Five crazy holiday traditions in Switzerland
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The decapitation of the house goose, children smoking, and the snowman who goes berserk: these are not the only weird Swiss customs. Try not to be frightened or surprised by the five customs.
Gansabhauet, or when a goose gets beheaded
The untrained tourist may get a big shock when he or she finds themselves in the main square in Zurzee on St Martin's Day on November 11th. You betcha: there's a dead goose hanging by the neck from a wire in front of the town hall. And there's a gathering of all those who want to win it - by cutting off the bird's head with an antique cavalry sword.
Everyone in turn is given a red cloak, a blindfold over their eyes and a large golden mask over their face, a glass of wine and, on the approach to the goose, a twist to disorient them.
Players stumble, groping the goose, miss, and in the meantime the crowd cheers to the beat of the drums. This year 2019, incidentally, the winner of the decapitation of the goose was a woman. Why - equality, that's how it is in everything!
Funkensonntag, or Sundays when children are allowed to smoke
Another unusual custom, to put it mildly, exists in the historical region of Appenzell (consisting of two cantons, A.-External and A.-Internal). Usually at the end of winter, or more precisely on the fourth Sunday of Lent, guests at cattle parties marvel not only at the ornately decorated headdresses on the cows, but also at the fact that children smoke cigarettes, cigars and pipes.
"On a day called 'Funkensonntag', or 'sparkling Sunday', children are actually allowed to smoke at the cattle shows in Appenzell canton," says Rosalia Keller of the Swiss Tourist Office in the canton of Appenzell Inland. She doesn't know where this custom originated. According to her, "it has always been like that," but she admits that "it is certainly a real paradox. It lies in the fact that smoking is almost universally forbidden in public places in Switzerland. In Appenzell, everyone smokes, even children".
Black Pschuuri holiday
Looking for the least politically correct custom in the world? A serious contender for victory in this category is clearly the "Pschuuri" festival in the canton of Graubünden, where masked men catch young women and smear their faces with black paint made from fat and charcoal. In the local dialect, 'Pschuure' means 'to blacken'. This is an important part of the carnival festivities in Splügen, around a village close to the Italian border.
The day begins innocuously enough: Children dress up in costumes, walk from house to house with baskets around their necks, asking for sweets. But in the afternoon the tension begins to rise: unmarried young men, 'Pshuurirolli', don furry costumes and masks, pick up bells, arm themselves with a bag of greasy coal mixture and take to the streets in search of unmarried girls.
'Cherry run' in Zug
The canton of Zug is renowned throughout Switzerland as a cherry-growing and cultivating centre. Every year in May, to mark the start of another cherry blossom season, the 'Chriesigloggä' or 'cherry bell' rings at the city's St Michael's Church. Hearing the bell, children and adults run through the streets of the old town of Zug to the cherry picking point, not empty-handed, but with long wooden ladders.
This celebration dates back to an old tradition, according to which the inhabitants of the region ran with eight-metre ladders through the old town to start picking cherries, which was and to a large extent still is the basis of the canton's prosperity. Nowadays the 'Chriesisturm' ('cherry assault') is organised simply as a game and fun followed by mass festivities and entertainment.
Burning a Böögg carnival scarecrow in Zurich
Don't even try to reproduce the following custom on your garden plot or at home! Because the annual spring carnival "Sechseläuten" or "Six Bells" in Zurich culminates with the burning of an effigy named Böögg, symbolising the long winter months.
But Bögg doesn't just burn - it also explodes thanks to a handful of gunpowder sewn into its head, which besides gunpowder has only... that's right, sawdust! Legend has it that the quicker Böögg's head explodes, the warmer and sunnier the summer will be this year. In 2019, it took 17 minutes and 45 seconds to burn the snowman, so it should have been a mild summer. In fact, it was hot, albeit relatively short. But we don't love the snowman and its burning for the accuracy of weather forecasts, do we?
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