Bizarre, old Swiss tradition

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 12

Bizarre, old Swiss tradition

By

PETER CONRADI

of Reuters (through .. NZPA) Sursee, Switzerland It took just four sword blows to hack the first goose’s head off —- quite good going, according to the experts in the front row of the village square.

The second went after six. As a small concession to squeamish, modern taste, they use dead rather than live geese these days. But in other respects, Sursee’s annual Gansabhauet — literally, Cutting Down the Goose — has changed little since the Middle Ages. Every November locals pack the square in front of the town hall in this tidy, central Swiss village to watch blindfolded, col-ourfully-costumed youths trying one after the oth“r to chop geese’s heads off.

The contestants are allowed just one blow each and the one who succeeds in felling the goose can march into any local restaurant and demand his trophy be cooked.

The Gansabhauet is one of dozens of bizarre events which pepper the Swiss calendar. Festivals ranging from cow fighting, boulder throwing and cow-bell ringing to the more mundane wine, cheese and shooting festivals regularly draw thousands all over the country. Some are tourists but most, as in Sursee, are locals out to have a good time.

“We Swiss are very conscious of history and tradition,” said Urs Troxler, a local architect who joined the crowd of 4000 at this year’s Gansabhauet. “Events like this are very important for holding the community together.” The origins of the festival lie somewhere in the Middle Ages, according to Stefan Roellin, the local historian and president of pointed in the direction of the goose, suspended by its neck from a wire. “Over there,” “on the right,” shout the crowd as the grotesque figure fumbles towards his victim. Finally he reaches it with his outstretched hand and begins to pluck the feathers from the neck. •

As photographers jostle for the best position, the swordsman brings his heavy sword towards the goose’s neck and stops, like a golfer testing his swing. The crowd laughs. He swings twice again and stops each time. The crowd begins to jeer. Finally the blow comes, but it fails to make an .impression either on the goose or the crowd. “Not very good at all,” tuts one of the experts. “You must hit it very hard.” Another four locals, drawn by ballot try un- , the Gansabhauet committee. likely it marked

the day when farmers paid tithes. The Gansabhauet disappeared in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but started up again late last century in roughly its present form and has been held fairly regularly ever since. The costume of an oversized gold sun mask and red coat dates from then, as do the three sideshows held alongside the main festival: one in which children scale a nine-metre pole to retrieve presents, a sack race with sausages on strings as prizes and a contest in which those pulling the most grotesque faces win lumps of cheese.

Not that all the Surseers are enthusiastic about the custom: the committee regularly receives anonymous letters from local animal lovers complaining about the festival. A newspaper story a few years ago wrongly suggesting that they still used live geese caused an outcry. “There is np cruelty at all involved,” said Roellin. “The geese come from a local convent and they are all slaughtered in the most humane way possible.” In the village square, children fight each other for the severed head of a goose, tossed to them by one of the brightly clad marshals. “You can see much worse things on television,” says one spectator angrily, when asked if the gruesome spectacle is a suitable place to bring his young children. As the band strikes up, the next contestant, accompanied by two drummers, stumbles blindly up the steps on to the stage. Already tipsy from the obligatory glass of red wine, he is spun around three times and successfully to separate the goose from its head. The second swings so wildly that he knocks his own mask off. The fourth gets in a solid blow but leaves the goose hanging by a thin strand.

It is left to a local clerk, to deal the coup de grace. As the crowd roars, he lifts off his mask and holds his headless goose high. “In the old days when people did not have very much to eat, winning the goose was really something,” said Beatrice Wuest, director of the local tourist bureau. “Today it is still important for Sursee and we have been very careful not to turn it into something just for tourists.”

“The children do not really think of it as a dead animal, they just like the spectacle,” she adds. “But as for the psychological interpretation ... I think you would have to ask Freud.” fit