Chalandamarz

Every one knows - or should know - that March 1 is Neuchatel (my home town) Independence Day. I am embarrassed to admit that this year I forgot. However, I have a good excuse: in Zuoz it's the most important holiday of the year: Chalandamarz. The tradition goes back all the way to the times when the valley was occupied by the Romans (BC) and it probably marked the beginning of the New Year. When the date of the New Year shifted to January 1, the tradition evolved into a rite to chase away winter. In most towns it takes place only on March 1. But Zuoz is too big to get it all done in one day - so it's a 2-day affair. It starts on February 28, at 7am. The boys (up to 9th grade), dressed in traditional garb, as a group, go from house to house. If the entry way of the house is large enough to accommodate them all, they enter, otherwise, the stay outside, and the owner of the house comes to the door step. They then sing, 2-3 songs per house, and between songs they ring the cow bells they all are carrying around their waist.

Another friend was visiting that weekend, Jacqueline, whom I met in 1971, in Geneva. We got up at the crack of dawn to follow the boys for a while. We got hungry before it was time for their mid-morning snack and treated ourselves to fresh croissant at the bakery on the main square. We then had to go home, for Jacqueline to collect her belongings and catch her train back to Geneva. At 10:15 the boys were arriving in my neighborhood. Two of them don't carry cow bells. Instead they wear sashes of little bells and an urn around their neck: they are the cashiers, receiving the donations from the public. At 12:30 I again walked up to the main square: a train of horse-drawn wagons has assembled and were getting ready to load up the boys and take them to the next town where they were going to spend a good part of the afternoon, still going from house to house for their ritual signing and bell ringing. It felt odd to see all the boys leave town and just the grown-ups remain on the square. The sounds of the bells were gone too and the town all of a sudden felt very quiet.

At 4pm they were expected to return - and I met them at the far end of town. Meanwhile it had started to snow quite hard. The boys were still singing and ringing. I had much admiration for them, as they had been at it for some 9 hours already, and especially the little ones were starting to slow down.

The festivities continued the next morning, March 1. The boys' schedule started mid-morning, working yet another part of the village. I met them at 11am, as they were reassembling after a break for the last part: the old houses in the center of town. Meanwhile the women teachers had dressed up in the traditional red costume specific to the valley. Second to last came the school house, and the very last house was the town hall. They then assembled on the stairs of the school and gave yet another performance of all the songs to the whole population now assembled on the square. Monday was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky and you could almost believe that spring was not too far off. The public part of the program ended with the ceremonial cracking of the whips. The boys had been practicing since February 1. I have never seen anything like that. The 9th graders gave a stunning performance, followed by the younger boys all eager to show their mastery of the art. And when the boys were done, adult men, in turn, walked onto the reserved space and showed that they could still do it.

It was all very beautiful, colorful, and moving. The children really were the most important people in the village during those days - everything revolved around them. In the afternoon of the 2nd day they were treated to food and games, and then dancing. The adults had to wait until 11pm to have access to the dance floor. Needless to say that I was in bed by then.

The only sad part for me was that the girls were excluded from the public part of the festivities. They were at the party of the last afternoon, but they were never seen in public. The 9th grade girls were the exception, being allowed to walk through the town with the boys. However, they were wearing their every day clothes, and therefore didn't seem to be really part of the honored group.

That afternoon I took advantage of the great weather to ski all the way to Zernez - 19 kilometers. As I was passing various towns at a distance, I could hear either cow bells, or the cracking of whips - as the children of those towns also were busy chasing away winter.