Klausjagen

I forgot to mention that last Saturday morning, Dennis had a conference with Alex's teacher. These conferences are a semi-annual national requirement, although we only just learned that.  The conference that we had with Frau Simmen last winter was a brief casual chat when Dennis dropped Alex off at school.  Frau Simmen said a few words to Dennis and then thrust the form at him to sign: done and done. Sneaky.

But Frau Ziegler scheduled all of her conferences for evenings and weekends, so that there was time for a real chat.  She told Dennis that Alex was well-behaved and, although he initially seemed shy, he's warmed up to her. She said that he does a wonderful job of watching his classmates for cues, figuring out what he's supposed to do in class.

She also thanked us again for the brownies that we sent in for Halloween. The kids in Alex's class, she told Dennis, were incredibly excited about Halloween, so she was glad to have a treat to give them, but none of them, herself included, really understood the trappings of the holiday.  So, resourceful teacher that she is, she made up her own celebration: they placed the plate of brownies on a chair, and she had the kids dance around them in a circle, singing, before they ate them. You don't have to understand a thing to enjoy it thoroughly.

We pass the time with talking about the pictures.
This little boy, according to Joey, also put a BB in
his ear. "It not good idea."

And I found that true tonight.  I took myself to Küssnacht am Rigi, a town an hour and a half away, to see their annual Klausjagen parade.  I have only the vaguest understanding of the meaning behind the whole thing, but...just, wow.  I've seen a lot of wonderful things this year, but this ranks high, high on my list of favorites.

I couldn't find anyone willing to travel with me to see this parade, and Susannah, my favorite partner in crime, had her husband leave for a business trip to America this morning.  Bringing my own family was out of the question, since the parade didn't begin to 8:15 at night. But I've been looking forward to seeing this parade for months, since I first heard of it, so I decided I didn't mind going solo. If there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that the Swiss really know how to put on a parade worth seeing.

Besides, I needed to get out of the house.  Joey just rediscovered a coloring book that he received from the hospital when he had that BB removed from his ear, and he has been holding me hostage, demanding that I color every single one of the pictures to his specifications. He's carried that book around for about 24 straight hours, holding it out to me whenever I dare take a moment to myself.  "How 'bout coloring?" Grumble.

So when Dennis came home at 5:30, I happily tagged out.














After an hour and a half of travel (including the most crowded bus I've ever been on) I arrived at the train station for Küssnacht am Rigi. I vaguely knew where I was supposed to go, but the good thing about crowds is that you can always follow them.  I tagged after a party speaking thick Swiss German, figuring if anyone knew what they were doing, they would.

Since I arrived about an hour before the parade, the streets were deceptively uncluttered, but the show was already starting.  Everywhere I saw white-shirted men, holding enormous bells in one hand and a beer in the other.  There were a few stray tubas wandering around, hand-rolled cigars hanging crookedly from their mouths.  And, echoing through the buildings, was the cracking of whips.

That's all part of it, you see.  I'll do my best to explain the parade, but, as I said, I'm a little shaky on the exact history behind it.

There's a very old custom in this region that has to do with chasing evil spirits out of the villages with noise: whips, and horns, and bells.  The Catholic church did not approve of this old heathen celebration, and so, as they sometimes do, they tried to incorporate the tradition into a religious holiday, St. Nicholas Day. and the custom morphed into the celebration called Chlausjagen.

From what I understand (and, I grant you, I could be entirely wrong about this: Google Translate is not infallible) this tradition, as it was originally formed, has melted away in all but a single city (Hallwil) in canton Aargau.  There, six chosen teenaged boys are charging from running from house to house. Each of them wears a city-provided costume, and they each have a role to play in this masque: there's a king, a virgin (and I think this must be a mistranslation: imagine, a teenaged boy, voluntarily playing a virgin!), a Schmutzli-like character, an enforcer, a jester, and a demon.  And as they pass from house to house, they perform their unique tasks: cracking a whip, blowing the horn, ringing the bell, passing out candy, and, in case there is any naughty child in the house, leaving a switch behind as well. The rest of the town's young men run rampant in the streets, cracking whips. It's a vestige of the original custom, but, ironically, instead of chasing demons, the young men were said to be chasing St. Nikolas. Hence the name Chlausjagen, "Chlaus hunting."

In Küssnacht (which translates to "Night Kiss," a lovely name), this tradition has been twisted and transformed and elaborated into one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever, ever seen.

The parade was foreshadowed by couplets or trios of men, clearing a spot in the street and then cracking whips in synchronism.  I swear, the lashes of those whips were inches from the people lining the streets: these men knew what they were doing.  And not surprisingly: the alleyways were filled with little boys (some as young as Ella, I'm certain) with their own tiny whips, practicing for the day when it would be their turn to move into the street.

The performer who exhibited closest to where I was standing couldn't have been older than fourteen, and he performed alone: a novice who was getting his first crack.  The crowds loved him.

While the whips kept the swelling crowds entertained, scattered groups of paraders worked their way up the route to the starting point.

The parade has a set formula, and it is bold and effective in it's simplicity.  Like the Chlausjagen, there are six elements to the parade. The whole show began when (as we saw with the turnip parade) a cannon boomed and all of the lights of the city dropped at once.  Then we wait in the dark until we heard you hear the first stage of the parade: a line of men, cracking their whips in darkness.

Of course, in this age of electronics, of the effect is lost when people use their flashbulbs and phones and sometimes even flashlights to take pictures. (I kept my own flash off: it didn't seem nice to blind the performers, so the only pictures I was able to get were image captures from my videos, when other people used their flash.) But nonetheless, it was incredible and eerie, the effect of the crackles in the dark, broken by strobe-like flashes.

Sidewalk decoration

A coworker of Dennis's lives near Küssnacht, and he said that, in the months leading up to the parade, there are days specified for city-wide whip practice.

Iffelen-wearers, walking to the beginning
of the parade.

Next comes the iconic image of the parade, hundreds of men and boys (this is strictly an all-male parade: sexism isn't as big a crime in Switzerland) wearing enormous, illuminated bishop's miters called Iffelen. Some of these were as large as two meters high, taller than the men who were wearing them.

Again, the effect was extraordinary.  You could scarcely see the men carrying the hats, but many of them did a slow, spinning, hopping dance, making the street swim with the glow of endless bobbing cathedral windows. Every hat was unique, every one handmade, with the intricate craftsmanship that is the hallmark of the Swiss.

A child wearing an Iffele.

Following on the heels of the lights was the third stage of the parade, the depicted in so many of mosaics, St. Niklaus himself. He was flanked by four Schmutzlis and escorted by a dozen young men bearing torches.

The Schmutzlis were carrying sacks and switches, and one of them reached into his bag and handed me a Biberli, the traditional treat of the season, which tastes like very mild gingerbread. See, I've been good this year!







And then, oh the noise, oh the noise, noise, noise, noise!

Immediately on the heals of Samichlaus was an all-brass band, playing what, apparently, is the official parade song, although it really didn't sound like anything that could be characterized a song to me.  It sounded more like the warm-up scale for 4th grade orchestra.  But the thing is, it worked.  Jingle Bells would have sounded grossly out of place in the middle of this pageantry.

(There are words to the song, too: "Mänz, Mänz, Mänz! Bodefridimänz!" It's a taunting song, with Mänz being a man, in the 1920s, who tried convert the Chlausjagen tradition into something more solemn and respectful of the saint's holiday.  He was unsuccessful, but a few years later the society behind this whole parade was formed, transforming the tradition into something amazing.)

And the cacophony only grew. The fifth stage of the parade was over a thousand hooded men, carrying enormous bells called Treicheln, jogging them with their knees so that they clanged almost in unison.  We got a preview of this part of the parade as about half of the men marched together from the train station to the parade start.  This was when I first realized that ear plugs really would have been prudent tonight.

Unhooded, the men march up the street to the parade's start

During the parade

I just can't tell you how weird and overwhelming it was, standing in the darkness, listening to the clang of a thousand bells: impossibly, these men just kept coming and coming.

And then, finally, the last stage of the parade, the horn blowers.  One hundred and fifty men blew instruments made from cow horns, two short toots and a longer blast, over and over.

And then it was over, more or less.  Küssnacht is tiny, and would have been easy to skip a block over and see the whole procession once again, and I of course could hear all the noise echoing through the streets. And, additionally, the parade repeated itself at 10:00.  But I had a long way home, and I was fearful of train crowds, so I weaved through the crowds and made my way home, nibbling Biberli.

I took quite a lot of video footage and am going to share a bit.  To experience the parade as I did, watch this in a pitch-black room and turn your volume up to eleven.  Enjoy!