Being Less a Blogpost than an Essay on Civil Governance and Marching Around Carrying Fire

The annual “Fasnacht” celebration in Basel, Switzerland was highly recommended to us because it’s more oriented around music than the Faschings carnivals of southern Germany.  It happens five days after Lent has already begun, maybe as a symbol of Protestant refusal to take orders from the Pope, or maybe it’s a more primitive Defeat Winter effort.  From Liestal’s nighttime Parade of Fire, to the subsequent days of costumed Baselers of all ages marching around the clock with solemn drums and piccolo bands, what the natives call “The Three Most Beautiful Days” was a revelatory lesson in letting your hair down, communally, in accordance with traditions, and confirming civil control.

Shortly after we arrived on Sunday afternoon, we took another train ride (just 15 minutes) to Liestal, which while close to Basel is the governmental center of another state.  By then, the town had already withstood a long, loud and messy parade, leaving the cobbled winding medieval streets deep in confetti, candy wrappers and plastic cups.  Firefighters from many nearby towns wearing full gear were busy setting up hose connections and fire-watch points on roofs nearby.  We settled ourselves to wait for darkness to fall to view the “Chienbase” (meaning I think “Crazed Pyromaniacs”) starting just after 7.  We succeeded in holding front row positions, but there was a steep price to pay.

First came the bands with their lanterns lit, piping and drumming eerily.  As the darkness intensified, the fire groups arrived:  first, a dozen helmeted marchers hoisting weighty “brooms” of several dozen sticks of flaming firewood wired to a small tree, preceded a wagon packed fully and carefully with firewood, and blazing high.  The aim was to process through the ancient town gate, threatening the town with a real danger of destruction, but to maintain order while playing this game of elemental chicken.  

With succeeding groups of torches, blazing wagons burning with increasing ferocity, the heat became frightening.  I had to turn away, and my DH wrapped me in his raincoat for shelter.  After a while I looked down, and found some children had joined me under the coat!  The wagons often had to pause for several minutes near us, dropping embers and burning logs, while the firefighters hosed down the town gate, and as the bonfires intensified, I had to force my way several people deeper into the crowd.  My DH stayed in the front, fascinated as ever by flames, and small people near him sheltered under his raincoat.  One woman told him, “You’re a hero!”  New burn holes in his coat testify to his fortitude.

When the fire parade finally ended, the street party began and we refueled with grilled sausages and cold beer.  We were exhausted and reeking of wood-smoke, and got the train back to Basel, having spent about five hours bearing witness as the elemental power of fire was celebrated, and conquered.

We were too worn out to get up in time for the 4 am commencement of festivities in Basel with the “Morgestraich” (“stroke of morning”) parade of lanterns and bands.  It’s supposed to be an unforgettable sight, when all the lights in the city are shut off simultaneously, but we just couldn’t get out of bed!  Next time.

After breakfast we explored Basel’s medieval inner city and even climbed the tower of the Cathedral on the Rhine (like I needed something else to scare me to death).  The streets were narrow and windy, some so steeply hilly that they turned into staircases.  The old town is beautifully preserved and maintained.  We stood on the oldest bridge over the Rhine to watch the afternoon parade, which featured probably thousands of marchers, lasted for almost two hours, and went both ways along the bridge.  Candy, flowers and fruits were tossed or handed carefully to onlookers, and we were showered with confetti more times than we could count.  My DH was often used as a target, being taller than many, and had confetti shot into his nose and ears!

Thousands of Basel residents belong to “cliques”:  the first time I’ve ever heard this word used in a non-derogatory sense.  Some cliques have been established for centuries, others began recently.  They spend the year prior to each festival planning and making their costumes, and thinking about the social or political topic on which they will comment with long, wry poems in their local Germanic dialect, with their costumes, with their “float”, and their “laterne”.  Each clique has one large artist-painted lantern reflecting their subject topic, and a lot of similar small lanterns that fit onto the tops of their oversized masks with attached wigs and hats.  The cliques also meet regularly to practice their music. The more traditional groups have a piccolo and a drum section that play mostly melancholy old tunes and rhythms.  Others are marching brass bands who played many tunes familiar to high school bands the world over:  “Spanish Eyes”,  “Happy Days are Here Again”!

The costumes are outlandish, funny, or scary, simultaneously.  Many are variations on clown suits, and there’s a lot of cross-dressing for extra hilarity.  The masks are huge and grotesque, with big noses and wigs.  Some aimed at scariness with skeletal death’s heads, and others at light-hearted fun with beany babies and flowers on their hats and garments.  Costumes festooned with trash or fashioned from recyclables offered social commentary. The costumes, the floats, and the gifts of candy and flowers to onlookers were similar to the Catholic Church-oriented Fasching parades in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.

Once the official parade (which involved judging) ended, the groups took breaks, and then put their masks back on and processed, piping and drumming, as they wished until they needed another break.  We finally gave up for the day at 10 pm, and bands were still roving and playing all over town.  We saw some extremely tired child members of cliques, just barely clinging to wakefulness and self-respect on their way home.

Tuesday was Children’s Day.  Bands of pipers and drummers, in fresh costumes, roamed while groups of children in wagons, costumed to match one another as clowns, animals, and fairy tale characters, traveled through the streets thoughtfully or fiendishly distributing candy and confetti.  We took a break for a couple of hours to visit the beautifully designed historical museum which illuminated for us the Celtic, Roman and Germanic origins of Basel, its medieval affluence, and the changes in governance from church to state. Then we followed bands up and down hills, winding along the narrow old streets, for some hours before we had to leave for “home”.

This was no Mardi Gras; no binge drinking or lewd eroticism.  This was a cross-generational community affair like nothing I’ve seen before.  The cliques had members of all ages, teens and retirees piping and drumming together, discussing and composing their sly takes on the issues, sharing their labors with fellow citizens, and celebrating their ability to express themselves and not self-destruct.  With this tradition, the Swiss teach their children how to be an individual within a group, to build a community, to take personal responsibility and to ensure the survival of their culture for the next generation.  My one-dimensional preconception of the Swiss as hard-working, good-looking, fit and trim athletic watchmakers has undergone a transformation and a deepening. 

Oh, I ate some really great sausages and mini-quiches there too!  Sometime perhaps I’ll share about Flour Soup (really, it’s brown gravy sprinkled with grated Emmental cheese), a traditional Fasnacht food here.  The lessons of cuisine in Basel were completely overtaken by the profound lessons of culture.