mumming play or mummers' play Traditional dramatic enter¬ tainment. Mumming plays, which feature the death of a champion who is restored to life by a doctor, are still performed in a few villages of England and Northern Ireland. Originally mummers were bands of masked persons who during winter festivals in Europe paraded through the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence. Thus the name has been connected with words such as mumble and mute and non-English words meaning “mask.” Mumming plays probably have links with primitive cer¬ emonies marking important stages in the agricultural year.
mummy Body embalmed or preserved for burial in the manner of the ancient Egyptians. The process varied from age to age in Egypt, but it always involved removing the internal organs, treating the body with resin, and wrapping it in linen bandages. (In later Egyptian times, the organs were replaced after treatment.) Among the many other peoples who practiced mummification were those of the Torres Strait, near Papua New Guinea, and the Incas.
mumps or epidemic parotitis \,par-9-'tIt-9s\ Acute contagious viral disease with inflammatory swelling of the salivary glands. Epidemics often occur, mostly among 5- to 15-year-olds. Cold symptoms with low fever are followed by swelling and stiffening in front of the ear, often on both sides. This rapidly spreads toward the neck and under the jaw. Pain is seldom severe, with little redness, but chewing and swallowing are dif¬ ficult. During recovery in patients past puberty, other glands may be affected, but usually not seriously. The testes may atrophy, but sterility is very rare. While inflammation of the brain and meninges is fairly com¬ mon, chances of recovery are good. Mumps needs no special treatment, and patients usually develop immunity. Vaccination can prevent it.
Muna Vmii-noN Island Island, east-central Indonesia. Located in the Flores Sea off the southeastern coast of Celebes (Sulawesi), it is 63 mi (101 km) long and 35 mi (56 km) wide and has an area of 1,124 sq mi (2,911 sq km). It has a hilly, forested surface, rising to 1,460 ft (445 m). The Muna, a Muslim people who speak an Austronesian language, prac¬ tice a simple agriculture, growing rice and tubers. The hoglike babirusa and the marsupial cuscus are found on the island. The main town and principal port is Raha, on the north¬ eastern coast.
Munazzamat al-Tahrlr al-Fil- astlniyyah See Palestine Liberation Organization
Munch Vmur)k\, Edvard (b. Dec.
12, 1863, Lpten, Norway—d. Jan.
23, 1944, Ekely) Norwegian painter and printmaker. His life and art were marked by the deaths of both par¬ ents, his brother, and his sister dur¬ ing his childhood, and the mental illness of another sister. He received little formal training, but the encour¬ agement of a circle of artists in Christiania (now Oslo) and exposure to Impressionism and Post-Impression¬ ism helped him develop a highly original style. It was principally through his work of the 1890s, a series of paintings on love and death in which he gave form to mysterious
Edvard Munch, self-portrait, litho¬ graph, 1895; in the Albertina, Vienna
COURTESY OF THE ALBERTINA, VIENNA
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and dangerous psychic forces, that he made crucial contributions to mod¬ em art. The Scream (1893), his most famous work, is often seen as a sym¬ bol of modern humanity’s spiritual anguish. His etchings, lithographs, drypoints, and woodcuts closely resemble his paintings in style and sub¬ ject matter. After a nervous breakdown in 1908-09, therapy lent his work a more positive, extroverted tone, but his art never recovered its former intensity. His work influenced the proponents of German Expressionism.
Munda Ymsn-ddX, Battle of (45 bc) Conflict that ended the Roman civil war between the forces of Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. The two forces met in Spain, where the late Pompey’s sons had seized Cor¬ doba in revolt. Caesar lured the Pompeians from their high ground to do battle; when the rebels maneuvered a contingent to meet a cavalry charge, it was mistaken for a retreat by their army, which broke and fled, and Caesar claimed victory.
Munda Vmun-doV languages Family of about 17 languages spoken in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal that together with Mon-Khmer comprises the Austroasiatic superfamily. Munda languages are spoken by more than seven million people, all members of tribal groups living mainly in hilly and forested regions. Most significant are Santali, with more than four million speakers concentrated in northern Orissa, southern and eastern Bihar, northwestern Bengal, and the Nepal-Assam border; Ho, with about 750,000 speakers mainly in Bihar and Orissa; Mundari, with about 850,000 speakers scattered over northeastern India; and Korku, the west¬ ernmost Munda language, spoken by about 320,000 in southern Madhya Pradesh and northern Maharashtra. Munda languages differ from all other Austroasiatic languages in complexity of morphology and in having basic subject-object-verb rather than subject-verb-object word order.
Mundell, Robert A(lexander) (b. Oct. 24, 1932, Kingston, Ont., Can.) Canadian-born economist who received the Nobel Prize in Eco¬ nomic Sciences in 1999 for his work on monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas. Mundell earned degrees from the University of British Columbia (B.A., 1953), the University of Washington (M.A., 1954), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1956). He taught eco¬ nomics at the University of Chicago (1956-57) and Columbia University (1974- ). Through research for the International Monetary Fund, Mundell analyzed the effect of exchange rates on monetary policies. In 1961 he theo¬ rized that an economic region characterized by free movement of labour and trade could support a single currency. His theories contributed to the creation of the euro, the single currency adopted by the European Union on Jan. 1, 1999.
Munich Vmyu-nik\ German Miinchen VmiEn-koM City (pop., 2002 est.: city, 1,227,958; metro, area, 1,893,715), capital of Bavaria, Germany. Located along the Isar River, it was founded c. 1158 at the site of an ancient monastery. It became the capital of Bavaria under the ruling Wit- telsbach family. The city developed as a centre of music and theatre through the 19th century. After World War I it became a centre of right- wing political ferment; it was the site of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler’s attempted rising against the Bavarian government, and subsequent Nazi Party activities. It was the site for the signing of the 1938 Munich agreement. In World War II it suffered heavily from Allied bombing. Some medieval structures survived, including the cathedral and town hall. Today Munich is a trade, cultural, educational, and industrial centre known for its many museums and for manufacturing and beer and ale brewing.
Munich, University of German in full Ludwig-Maximilians Universittit Miinchen Autonomous university supported by the state of Bavaria, Germany. It was founded in Ingolstadt in 1472 and modeled after the University of Vienna. During the Protestant Reformation it was a centre of Roman Catholic opposition to Martin Luther. In 1799 schools of economics and political science were added, and in 1826 it moved to Munich, where agricultural and technical programs were founded.
Munich agreement (1938) Settlement reached by Germany, France, Britain, and Italy permitting German annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. Adolf Hitler’s threats to occupy the German-populated part of Czechoslovakia stemmed from his avowed broader goal of reuniting Europe’s German-populated areas. Though Czechoslovakia had defense treaties with France and the Soviet Union, both countries agreed that areas in the Sudetenland with majority German populations should be returned. Hitler demanded that all Czechoslovaks in those areas depart; when Czechoslovakia refused, Britain’s Neville Chamberlain negotiated an agree¬ ment permitting Germany to occupy the areas but promising that all future differences would be resolved through consultation. The agreement,