Traditional customs are alive and well all
over Switzerland, whit a rich variety not only from region to region, but also
from village to village. Religious
festivals, the farming year, and the events of history, national and cantonal, are
all celebrated in the one way or another. If Swiss daily life is a bit too
rigid, the festivals are energetic, magical and occasionally eccentric customs
another side of Swiss.
Eating and drinking was and is one of the
most important socially customs in everyday life and at celebrations. The
feeling of belonging arises today in most cases even without the belief in the
cohesive effect of the food, simply due to physical proximity of the group at
the table and due to the vitalizing effects of food and drink. The closest
social unit, the family, meets daily to eat together. According to good Swiss
custom, the servants and other employees are a part of this unit. Especially in
old farming families and middle-class families, the communal meals follow a
customary order or even a ceremonial ritual. This is emphasized by the custom
of saying Grace, which in rural areas fell into disfavour only in the second
half of the last century. Everyone had his place at the table, which was
determined by his position in the household. The common bowl, which forces
steady, considerate eating, at which each person has to keep to his own corner,
was the symbol of community dinning. When the head of the household put down
his spoon, the communal meal was over. The community meal out of one pot has,
by the way, experienced a renaissance in our times thanks to the wide-spread
popularity of fondue meals.
Characteristic of the general dissolution
of the old-fashioned community spirit was the custom of giving everyone his own
plate, which originated with the upper classes. Not until the eighteenth
century were tablecloth and napkins introduced.
Even today, the custom of a guest or a new
member of the house hold having to eat and drink something upon entering the
house lives on in rural and middle-class families. In Switzerland, eating
becomes pure social custom and acceptance ritual. Refusal of the foo d or drink
is considered a refusal of the community group, as an insult.
At weddings, baptisms or funerals, the
larger family circle meets at table. The wake originally was not only intended
to unit the living, but also to create communion with the deceased.
Larger social groups assemble on special
occasions for a banquet, dinner party, donation dinner or sacrificial dinner,
where the amount of food consumed usually far exceeds normal needs. Certain
feasts were originally held to magically influence the fertility of the crops
during the coming year by abundant eating. In this connection, we should not,
however forget that the diet of most people right into the nineteenth century
was extremely scanty. No wonder that people lost control on the few festive
occasions where food and drink were served in abundance.
Fasnacht or Carnival
Basel is considered the place to be for
carnival. The city’s celebrations are the best known and the most extravagant.
They can begin in the small hours of the morning when all the street lightening
is turned off to make way for a procession of large, decorative lanterns. The
people are awaked by the masked and costumed figures drumming, playing flutes and
marching. The Morgestraich traditionally starts on Monday after Ash Wednesday,
at precisely 4am.
Tchaggatta
In contrast to the colourful and playful
customes seen during the carnival season elsewhere in Switzerland, one valley –
the Lotschental in canton Valais – upholds a tradition involving
ferocious-looking wooden masks. An unwritten rule allows only unmarried men to
practice the custom. They wander around their village wearing demonic masks,
sheep – or goatskin tunics, and gloves smeared with soot, taking the occasional
swipe at everyone they meet (particular young woman). The Tchaggatta, as they
are called (meaning piebald), are undoubtedly masters of the village during
this time. The traditions stems from the time the valley was cut off from the outside
world in winter. The masks are and expression of anarchy and rebellion by a
peasant society that was largely dominated by the Church.
Sechselauten (Zurich)
This festival, on the third Monday in
April, goes back to medieval times, when one of the city’s traditional craft
guilds held a nighttime parade complete with musicians and horseback riders.
The idea caught on. Other guilds followed suit, and in 1839 the first
coordinated Sechselauten parade of all guilds took place. The name
Sechselauten, meaning “chiming six o’clock” goes back much further in history.
It celebrates the arrival of spring and the lengthening daylight hours that
allow people to work until 6pm.
The festivities open on the preceding
Sunday with a parade of children, mostly dressed in hystorical customs. This is
followed the next day by the parade of the guilds, which culminates at six
o’clock with the burning of a giant snowan, or Boog, which is stuffed with
explosives. A fire is lit under the snowman and tradition has it that the quicker
its head blows off, the better the summer will be.
Harvest Festivals
The end of the summer is marked in many
alpine areas by bringing the cows down from their summer pastures in the
mountains. In the more populated areas, fairs known as a Chilbis are held every
weekend toward the end of September. Fall is the season of harvest, wich means
not only giving thanks to God, but also taking produce to market in stocking up
for winter. Harvest thanksgiving are held in numerous place throughout the
country. Children’s games and market stalls invade village streets where the
locals sample the traditional streets of Magen Brot (cookies) and Apfel-Chuchli
(deep-fried apples), or gather together under tent of a cheesy dish of
raclette, bratwurst, wine and beer or hot specialty cofees.
Chistmas
Celebrations begins on December 6, widely
known as Samticlhauls Tags, of the Feast of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of
children. They leave shoes outside their door on the Eve of St Nicholas for him
to fill with mandarin oranges, nuts and cookies. Since it is not Santa who
brings presents at Christmas but Christkind (an angel), this day in early
December is when children in kindergartens and playgroups find out if they’ve
been naughty or good. Don’t expect the jolly, fat Santa of North American
tradition, but a slimmed down and more serious version. He arrives accompanied
by his sidekick, Schmutzli (or “dirty guy”), who is dressed all in brown, his
face darkened with soot. It used to be said Schmutzli would beat naughty children
with a switch and carry them off in a sack to be eaten in woods. Beatings and
kidnappings are no longer spoken of today; instead Schumutzli hands out oranges
and nuts while his superior delivers a stern lecture or two about good
behaviour. Presents are traditionally opened on December 24. Families in the
German areas enjoy meat fondue called “chinoise” and in Franch areas they
indulge in specialties such as foie gras or truffles, followed by special
desserts of cakes and cookies. Christmas Day is a time for family to be
together, visiting one another or enjoying the outdoors – sleddings, walking or
skiing.
New Year
New Year’s Eve (December 31) is also St.
Sylvester’s Day, when the last person in the household to rise from bed is woken
up with shouts of “Sylvester”. The last child to arrive at school is also
dubbed Sylvester. In the evening, bonfires are lit on the mountains and church
bells are rung to alert all that the New year is about to be ushered in.
Easter
Easter is a time for specialty chocolate
shops and bakeries to show their wares. People enjoy an extra long weekend, and
children decorate eggs and take part in Easter-egg hunts. This is probably not
different from what the average foreigner is used to, but cultural variations
abound if you take a closer look at individual cantons. In Mendrisio, in the
southern Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, on the last Thursday of Lent, the
locals stage a performance of the biblical passion play, complete with Roman
soldiers and horseback trumpeters. This is followed on Good Friday with a more
somber procession during which two sculptures, one of the dead Christ and the
other of his mother, Mary, are carried through the streets.
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