Saturday 21 December 2013

Colour blind in a red and black world

Embach as it looks today
Early in the new year there will be an election for the local council which covers the industrial village in the valley, Lend, and the farming village of Embach 500m above. The result is a foregone conclusion. Of the 2500 residents, those in Lend will vote red (socialist) and here in Embach they will vote black (conservative). The reds will win more seats on account of the bigger population.

Politics are ingrained deep into life here almost like skin pigmentation. It pervades even the most benign group or organisation. Each village has its own pensioners club reflecting the “colour” of the residents. Other groups, such as those for sport and social activities also have a tendency towards one colour or another.

The recent visit by the red pensioners, albeit with a number of Embachers, to a huge steelworks in Linz, contrasted with Embach pensioners’ traditional Advent get-together with zither and accordion music, poetry readings and primary schoolchildren in a short nativity play, followed by coffee and cake, wine and plenty of gossip.
 
Traditional entertainment enjoyed by Embach's pensioners
Being an incomer, an outsider from London, only resident in Embach for 11 years – one doesn’t have this red or black streak in the DNA. For this “colour blind” outsider who has activities in both communities the indelible colour definition is still something of a surprise.

Embach once had its own council and mayor and, for some, the colour-clashing merger of Embach with Lend in the 1930s has rankled ever since. The council and mayor do their best to organise events and activities that bring the communities together. But if an event in Embach is reported in the media as happening in Lend, grumblings echo around the mountains.

However, there are some things on which both villages are agreed. A class of children at the local school (which has pupils both from Lend and Embach) were unanimous as to what they would be eating on December 24th: Wurstlsuppe. This is a thin soup with noodles and pale frankfurter-type sausages swimming about in it. Christmas Eve is, after all, a time of fasting.

Embachers will also indulge themselves with Backikoch, As we wrote last year, everyone has their own recipe and no-one seems keen to give it away. It is made of milk and flour whisked together over heat with a pinch of salt and a little butter. Some people also add honey. Apparently everyone eats it and loves it – but only on Bachltag (Christmas eve).

To all readers of this blog around the world, as the Embach people would say:
Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch in das Neue Jahr – happy Christmas and a good slither into the new year.
 
Embach pensioners enjoying each other's company


Friday 6 December 2013

Monstrous tradition


Doing the rounds this week of schools and homes with children is a bearded old chap in long robes: St Nikolaus. He brings little gifts for good children, carried in a basket loaded on to the back of his small, but also bearded, assistant. Wearing a tall mitre, his face obscured by a white beard and carrying a crook to tend his flock, the saint’s true identity is only given away by a pair of clumping-great farming boots.

However, before his arrival, children are often fearful in case they have been given a bad report. For St Nik is also accompanied by the fearsome krampusses. These huge, hairy, roaring and cacophonic creatures were roaring around the village at the weekend, lunging into the crowd, dragging out wrongdoers and whacking them around the shins with bunches of twigs.



True to say, most of the punishment is meted out on teenage girls who “foolishly” place themselves near the front of the crowd, secretly hoping to be singled out though they don’t know who lies behind the mask. For the masks are huge and hideous with snarling mouths and fearsome teeth.  Long horns add to the ghastly appearance.



The masks are old and carved in wood, handed down through generations - Embach does not allow krampus groups wearing the modern “horror” masks. Shaggy bear-like skins cover the body and on his back, the krampus carries huge iron globes full of something that sends out a deafening clanking sound – possibly the teeth and bones of previous victims.



As St Nikolaus visits homes in the village during the following evenings, the Krampusses hover menacingly in the background, ready to deal with any children who their saintly master dictates need punishment. The threat is enough and the sound of them outside the home makes the blood run cold.

Looking back, I see that this is pretty much where this blog started out two years and nearly 70 blogs ago. The story above is much the same as it was then…but isn’t that what tradition is all about?