Goose riding

Goose riding, also goose heads, is a regional custom that has been passed down from Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, England and North America. It is currently practiced in several localities in North Rhine-Westphalia . A variation in which the head of a goose is cut off with a sword is said to have existed in Canstein, Engelkau, Haan as well as in Belgium and Holland.

Belgium

In Belgium goose riding takes place in Lillo near Antwerp .

Germany

Höntrop

A previously killed goose is hung by its feet between two trees. Riders try to tear off her head at a gallop. The winner is the “goose rider king” for one year. The goose will later be eaten together. The ban on using a live goose has been in place since 1806.

In Bochum 's Wattenscheid-Höntrop district , goose riding is turned into a carnival by the goose riding club Höntrop von 1598 e. V. organizes.

The Bochum city archivist Eduard Schulte wrote about the presumed origin in Wattenscheid in his report of February 6, 1925:

"Since time immemorial it has been said that goose-riding was taken over by Spanish warriors when they were in Wattenscheid parishes during the Spanish-Dutch war in 1598 and 1599 and during the Thirty Years' War and practiced their home horse games for fun."

It is a tradition that is over 400 years old. For several years now, the Höntrop goose riders have been in contact with the Spanish town of El Carpio de Tajo , where goose rides have been taking place every year on July 25th since the town was conquered by the Arabs in 1141.

It is debatable how up-to-date the ritual is. Die Welt am Sonntag commented in 2004: “In Wattenscheid, society wrestles at carnival about which of its old rituals it would like to take with it into the future. It is still open who will have to give up in the end. "

After the youth welfare office in Bochum intervened, the young goose riders have not ridden real geese since 2006. Instead, horseshoes hanging from a circle are used. The children have to try to pierce them with their riding crop.

In the area of animal rights activists, argue the form with a dead goose in breach of the Animal Welfare Act and place the glorification of violence . In January 2016 the strongest Administrative Court Gelsenkirchen , a prohibition on killing out of the question as long as the killed goose is also consumed (Case 5 February 2016, Az. 16 L 221/16).

After around 100,000 supporters took part in a petition against goose riding addressed to Hannelore Kraft on Change.org , a week before the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017 it was announced that the ritual will no longer be performed with real geese from 2018. The goose rider association attaches great importance to the fact that “the decision was made without pressure”

Sevinghausen

An association in the neighboring district of Sevinghausen in Wattenscheid, Bochum, organizes its own goose riding in a paddock behind the goose riding hall .

Werl

In Werl the goose capping was organized by the Kolping Society in the Werl city forest. A dead goose hung in a wire basket, the journeymen tried, blindfolded, to cut off the head of the animal with a saber. The successful Kolping journeyman was honored with a chain, which was extended by each king with another medal . He received the title of Goose King . According to a report by the observer, a Werler daily newspaper, over 3,000 spectators took part in the spectacle at times . In 1961 goose capping was discontinued as out of date.

Langenhorst

A similar event will also take place in Langenhorst, a district of Velbert , on the Friday before Rose Monday and in the Velbert district of Neviges at Hardenberg Castle at Whitsun.

More places

Goose riding in Dortmund has been carried out with a dummy at the instigation of the city administration since 2003 . In the Essen districts of Kupferdreh , Byfang and Freisenbruch , goose riding has only taken place with this restriction since 2005 . Goose riding with dead animals was prohibited in Drolshagen-Bühren in 1988. There are also bans against “ Hahnköppen ” in Bornheim and Leverkusen and since 1993 in the Euskirchen district .