#blacaman

You would think these posters are a modern parody. However, Blacaman was a real animal hypnotist and his story is an interesting one that gives us a fun glimpse into the workings of the 1930s circus. 

Aversa Blacaman was born in Italy and got his start in the European circus, performing mostly in Italy, France, And Germany

Variety, June 1928

You’ll note that Blacaman is described as a Fakir. A Fakir is "Muslim religious mendicant or a Hindu ascetic or religious mendicant, particularly one who performs feats of endurance or magic."

Fakir magic became very popular during the inter-war period and marked the birth of a more extreme style of stage magic, one that often involved death-defying stunts and acts that would mutilate any normal person who attempted them.

This trend was so popular that a lot of acts were billed as being Hindu or Muslim despite being followers of neither religion. For many years Blacaman was presented as being an Indian Hindu despite only ever speaking Italian.

The above image (apparently from 1924 but I couldn’t verify it) gives us a good idea of the most common examples of Fakier magic.

- Hurting themselves on nails and other sharp objects: In the center-left image Blacaman is throwing himself onto shards of glass, however, he also pushed hot needles through his flesh. 

- Getting hit by hammers and other heavy implements: As shown in the middle right image.

- Being buried alive: Like in the bottom center image. This was Blacaman’s original signature trick. For example during a show Caracas in 1926, Blacaman was buried under a bullfighting ring and was only removed from the ground once the last bull had fallen, revealing himself to be totally unscathed from this ordeal. 

In 1928 Blacaman hit up on the trick that would become his signature. During shows in Berlin, he started to hypnotize Lions, rendering the creatures docile without the aid of a weapon.

Variety, May 1928

Alas, Blacaman’s fame and success wouldn’t last long. At a performance in Buenos Aries in 1929, Blacaman was put into the ground to perform his buried alive stunt. However, it very quickly became apparent that something was wrong, when the coffin was opened, Blacaman was found dead. 

The World’s News (Sydney, Australia) Wednesday, November 6th, 1929

Western Mail (Perth, Australia) Thursday, November 7th, 1929

Evening Star (Washington DC), September 5th, 1929

Now, the observant of you will realize that despite Blacaman being dead, there is still a lot more of this post left. 

That is because Blacaman didn’t die. In fact, his biggest achievement occurred in 1939! Ten years after he died in the failed trick! 

So what happened? Well, that is up for debate. You could suggest that this is some form of publicity stunt, however, that type of stunt was not common in the 1920s and would have been pretty hard to pull off. 

You could argue it was misreported, that some journalist got the wrong end of the stick and published a factually incorrect story. However, if it was part of the trick, why did the story mention bloody hands and scrapes on the casket? Neither of these details seem like they would be a normal part of the trick and the fact the journalist saw them implies they must have had a close look at both Blacaman’s body and the casket. 

Failed trick or not, someone called Blacaman continued to perform into the 1940s apparently unscathed by these events. 

Blacaman continued to tour Europe, the next big event in his life was in 1936 when he was involved in an incident in the UK. One of Blacaman’s lions attacked a stagehand as he walked across the stage to test the footlights. The stagehand named John Borrow had a nerve severed and lost one of his earlobes.

Eventually, Borrow settled out of court and received 900 pounds in damages. The defense did say that Blacaman should be held responsible due to it being his animal, however, Blacaman had left the country and thus couldn’t be served.

The Examiner (Launceston, Australia) Thursday 19th August 1937

In 1938, Blacaman would make his debut in America, performing with the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus, where his act focused mostly on his animal hypnotism. 

The Hagenbek-Wallace circus wasn’t in the best of shape in 1938. As Earl Chapin May, explains in their book “The Circus From Rome To Ringling”. The funding for the season came from an employee of the Wabash Valley Trust (a trust that aimed to fund historic preservation in Lafayette, Indiana), who had submitted the trust’s money as well as additional money from a circus owner’s widow that the trust employee had given without her consent. 

Blacaman was heavily advertised and was considered to be the circus's star attraction for the season.

San Bernardino Sun, 9th September 1938

His act during this period would feature 32 Lions and a “unique crocodile village,” that was said to be full of Nile Crocodiles.

San Bernardino Sun (San Bernardino, California) September 19th 1938.

A review from Variety magazine gives us a good idea of how the average Hagenbeck-Wallace show would go. 

Variety, April 1938

Blacaman would appear three times during the show, the first two times acted as a way to drum up hype for his main act. In his first appearance, he would show off his animal hypnotism on a chicken and a rabbit.

In his second appearance, he would continue to drum up hype, before his big third appearance where he would hypnotize his lions and crocodiles.

However, this tour wouldn’t be without incident. In fact, if you attended the circus from July onwards, you would likely not see Blacaman performing 

San Bernardino Sun, 20th September 1938

In July of 1938, the circus was struggling to pay the wages of its performers causing a few performers, including Blacaman to go on strike. This caused tempers to flair and lead to a lot of heated confrontations between Blacaman and the management.  

Blacaman called the police saying that the manager of the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus, Howard Bary had threatened to shave him and cut his hair if he refused to perform due to an argument about $2200 in back pay. 

San Bernardino Sun (San Bernardino, California) 6th July 1938

Variety July 1938

This problem was made worse by the fact that the circus owned the cages that held and transported Balacaman’s animals. This meant that Blacaman could not remove them from the circus and just quit because he lacked the means the transport them himself. 

The circus tried to sue Blacaman for breach of contract and for bringing the circus bad publicity, however, this went nowhere and the circus (or what was left of it) eventually pulled the suit in May 1939.

Variety, May 1939

Blacaman continued his strike throughout the summer, saying he would only perform when he got paid. Management eventually banned Blacaman from the circus backlot, however, this only soured their relationship further. Blacaman even threatened to set all of his animals loose in the circus if his demands were not met. 

However, Blacaman wasn’t the only performer who was upset, wage issues continued to mount and more and more acts were going unpaid, leading to more performers threatening to strike. 

In August, the circus reached a breaking point, it was too far behind on wages and many acts wanted to leave. In a last-ditch effort, the circus tried to solve both problems by letting the disgruntled acts quit. 

Variety, August 1938

Blacaman was one of the acts who took his leave. The Hagenbeck-Wallace circus would limp along for a few more months before folding entirely later that year. 

Blacaman however, had other plans and intended to keep performing in America. Thus he applied to have his work permit changed to allow him to take on bookings outside of the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus, something that US immigration allowed. 

Variety, November 1938

Due to this change in visa, Blacaman was able to accept a role in the 1939 movie “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” alongside W.C. Fields. 

In the movie, Fields plays Larsen E. Whipsnade, a shady carnival owner who tries to avoid foreclosure and deal with his daughter’s romances. This is often considered to be the worst W.C. Fields film and it had a tumultuous production history, having three different directors at once, because of the main director’s hatred W.C. Fields. 

Fields even refused to promote the film describing it as “an embarrassment and a humiliation”.

The most notable cast member is ventriloquist Edgar Bergen who was a major star on radio and was very famous for his puppet character Charlie McCarthy. Charlie plays a key role in this film, even getting his own credit. 

The circus setting is made more authentic by the studio hiring several circus acts to appear in the film and show off their talents. Blacaman’s scene involves him rescuing Charlie McCarthy from the Lions and Alligators after he is thrown in there by Whipsnade.

[For those who want to watch along, I’ve uploaded the whole scene here]

Blacaman’s first move is to run right into the lions’ cage and start to tame the wild beasts. While it is true that Blacaman lacks a weapon, he does use a box to strike at the lions.

Eventually, Blacaman gets the lions into a corner and starts to do this: 

I believe this is the “Animal hypnotism” part of proceedings. Eventually, the lions all come over to Blacaman and tamely huddle around him, giving us this rather delightful image.

Blacaman fishes around in the mouths of the lions for a bit but only finds part of Charlie’s suit. Charlie then shouts from the Aligator pit causing Blacaman and several other circus people to locate the alligator he is in and isolate it. 

Once it is isolated on a table, Blacaman heroically pulls the gator’s mouth open and rescues the dummy. 

With Charlie safe, Blacaman, Began and Charlie talk for a little while, furthering the plot by explaining that Whipsnade threw Charlie into the alligator pit as well as giving them the chance to say Blacaman’s name several times.

Despite being considered a weak film today “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” did really well at the box office and got Blacaman a lot of publicity and made a lot of people very keen to see his act in person. 

Roanoke Rapids Herald (Roanoke Rapids, N.C.), 30th March 1939

However the film did hit a little bit of legal trouble, Howard Bary, the general manager of the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus tried to sue the Al Wagner Theatrical Agency for $307,000 dollars over what he believed was four illegal acts performed by the agency. 

The first was that he believed the plot of “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” was a direct rip-off of his story “A Circus Episode” 

Second, Bary said that he had Blacaman under contract and had agreed to allow Blacaman perform in the film, however, the Al Wagner agency had poached Blacaman away from Bary and broke his contract. 

Third, Bary said that the Al Wagner agency had informed the US immigration department that his circus was in litigation and that he couldn’t afford to support his acts, causing Blacaman’s work visa to be changed to allow him to work elsewhere. 

And finally, he said that Universal had promised to use his circus in the film, but instead just used Blacaman and his animals. 

Bary’s aim was to get both damages as well as a cut of the profits. And he wanted all of Blacaman’s scenes removed from the movie.

Variety, April 1939

Despite this, circuses from around the world were keen to have Blacaman perform. However, it should be noted that not everyone believed his act, take this cutting as an example:

Milwaukee Journal (Wisconsin, USA) March 8th, 1940

Now the beard insurance isn’t that unusual, I would bet that this policy was with Lloyds Of London who specialize in insurance for unusual things. A lot of celebrities take out policies to protect their trademark features or body parts.

A lot of magicians used to get a policy from them, not for protection but because it added to their gimmick. If you look back at my post on Dante, he did a similar thing, insuring his voice and making it a big selling point on his posters. In an interview Howard Bary did with the Milkwake Journal in 1940  he described the insurance as something that “made good publicity for us.”  

As for the scent on the beard. I believe it. If you look at the footage from “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” the Lions do seem to be going for his beard almost like they are trying to sniff it. I know a lot of old-school animal acts used to use all sorts of drugs and scents to get the animals to do what they wanted so it seems likely that Blacaman did something similar.  

In 1940s Blacaman formed his own circus called the Blacaman Circus and started to tour it internationally. During this tour, the circus went to Venezuela and Blacaman became involved in two very strange incidents.  

On October 17th, 1941, the journalist JD Benavides published a report in the newspaper Últimas Noticias declaring Blacaman to be a fraud. 

Benavides asserted that the man in Venezuela was not Blacaman at all, but instead an imposter. He reprinted several articles from 1929, showing that Blacaman died performing his buried alive trick before concluding that the only answer outside of an imposter could be "A resurrected Blacaman?"

On October 18th, Blacaman went to the office of Ultimas Noticias and claimed that “I am the authentic fakir” even going as far as to claim that another Blacaman wasn’t the original and was, in fact, an old assistant of his, who stole his identity in an attempt to cash in on his fame. 

To add to the confusion, I’ve seen one or two mentions of an illegitimate son, who had taken up the Blacaman mantle at some point between 1929 and 1945. However, I couldn’t find any proof to verify this rumor one way or the other. 

Also during this tour, Blacaman is said to have helped out a town which was being pestered by a local lion. 

Blacaman told the pregnant women of the town to put jugs of fresh milk out on their porch as it was breast milk that attracted the lion. The woman did as he asked and the lion never bothered them again. 

Blacaman is also have said to have told the woman that “no one can hypnotize a hungry lion.” 

While I’ve seen this story mentioned in several different places, I’ve been unable to track down and solid proof of it happening. While lions can drink human breast milk, I can’t find anything confirming that a hungry lion would actively seek out a lactating woman as opposed to just hunting. 

However, the outbreak of World War 2 would cause this Venezuelan tour to end in disaster. 

During the early years of the conflict, Venezuela tried to remain strictly neutral, realizing it could make a fortune selling its oil to both sides. However, the government was very worried that a country would attempt to seize their oil rather than buy it. 

In an attempt to prevent this, they implemented very strict laws that prevented citizens of the Axis powers moving around the country without government approval, especially if the person wanted to move into an area that produced oil or petroleum products. 

Blacaman was Italian and his wife was Austrian and this was enough for the Venezuelan government to deny them the travel permit, trapping them and the circus in the city of Maturin 

 Variety, September 1942

The Blacaman circus continued to sit in place, unable to move out of Venezuela.

The final straw was when a Venezuelan employee, (who had been denied a pay increase by Blacaman) found a passport issued by the Partito Nazionale Fascista (The National Fascist Party, Mussolini’s political party) in Blacaman’s dressing room.

The employee reported this to the Venezuelan government and Blacaman was bankrupted and his circus ruined. 

Allegedly Blacaman set up shop as a mechanic in an attempt to make ends meet. A newspaper quoted him as saying: "I do not have anything to ambition anymore, I have my house, I live happily with my wife, I am not plagued by the worries of yesteryear and I know what a home.” Alas, I’ve not been able to find the interview that this quote is said to have come from. 

And with that, the story of Blacaman ends, he wouldn’t enter the public spotlight again and became nothing more than a footnote in history. 

Or at least, that is the end of Blacaman the person, Blacaman the character is a different matter.

In the January 1972 issue of Esquire magazine, there was a story penned by the author Gabriel Garcia Marquez entitled “Blacamán the Good, Vendor of Miracles”.

The full text of the story is available from the Esquire website. But to summarize, it tells the story of Blacaman the good who meets the sham artist Blacaman the bad who fakes a deadly snakebite so he can sell a fake antidote.  

Blacaman the bad takes on Blacaman the good on as an apprentice. Eventually, the pair is forced to go on the run and Blacaman the bad tortures Blacaman the good.  

During this Blacaman the good discovers he can heal and resurrect people, he escapes from Blacaman the bad and goes around selling cures and healing people. When Blacaman the good and Blacaman the bad meet again, Blacaman the bad dies and Blacaman the good resurrects him and vows to repay him for his torture by not allowing him to die. 

Honestly, any summary I give you can’t do it justice, so I fully suggest going and reading the whole thing. 

However, there are many parallels to draw between the Blacaman from the story and Blacaman the animal hypnotist, both of them cheat death in their own way and they both have a mysterious double. 

It is very likely that  Gabriel Garcia Marquez was influenced by the stories of Blacaman, especially the ones that came about when he was in Venezuela and had to deal with accusations of not being the true Blacaman. 

The story of Blacaman is one that is both fascinating and very hard to put together. This post has been something I’ve been working on for around a year, hitting several walls along the way due to how much of his story has been lost to time.

While Blacaman might not have been a hypnotist in the normal sense, his act caught the public’s attention and he heavily played on the image and exoticism of hypnosis to sell his act. 

Despite his life, when people think of Blacaman today they mostly think about the story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and it is often very hard to tell what myths influenced the story and which myths came from the story.

When doing some research via google, I had a moment where the screen pretty much summed up my feelings about Blacaman, both the man and the legend.