, gaster the stomach, and mythos word or speech.” Basically, people believed engastrimyths had demons in their stomachs who belched words from their host’s mouths. Engastrimyths plied their trade for entertainment (what could be more thrilling than demonic tummy talk?) and as divination. Pioneering ventriloquist Valentine Vox writes in his book I Can See Your Lips Moving: The History and Art of Ventriloquism that the art’s roots lie in necromancy—the ancient art of allowing a dead person’s spirit to enter the necromancer and speak to the living.

In 150 A.D., a man called Alexander of Abonoteichus captivated contemporaries when he discovered a talking serpent with a human head. Not so captivated was the skeptical writer Lucian, who declared that the head was made from linen, mounted on a snake’s body, and made to speak through a tube operated by a concealed assistant. While not ventriloquism, it was an early use of a “dummy” to focus the audience’s attention on a miraculous voice. (Thankfully, animal carcasses have been phased out of modern interpretations.)

(continued)