Tschäggättä Masks

It’s Tschäggättä time again!  Last year, we went to see the Tschäggättä parade in Switzerland’s Lötschental Valley during Carnival/Fasnacht.  The costumes and the masks amazed us in particular.

Until the 1900’s, only the valley’s inhabitants knew Lötschental’s masks.  Over the next four decades, Tschäggättä masks gained recognition as works of art and a unique cultural heritage.  After WWII, with recognition, the Lötschental Valley’s increased contact with the world, and greater demand, there was a golden age of Tschäggättä masks.

Tschäggättä masks are instantly recognizable.  Their distinguishing features include:

• Large, smiling mouths, either with carved wooden teeth, or toothless (sometimes they have animal teeth
• The mouth is either s-shaped, curved up or rectangular
• They usually feature bulging, uneven eyes

Thomas Antonietti, curator of the Lotschentaler Museum in Kippel (and whose family has a collection of over 400 of them), said “Tschäggättä can be sourced back a few hundred years to portrayals of the devil–deformed, hairy, hook-nosed and horned, wild-haired and snaggle-toothed–in medieval church theatre.”   They have over 60 masks on display at the museum.

Today, the remote Lotschental Valley has around 30 mask-carvers.  While the masks are widely available for sale (if you go to the valley, don’t expect to see them lined up for sale like mini Eiffel Tower’s in Paris), I’ve seen ones at Geneva’s Plainpalais flea market.  You sometimes see mask-carving workshops or lessons on  Myswitzerland.com, www.loetschental.ch and other sites.  What’s better than buying one as a souvenir, making your own mask!

Related articles

• Tschäggättä. Tschwhata? A Swiss Valley’s Unique Carnival Celebration (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)
• Tschäggättä Parade To Celebrate Carnival In The Lötschental Valley (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)
• The Road Through The Alps Into Switzerland’s Lötschental Valley (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)
• Danger!!!!! What We’ve Learned About Avalanches (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)
• The Spaghetti Tree Hoax, Aka Happy April Fool’s Day From Switzerland (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)
• Schwingen In Switzerland’s Top 10 Posts Of 2012 (schwingeninswitzerland.wordpress.com)

 

Breaking The Law In France

It looks like your average vacation shot, but apparently, this was illegal activity.  Just like the Judas Priest song, I was “Breakin the Law.”  I’ve done it too (but the photos are just too bad to post). It wasn’t intentional.  I didn’t have drugs, wasn’t intoxicated or carrying stolen goods.

The problem is what the girl on the left is wearing.  In 1799, post-Revolution France enacted a law banning women from wearing pants in Paris, the French capital.  Female renegades wore (gasp) long trousers to show their to the wealthy who wore fashionable knee-length culottes.  This began a political movement named ‘sans-culottes’ (which translates literally to no underwear).

For women, wearing any form of menswear in public required government permission in order to be legal.  Often, obtaining permission required a medical reason.  I’m guessing that “I didn’t feel like shaving my legs this morning” just wouldn’t have passed muster.  Ironically, the law didn’t seem to stop Parisian fashion houses from starting the military look, suits or menswear fashion trends every decade or so.