William Lindsay Gresham’s novels popularized the term Carnival Geeks, but in earlier times, these were actual sideshow acts. The circuses and sideshows did not just stop there because they pulled the ultimate marketing trick, including the geek woman.
A carnival geek is a carnival worker who is so incompetent that the only thing he can do to entertain guests is bite animals’ heads off. They were common in carnivals as sideshow attractions, although they are no longer used to the grotesque and cruel nature o their acts.
In the first half of the 20th century, the term circus freak was implied to the sideshow performer of the circus, deemed to be too undeserving of pleasing a crowd, who were made to snatch heads from tiny living animals (like chickens, snakes, lizards) to get a cheer from a circus audience, which, funny enough, brought them to snatch their snatching. In the early 20th century, the geek was the circus freak whose specialty was biting off animal heads, usually those of chickens, snakes, or rats and drinking animal blood.
Characteristics of Carnival Geeks
A typical geek show of the mid-19th century would involve one of the men onstage biting the heads of animals and drinking their blood. The ultimate act for the freak was a man on stage chewing the head off of an animal and swallowing its blood, leaving viewers with scenes of bloodshed and death. Circus freaks in the weirdo shows would usually do a bit of blood shearing at the end, biting into a snake, a chicken, or some other small, random living animal.
A Bills act by the performers ended with the individual geeks biting the heads of live chickens off and eating them. The billed performer’s show consisted of a single genius standing at the center ring chasing a live chicken.
Geek was a common act at circuses at the turn of the 20th century; presented as the most shocking and sensational part of the freak show, they were wild men that would amuse crowds by chasing down live chickens and biting off their heads in a gory display of violence. Geek shows were acts at traveling carnivals and circuses of the early United States, often as part of larger sideshows. For decades, a sideshow — commonly called freak shows — was a part of almost all carnivals, fairs, and traveling circuses.
The carnival and its sideshow performers have been the focus of several films during the decades, most notably in The Elephant Man, the stage-and-screen version of real-life attraction Joseph (John) Merrick, Water For Elephants, and Carnivale, the HBO 2-season drama series that chronicled life at the macabre traveling carnival.
Sideshow Performers at Carnivals
No doubt, these grotesque acts performed by a circus sideshow performer ensured they would be forever known as freaks, wackos, carnival performers, and freaks. It was because monsters chose to make themselves frightening by the acts that set themselves apart from the other actions in a freak show and allowed audiences to watch individuals like them reduced to their freakish behaviors. At the same time, the general audience may have arrived to watch a freak, performers identified as freaks established as opposing normalcy to and from rubes in the audience.
Although the term connoted a feeling of social stigma and shame, circus and sideshow performers adopted the term geek as a collective, positive form of identity. Some have explained the meaning behind geek, suggesting that it is still relatively new. However, the meaning behind the term “geek” has changed since the mid-1900s. The term geek is still used, it seems, in a generic sense within certain Carnival circles.
The word geek derives from German geck, meaning a fool, flake, or eccentric. Originally derived from the German geck, meaning fool or simpleton, in the early 19th century, the German geck changed into the geeks that are written today and began to describe showpeople who would rip off the heads of chickens (Backe).
The earliest usage of geek _in_the American lexicon occurred somewhere in the early-to-mid nineteenth century, derived from the German word geck, which translates to fool or simpleton, and has been associated forever with the spectacles once called freak shows. Only in the early 19th century did the Scottish word geck, meaning fool, change to geek and begin to describe a particular type of carnival performer.
The Evolution of Geekery
According to Doc Fred Bloodgood, a longtime circus and sideshow business employee, and an early adopter of the geek show, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, geek was…a term used in circuses and sideshows to refer to an outlandish man or woman (Backe).
In Austrian circuses in the eighteenth century, the gecko was a kind of freak displayed in a carnival. In North America in the 19th century, the gecko was the performer of the Gerken Show in traveling sideshows, fairs, or festivals. Originally, geek was a term primarily in connection with traveling shows–it related to the performer or acts involved with strange things.
From the showman in the carnival or the circus, the IT geek, unfashionable and inept in society, to the person who is genuinely passionate about something – the word geek has evolved through the centuries pejorative to a badge of pride. From a performer at a carnival or circus to the IT obsessed, unfashionable, and socially inept to someone enthusiastic about something – the word geek has evolved from a pejorative to a badge of pride.
Leslie Fiedler notes that geek was originally the word carnivalesque for various lower-caste, stumbling performers. The kind of wildman you are describing was initially called glomgeek, and that blog means to devour or to swallow. A geek was considered the least qualified of the people at the sideshow but potentially also the most fascinating, as he, alone among other performers, was relatable to spectators, providing shades of compassion and terror.
