Fri 28 Feb 2003
Fastnet, Fastnacht, Faschings, Carnaval, Mardi Gras– Whatever it is, it’s here!
Posted by Ken Atherton under Interesting Stuff, germany
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Thursday marked the start of the celebrations that will run until Fat Tuesday. Known locally as Fastnet or one of several other names, the celebration is extremely popular here in this predominantly Catholic region.
Because Fastnet is not an official national holiday, it’s been interesting to hear about people’s plans at work. Those Germans who grew up in the area (or are married to someone who is) are taking the entire Thursday-through-Tuesday period as vacation (or at least Monday and Tuesday), and those who are originally from other parts of Germany are often taking no vacation during this time.
I am doing a little of both. I took 2 hours off on Thursday so that we could take the kids to the “Kinderball”, a parade for kids (and to a large extent by kids) in Villingen, and I’ll probably take off all of Fat Tuesday so that we can go see the sights in Rotweil.
It was beautiful in downtown Villingen yesterday. It was almost 50 degrees in the sun, so it was a good day for a parade.
Carissa was excited because all of the kids at Kindergarten dressed up for school also. In this sense, Fastnet feels kind of like Halloween, except that all of the kids are either Princesses, Fairies, Witches, Cowboys, or one of the really traditional Fools.
We let the girls wear their dress up costumes to the parade also. During the parade, the people in the parade throw candy to the kids, who put the loot into bags they’ve brought along for that purpose. In that sense, Fastnet is kind of the reverse candy delivery mechanism as Halloween, because you just stand there with a bag and other people come to you and give you candy!
The parade itself is interesting because to a large extent, it is very traditional. Many of the groups marching in the parade are the same groups that have marched there for hundreds of years, always in the same costumes. In fact, there is a specific set of costumes that are associated with Villingen’s celebration:
This costume is called Narro Villingen, or roughly the Villingen Fool. The costume and mask is very expensive, and tends to be passed from one generation to the next.
This is the female traditional costume. I’m not sure of its official name though.
The parade, I guess in keeping with the “Kids” theme featured a lot of mothers and their children riding in antique prams. There were a lot of unique styles.
There were a lot of other groups in the parade: schools, children’s groups, and bands. There is another parade in Villingen on Monday, and I understand it features the adult versions of many of these same groups.
There was a lot of interaction with the crowd, too. There were chants that the crowd would say to get the marchers to throw candy, and the marchers would sometimes lead these chants, too. There was also a lot of simple call-and-response chants. The marchers would call out a word–I think the word was “Heili!”, but it sounds like “Ah-leeee”, to which the crowd responds, “Heilo”, which sounds like “Al-loooh!”. This repeats a few times, then the crowd gets pelted with candy.
I don’t think that Villingen’s Fastnet is quite as wild a party as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. For one thing, it’s probably too cold to convince women to pull up their shirts for a string of beads (not that I’ve tried). I hear that in the late evenings that some of the parties can get wilder, but during the day, it’s very genteel.
On the other hand…
Even the cops can’t escape being part of the party. This Polizist, in addition to his fine clown makeup, has an odd German phrase drawn onto his bald spot. And don’t even ask about the guy in the background with the Homer Simpson sticker on his forehead!
