Stréimännchen

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The Stréimännchen ( dt . : straw man ) is a male symbolic figure with which the end of the carnival season and the beginning of the fasting season is heralded every year by burning in the city of Remich in Luxembourg . This straw doll represents the winter , which is to be driven out with the burning.

In a leap year , the straw doll is dressed female and called Stréifrächen ( German : Strohfrauchen ).

history

The burning of a figure in connection with the carnival is not uncommon. B. in the region around the Rhineland since the beginning of the 19th century historically tangible. Ernst Weyden from Cologne writes in his memoirs of the 1820s, in which the carnival events in Cologne were reorganized, that on Ash Wednesday “Carnival was buried”: “With a formal corpse escort, a doll was carried through the city on a stretcher and burned same in a square. ”Weyden relates the event to an“ old festival usage that was still preserved in southern Germany and even in Greece ”and wants a“ pompous carnival funeral ”as a Mardi Gras game also in 1812 for the Napoleonians stationed in Cologne at the time Have seen troops.

The anthropologist James Frazer saw customs such as the mimed death of the carnival to be related to similar customs in other cultures in which the apparent death of a divine or supernatural being plays a role - as a prerequisite for a resurrection in a better form. Elsewhere it is z. B. Death itself, which is executed with corresponding drama. Frazer reports from Lazio , Abruzzo , Catalonia , Provence and Normandy about the burning of a carnival figure made of straw or cardboard on Violet Tuesday or Ash Wednesday ; elsewhere the doll is buried (in Lechrain ), drowned ( Jülich ) or hung (room Tübingen). In some Ardennes villages there are also supposed to have been sham courts and sham executions; the "Carnival Tuesday", the carnival in the French-speaking area as Mardi Gras , was embodied by a young man who was shot at with blank cartridges. However, after a fatal accident in Vrigne-aux-Bois , this custom ceased. The "Out Wear of death" with similar characteristics described Frazer for Central Franconia, Bavaria, Thuringia and Silesia, as a mid-Lent tradition on the Fourth Sunday of Lent .

The first official written evidence of the custom in Remich is said to come from 1884. The straw doll is also supposed to atone for the sins of the revelers during the carnival.

procedure

On Ash Wednesday every year after dark, hundreds of people gather in Remich to watch the ceremonial burning of the straw doll. The straw doll is carried through the streets and set on fire on the Moselle bridge and then thrown into the Moselle while burning.

The associated folk festival is organized by the Harmonie municipale Concordia Remich and the Equipe vum Stréimännchen has been taking care of the design of the straw doll for decades. This is the only activity of this association during the year. The construction of the straw doll takes two days, the straw doll is also supposed to represent a fuesbok , who is hungover after a long carnival weekend and is standing there without money. Every year the straw doll has an empty wallet and an empty bottle with her. These objects symbolize the money that was spent during Carnival and are also intended to remind of the beginning of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday . In the past, the doll was also decorated with political motifs.

The straw doll burns about 20 minutes before it is pushed into the Moselle. The origin of the custom is not exactly known.

Similar customs

There are a number of similar ceremonies, some of which can be traced back to much older traditions (examples):

Further customs in this context are e.g. B .:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Weyden : Cologne on the Rhine fifty years ago, moral images together with historical references and linguistic explanations. (1862), reissued unchanged under the title Köln am Rhein one hundred and fifty years ago. Morals along with historical references and linguistic explanations. and with an afterword by Max Leo Schwering. Greven Verlag, Cologne 1960, pp. 140f.
  2. ↑ James Georg Frazer: The golden branch. The secret of the beliefs and customs of the peoples. (= rowohlt's encyclopedia cultures and ideas. 483). Reinbek near Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-499-55483-6 , pp. 437, 439-453.
  3. ↑ a b c d Armand Hoffmann: Fiery custom on the Moselle , Tageblatt of February 14, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b The Stréimännchen heats up the winter , L'essentiel.lu from February 15, 2018.
  5. ^ Anne-Aymone Schmitz: Stréimännchen burned in Remich , Luxemburger Wort of March 7, 2019.
  6. ↑ Volker Bingenheimer: Ash Wednesday custom in Remich: The Stréimännchen must burn , Luxemburger Wort from February 14, 2018.