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Few
of the American's
who take part in a favorite party tradition realize
that it originally served as a sacred funeral ritual
from the West Indies - it is called the Limbo.
In
Trinidad, the Limbo was a part of a funeral dance. Mourners
at the funeral would walk towards a horizontal bamboo
pole and would attempt to walk forward, while bending
backwards at the waist in order to move under the pole
without knocking it off of its supports. The act was
meant to symbolize the passage that the soul of the
departed would take between life and the afterlife.
Being able to pass under the bar without disturbing
the pole or falling down was difficult symbolizing the
difficulty of the journey to heaven and thus that difficult
period of time was spent in limbo (the area between
heaven and hell. As the clapping and chanting mourners
followed each other under the pole, the pole was moved
lower and lower towards the ground.
American
tourists in the 1950's witnessed the event and demonstrated
it for friends at home. Boscoe Holder, a dancer from
Trinidad was one of the most famous limbo artists and
used it in his dance routine. As more people were exposed
to it, the limbo craze took off, first among teenagers
and beatniks, then among their parents at dinner parties.
Eventually,
it was showcased in the 1960 movie "Where the Boys
Are."  For the next year and a half it spread like
wildfire across the country, but began to fade in 1962.
In 1963, however, Chubby Checker, the man who made the
Twist famous released a song called "limbo
Rock" which quickly soared to number one on the
charts and finished the year as the top song of the
year. In the song, Checker asked "how low can
you go." In Canada, a 15 year old girl was
able to go as low as 6 1/8 inches from the ground. As
with most fads, the limbo craze finally petered out
the public became infatuated with the arrival of the
Beatles. |
spymuseum.com
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