Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism is the performance art of speaking or producing sound so that the voice appears to come from somewhere other than the performer, most often from a puppet or dummy, with the performer manipulating the puppet and producing a distinct voice for it, usually for comedy, storytelling or theatrical entertainment, all while keeping their own lips and mouth as still as possible. The word itself comes from the Latin venter, belly, and loqui, to speak, reflecting its origin as a supposed spiritual practice: ancient Greeks used terms such as engastrimythos and engastrimantis for practitioners, mostly women, believed to speak with the voices of the dead residing inside their own bodies and to deliver prophecy that way, of whom the Pythia, priestess of the oracle at Delphi, is a prominent early example, while the Athenian prophet Eurykles became famous enough as a gastromancer that later practitioners were named after him; the practice also carried ritual significance among the Zulu, Inuit and Maori peoples. Ventriloquism shifted from a spiritual practice into an entertainment art during the eighteenth century, performed at travelling fairs and markets, and continues today across live performance and broadcast media.