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How Winter Is Banished In Germany
(Satis Shroff)
It was 8 am on a snowy
Monday morning. There were hundreds of motley clad and coloured
spectators stomping their cold feet, all waiting for the
boisterous merrymaking (Narrensprung) at Oberndorf, a picturesque
town in south-west Germany.
On this cold, wintry morning
the ghoulish, tragic-comical figures of Swabian-Allemanic origin
were underway to drive away the chilly, unfriendly, bitter winter
with much noise and ado. And there were 1,468 of them. There they
came all 1,468 of them. Rows of toddlers and grown-ups, men and
women in yellow and scarlet dresses with big cow-bells hanging
from their shoulder-straps, and red roses and black-painted
beards. Each had a small basket filled with bon-bons, sweets and
chocolates which they strew to the public who greeted them with:
‘Narri, Narro!’ The costumed Narren, as they are called in
Germany, were preceded by the eleven elders of the town. In Nepal,
the five-village elders in every hamlet were called the panchas,
and the hinduistic Panchayat government was toppeled in 1990 after
a democratic struggle.
The other masked figures
were: the cute Hansele, the lame Schantle, Grottagoscha and the
witches, whom you could recognize from the masks they were wearing
and the notorious broom-sticks with which they’d provoke you. They
came with pomp, music, tomfoolery and their characteristic
movements, distributing sweets, oranges, brezeln (salty-bread),
sausages and dry humour.
The fast-night (Fasnet) was
originally the season of merrymaking just before Lent. But today
it’s three days between Christmas and Ash Wednesday. The Fasnet is
run by the different cliques (Zünfte) and there are : musical
corps, garde-girls with beautiful long legs, gymnastic and
acrobatic groups, clowns, witches, sheiks, belly dancers, people
in their night-gowns. You name ‘em, they have ‘em. In Germany they
say, when three Germans get together they create an association (Verein)
and get organised. The planning, coordination and discipline that
the German fasnet demands is organised with typical German
thoroughness. To a Nepalese it seems like Gaijatra, Lakhe and Mani
Rimdu festival on the same day.
Masks always have an element
of religion, myth or magic in them. There are people who wear
masks to hide their Id which is normally written all over one’s
face. With a mask you can transform your current facial
expressions into another permanent one. You symbolise another
being. And in Fasnet or carnival a participant goes costumed in
order to be what he always wanted to be, but never dared due to
social inhibitions. If you’re wearing a mask you can really
flip-out, without being recognised. A bored housewife might play
the vamp for three days, and an over-worked and under-paid clerk
portrays a billion-dollar sheik and so forth.
Back to the Narrensprung
again. The most adorable cavalier amongst the Narren is the Narro
from Oberndorf, with his Brezelstange (salty bread held on a long
pole). It reminded me of the Sel-roti that the Nepalese make
during the Tihar festival. The motley fools (Narren) besides
having their carnival licence, freedom and rights, also have their
rules of conduct during the processions and the merry-making
period. For instance in Schramberg, where I had gone the previous
winter, you had to sing the refrain: ‘Hairy, hairy is the cat.
And when the cat isn’t hairy, then the maidens will not like it!’
Then and only then, will you be blessed with a delicious brezel.
Horst and Andrea, some distant relatives of mine who took part in
the costumed procession had certainly made them sing the Fasnet-song
before they handed them the bread with a blessing (Brezelsegen).
It had been lovely to know someone under the masks.
But don’t be surprised if a
Narro clobbers you with an inflated pig’s bladder tied at the end
of a stick in Elzach. Or when another holds you with his wooden
scissors, and a pair of hideously masked witches grab your arms
and legs, put you in a cart and you become a part of the
procession, and the nasty witches pour buckets of confetti over
you. It’s carnival time, and you can’t afford to get mad at
anyone. Humour is the order of the day.
During the Third Reich the
National Socialists tried to cover up the religious origin of the
Fasnet, by giving it so-called Germanic trait. But even they
didn’t really succeed in changing the tradition of the
Narrensprung and the meeting-of the-cliques (Zünftetreffen). The
historical and traditional springing-of-the-knaves in Villingen,
Überlingen, Elzach, Rottweil and Oberndorf-upon-the-Neckar dates
back to the early Middle Ages. In the beautiful town of Rottweil
you can get to see 3,000 Narren in historical masks: the
Federhannes, Schantle and the Biter or Guller. However, with
urbanisation the old Fasnet traditions have somehow lost their
true colours, religious significance and the vegetarian-cult.
Fasnet has sadly enough become merely an excuse for fun-making and
revelry in the towns. The province, nevertheless, tries to retain
the traditional character, with strict dress, mask and behavioural
regulations. For instance a narro who gets drunk and creates a
nuisance risks getting banned by the organisation committee.
On Wednesday night at 7:30
pm they drove to Dorhan, a small village near Oberndorf to watch
the traditional Fasnet-burning. In the middle of this Swabian
village there was an open space surrounded by fir-trees. The
eerie Fasnet figures came wildly dancing from all sides with
flaming torches. There were ugly witches with crooked noses,
Dornhaner Lauser with lice painted on the backs of their tunics,
the charming leggy guard girls in Prussian step, the village band
and naturally a figure dressed like an old witch to symbolise the
winter.
After a short speech in
Swabian dialect with the words: ‘Now the winter will be burnt and
banned and the days of revelry are over,’ the figure was set
afire. As the flames grew bigger and bigger, their shadows also
took gigantic proportions and the witches and ghoulish Lausers and
Narros shed tears and wailed and howled (feigned naturally).
Well, the winter was driven
away, but we still had cold feet.
By :- Satis und Karin Shroff
Germany
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