New Blacaman Gallery

A further and exhaustive (but not definitive) chapter on the infinite subject of crocodile hypnotism (with a turn on lions).

Reiterating and interlacing topics is one of our preferred entertainment in assuring our discoveries to the world. This not to deny that new and surprising subject will be assured.
We knows: crocodiles and fakirs are one of our preeminent obsessions. Promising you to soon divert from this area, please let us submit you this innocent gallery pertaining Blacaman second area of activity: the hypnotism over lions and crocodiles.
At the end of his act, he had a square cage built on stage, and with his obscure hypnotic powers, in a complicate italian jargon, he reduced the turbolent kings of the forest to his will, without whips, hoops or others circensis paraphernalia.
And this was anticipated by this same power over crocodiles: after all, he was the teacher of Koringa, who acted as a "nurse" in the master's act, before to take her way.

Please admire in today's gallery the poster art for those Blacaman's animal submission feats.


















Now compare the European graphics with the American posters below.
In fact, in 1939, Blacaman was contracted in the U.S.A. at the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus (a secondary but prestigious operation owned by Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey).




During this period, the master fakir appeared on the Universal movie "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man", directed by George Marshall and filmed in that circus. This vehicle for W.C.Fields and Ed Bergen dedicated few minutes to Blacaman helping Al McCarthy to get out of a crocodile mouth, and a splendid excerpt of his lion act. If some good soul can post the segments on Youtube, we will highly appreciate.

Koringa: new discoveries

The only film in the world about "the only woman fakir in the world"

Among the bizarre novelties we have been speculating about in the last two years, we got a remakable feedback on Koringa, "the only woman fakir in the world" (see posts November 27 2006 and December 16 2006).
While we are not finish at all with Blacaman (more to come in future), we accumulated other memorabilias about his former lady assistant, then turned in a rival cloning his act. And we are pleased to reveal some of it in today's gallery.
Koringa worked in Blacaman's act as a "nurse", learning all the work behind the mysteries to finally develop her own unit. In one of the pictures below, you can also admire her in the famous Blacaman's sword suspension trick that we mentioned in recent past.
But, what is most peculiar, at the bottom of the gallery you will find an exceptional finding: being likely the only existing filmed document about Koringa's skills. Nobody knew, I think, about its existence. It was forgotten and buried in a British newsreel of the 30s, between a novelty item to fix the fold on pants and a golf skill demonstration. We was lucky to dig it out of the past and to deliver it to the amazed eyes of the world.
Have a pleasant week.

More on Blacaman

A further (and not final) glimpse on the man who died twice.

In the mid-20, the vaudeville and music-hall was fighting the movies, eager for new sensations: physical, mysterious, primal emotions. These mainly came from the poorest and oldest of street performances. Hypnotists were dignified as theatre stars among velvets and limelights; magicians turned to the macabre side of torture with half-sawn women, nurses on stage and stage blood; or into the heroism of impossible escapes with ambulances on the marquee; and the fakirism reached the glory of the stage. More and more european performers plunged into the repertory of the miserable oriental street worker to became the most mysterious kings of the stage.

One of those was Blacaman.
He suddenly appeared on the European stages in the mid-20s, nobody knowing from where. Said at once indian, brazilian, or from some savage unknown race, he was the most talked fakir of the time. As shown in our past gallery, he displayed the now standard repertory of the fakirs, being one of the firsts to popularize with great emphasis the walk on the ladder of swords, on top of which he hanged few seconds with his throat: to clean at the end the traces of blood, demonstrating nightly the victory on his modern guillotine.

He amazed from the Berlin Wintergarten to Paris Empire, with long tours in South America and a lot of success in Spain, in variety temples such Barcelona’s Olympia or Madrid’s Price. But his piéce de resistance was the “buried alive” stunt, in the full epic of houdinesque dramaturgy.

Is because that stunt, that we like to call him “the man who died twice”. In fact, being sure that Blacaman left this world in 1949 (his career is fully demonstrated into the 40s), with surprise we recently discovered a cutting from the respectable Billboard Magazine (Sept.14, 1929), announcing the death of the celebrated self-thaumaturge in Argentina, where the “hindu” happened to struggle under the earth without dominate the death. It was a journalist’s mistake, a clever publicity stunt or a true resurrection miracle?

Unable to solve the mistery, we can at least guarantee you about the identity of the fakir: he was the italian Pietro Blacaman, from the region of Calabria, born here in 1902. And in the times we are describing he still had a lot to do in his career, as we will demonstrate soon to you. But, for now, thank you to be patient once more...

The Man who died twice

Our first glimpse into the myth of Blacaman.

Who was Blacaman?
From where he came from?
And why we call him "the man who died twice"?
He even inspired a novel of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but his life is surrounded by mystery.
Or almost.
You will discover more soon, in a future investigation. For the moment, please appreciate this rare gallery of Blacaman's early career, from a series of his french publicity of the 20s, designed by the parisian Lorette Studio.