February 8, 2023 –
When I was a kid, I ordered a ventriloquist kit that was advertised on the back of a comic book. Two weeks later, it arrived. I skimmed the directions. “Place the small item in the back of the throat and exert pressure on it by placing the tongue on the front of the upper front teeth.” I did so and almost suffocated, before removing the item from my throat. I didn’t need the dummy to talk for me. The dummy was me.
Many famous ventriloquists include Edgar Bergen, Terry Fator, and Oklahoma’s Darci Lynne Farmer, former America’s Got Talent winner.
Even though Fred Russell is regarded as the father of modern ventriloquism. We find traces of the art in Egyptian archaeology. But the Hebrew Bible has an earlier narrative of ventriloquism. It is Moses who first used ventriloquism in ancient biblical times during the Exodus.
Exodus chapter 4 contains the story of God sending Moses back to Egypt with the message to let His people go. But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue. “Please, Lord, send someone else.” Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and He said, “Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well.
God instructed Moses to speak with his brother and put the words into his mouth, “He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.”
There you have it. Moses was the first ventriloquist.