Fasnacht in Basel is a sort of Protestant Swiss version of Carnaval, or Mardi Gras. It began last Monday morning at 4AM with Morganstreich (spelling of all words not English may be incorrect) which is a sort of striking in the morning with over 200 cliques (groups) of Piccollo or drum players marching through the street with a large lantern decorated with their message of the year. Each player marching wears a mask and a small lantern on their head. Kathrin's cousin, Caleb's cousin once removed, Hans invited us to the unveiling of their lantern the evening prior to Morganstreich. This ceremony usually includes the clique and sometimes close friends or family. Then they re-cover their lantern and march through the streets, piccollos only. After Morganstreich, there are three full days and nights of parading ending at eight AM on Thursday. During the parades the people wear different masks and there are many floats carrying people costumed as veggis (pronounced vay-ghees-closest translation- hillbillies) with giant large upturned nosed masks, throwing candy and confetti. They sometimes grab people and completely cover them in confetti. The people put up their arms and say, "Veggis, Veggis" in hopes of getting loot. We managed to acquire, special thanks to Anja and Kathrin who worked extra hard, much candy, toy cars, little stuffed animals, red glitter hair spray, cough drops, kleenex, countless blood oranges, a fake red rose, and real acacias and roses. When we arrived, we went to our family's lovely, spacious apartment right in the center of town. We were met by cousins who presented Kathrin with a long list of family to call in the short week we were there. She managed to complete her list and we had many lovely meetings with the family including home-made meals and teas. We had a special Fasnacht dessert which was something like the crunchy cinnamon things you get at Taco Bell, or elephant ears from a carnival. Though they didn't have cinnamon on them, only powdered sugar.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Fasnacht!
Fasnacht in Basel is a sort of Protestant Swiss version of Carnaval, or Mardi Gras. It began last Monday morning at 4AM with Morganstreich (spelling of all words not English may be incorrect) which is a sort of striking in the morning with over 200 cliques (groups) of Piccollo or drum players marching through the street with a large lantern decorated with their message of the year. Each player marching wears a mask and a small lantern on their head. Kathrin's cousin, Caleb's cousin once removed, Hans invited us to the unveiling of their lantern the evening prior to Morganstreich. This ceremony usually includes the clique and sometimes close friends or family. Then they re-cover their lantern and march through the streets, piccollos only. After Morganstreich, there are three full days and nights of parading ending at eight AM on Thursday. During the parades the people wear different masks and there are many floats carrying people costumed as veggis (pronounced vay-ghees-closest translation- hillbillies) with giant large upturned nosed masks, throwing candy and confetti. They sometimes grab people and completely cover them in confetti. The people put up their arms and say, "Veggis, Veggis" in hopes of getting loot. We managed to acquire, special thanks to Anja and Kathrin who worked extra hard, much candy, toy cars, little stuffed animals, red glitter hair spray, cough drops, kleenex, countless blood oranges, a fake red rose, and real acacias and roses. When we arrived, we went to our family's lovely, spacious apartment right in the center of town. We were met by cousins who presented Kathrin with a long list of family to call in the short week we were there. She managed to complete her list and we had many lovely meetings with the family including home-made meals and teas. We had a special Fasnacht dessert which was something like the crunchy cinnamon things you get at Taco Bell, or elephant ears from a carnival. Though they didn't have cinnamon on them, only powdered sugar.
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1 comment:
wow! this sounds fantastic! I wish we had more old world charmy festivals like this. Hurray for your ability to discern all the language changes. i would love to hear romanish spoken..perhps I can find a clip on the web.
We are excited to go watch the Amgen Bike Race arrive in downtown Santa Rosa this afternoon. Levi is in 4th place after the time trials.
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