The tschäggättä are villagers who roam the narrow streets of the valley, clanging bells and making mischief dressed as Sasquatch-like creatures. https://t.co/WqyozsgJti
— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) January 30, 2024
Name a holiday celebrated anywhere, and there will be some kind of legendary monster associated with it. Carnival is the season of gluttony before the Christian fasting time of Lent leading up to Easter. In most places, Carnival involves parties, parades, masquerade balls, eating, drinking, and various debaucheries that will be forbidden beginning on Ash Wednesday. In Switzerland's Lötschental Valley, they have the added festivity of monsters roaming the streets.
These creatures are called tschäggättä. Villagers dress in fur with padding to make them look taller and wooden masks carved with scary human faces. They ring cowbells and make mischief that once included fights, theft, and assaults, but now involve mainly harmless teasing to folks who come out to see them. We have evidence of the tschäggättä going back more than 200 years, but the tradition could be much older. How did it start? No one, not even those who participate every year, knows. Read what we do know about the tschäggättä of the Lötschental Valley at Smithsonian.