Spaceship mark wrote:
...the name itself being a corruption of 'Moorish' in that the dances were originally an imitation of the dances of the Moors. Possibly hence the tradition (largely extinct) of blacking up....
I saw these guys in Chorley a year or so ago, good they were too. http://www.stonethecrows.org.uk/
http://www.howlingdog.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/crows/crows_why_we_black_up.htm