LL-L "Festivities" 2002.10.07 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
 L O W L A N D S - L * 07.OCT.2002 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Web Site: <http://www.lowlands-l.net>  Email: admin at lowlands-l.net
 Rules & Guidelines: <http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.htm>
 Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
 Server Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
 Archive: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html>
=======================================================================
 You have received this because have been subscribed upon request. To
 unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or
 sign off at <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
=======================================================================
 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic
               V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
=======================================================================

From: Thomas Byro <thbyro at earthlink.net>
Subject: LL-L "Festivals" 2002.10.02 (05) [E]

Thank you for the information.  I had forgotten about the paper lanterns we
carried with lit candles in them.  Suennermarten is clearly the same
holdiday that we had. I asume that it must be limited to the north of
Germany because none of the Germans I have met here (allmost all from south
Germany) had ever heard of it.  If you can dig up the song, I would greatly
appreciate it.

The fire festival was as you described it.  Only a few couples jumped over
the fire and that only when the fire had burned quite low.

By the way, does Nikolaus still have his place on December 6th or has he
been displaced by the American Santa Claus by now?

Tom

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Festivities

Tom,

I think that several of these holidays and customs have merged: Martinmas,
Halloween and the various New Year's customs, most of which obviously have
pre-Christians roots.

In Protestant communities of Northern Germany there are permutations of
Martinmas.  I'm not so sure if this is done a lot now, but when I was a
child we would walk around with foldable paper laterns (usually in different
shapes and colors, held with a stick with a wire hook or loop) and sing
certain latern songs, usually of the endless type (of which I might share a
couple if you are interested).  This was not confined to Martinmas, of which
we knew nothing, but could be done pretty much anytime just after dusk in
the fall.

Much of what children in North America do on Halloween, we used to do on New
Years Eve.  In other words, there is a merging of the two originally "pagan"
festivals Halloween and "winter cleansing" (cleaning houses of evil spirits
before the return of the sun, as is still done in archaic shamanist
mummenschanz rituals in Alemannic areas, especially in Switzerland,
reflected also in the Scandinavian Christmas dance through all the rooms of
the house).  On New Year's Eve, we children would go from door to door in
fancy costumes, often with masks, pretending to be something like beggar
pilgrims, singing songs and expecting to get rewarded with candy, cookies
and such like, thus similar to American Halloween Trick-o-Treating.
Sometimes, if people didn't give them anything or would not open their
doors, children would make a terrible racket, originally with pots, pans,
drums and _rummelpots_ (a special type of droning instrument). In the most
recent past they would fire off fireworks.  (I remember one case in which
teenagers stuck life fireworks into someone's letterslot in the door and
burnt up the place while the residents were on a trip ...)

As you can see, there is a direct relationship between these customs and
those of Scottish Hogmaney.  There are also similarities with the Lucia
festivities in Scandinavia, the use of candles (such as on Advent wreaths
and Christmas trees) to symbolize the "pagan" rituals of bringing back the
light in mid-winter, which was easy for the Christian churches to convert
conceptually and ritually.

In Northern Germany the "Dutch" and "German" customs have merged (just to
confuse the children, I suppose).  We have both Santa Claus (LS _Nicklas_,
_Sinterklaas_, Germ. _(Sankt) Nikolaus_) on December 6 and Father Christmas
(LS _Wiehnachtsmann, Germ. _Weihnachtsmann_).  If you had been good all
year, the former would put small gifts into your shoes, which you would have
to shine and put on a window sill while saying a verse.  The latter will
bring gifts (or beat you with a bunch of faggots) on Christmas Eve.  We were
told he would come while we went to evening church service, funnily always
one grown-up family member short, usually our father.  (On our return there
would be a huge hoopla -- "Oh, Father Christmas must have been here!")

In many families' traditions, Father Christmas is accompanied by his servant
Knecht Ruprecht (whose counterpart accompanies the Dutch Sinterklaas on
December 6).  (In the Roman Catholic south, the companion is the "Christ
Child," or Father Christmas does not exist, and the "Christ Child" brings
gifts.)  In Hamburg, which is relatively cosmopolitan, many of these
traditions co-exist(ed), because people's ancestry came from all of Germany
and beyond.  I happened to live in an area with an unusually high Roman
Catholic concentration and got exposed to their customs early, and, to make
it more complicated, among them South German, East German, Polish and
Ukrainian ones coexisted.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

==================================END===================================
* Please submit postings to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
  <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
=======================================================================