Hunter Living Histories

The Poly-Moo-Zuke at the Newcastle Show (1923)

By Robert Watson, Community Researcher

The Newcastle Showground at Broadmeadow

The University of Newcastle, Special Collections, holds this undated image of Newcastle Showground:

What Does The Banner Read?

Zooming in to read the signs, my curiosity was piqued by this sideshow banner

SIX-LEGGED POLY-MOO-ZUKE

Fortunately, with such an unusual set of words, this was easy to research on the Internet.

Firstly, an image:

Strange Things

Spoiler alert! Note the words “Facsimile of …” and it seems that an American man William Nelson had made a name for himself creating papier-mâché reproductions of strange things, for display at circuses and shows.

Translated from the Italian text on that website:

“One of the best in this field was certainly William Nelson, owner of the Nelson Supply House, through which he sold “mummified curiosities” to circuses. Among the fake mummies offered by Nelson at the beginning of the century were the legendary two-headed Patagonian giant, King Mac-A-Dula; King Jack-a-Loo-Pa, who was described as having one head, three faces, three hands, three arms, three fingers, three legs, three feet, and three toes; the fantastical Poly-Moo-Zuke, a six-legged creature; the Great Seahorse, made from a real horse skull, whose tail split into two long fins with hooves; and Egyptian mummies of various types, such as Labow, the “Double Egyptian Boy with a Sister Growing on His Chest.”

Dating the Photograph to 1923

Then, using the National Library of Australia’s Trove, again the unique wording revealed a single mention of the Poly-Moo-Zuke at the Newcastle Show in 1923 (and a second mention in Queensland later in the year). This suggests that the display toured Australia in 1923.

So the year for the glass slide would seem to be 1923.

Researcher: Robert Watson, Community Historian