Nubbelverbrennung

On Monday evening (September 19), we had just returned from Vienna when we heard a marching band off in the distance. This was kind of strange because it was about 9PM and dark outside: what kind of parade could this be?

I ran down the street (who doesn't love a parade?), following the drums and glockenspiels. I caught up with the procession in front of the old Rüngsdorf church (built in 1131). There were less than 100 people, some carrying torches (real fire, none of this flashlight business) walking down to the Dreesen Hotel. There, next to the Rhine, I witnessed the strangest event I have seen in a long time. (The photos don't show much detail: it was pretty dark after all.)

Procession in front of old Rungsdorf church

Everyone was gathered in a circle, and a man was dancing about in the middle of the circle holding an effigy high. There was some singing as the man danced, and this seemed to be some ritual. Then he laid the effigy down in the middle of the circle.

Flags

Three teenagers entered the circle carrying flags. These were square in shape with a green border. In the centre of the flag was a black cross, with two black arrows crossing through the cross diagonally such that the whole motif resembled an asterisk with eight arms. There was some band music while the kids twirled the flags around. What with the fire and the vaguely militaristic flags, this was a pretty gloomy ceremony. Not that it felt like a funeral, but it was definitely much spookier than the goofy Karneval parades we saw back in February.

Then a priest in a black robe read a story. I understood even less than I usually do, and even he couldn't make out some of the words, so I think this was spoken not in German but in the Kölsch dialect of this region. 

Chopping the head off of the effigy. Red sandy "blood" spills onto the ground.

After the speech, a big guy carrying an axe walked to the centre of the circle and with a full swing chopped off the head of the effigy (wierd enough yet?). The headless body was carried down to the riverside and set alight.

Burning the Nubble by the Rhine

The whole thing was visually quite amazing, as the lights on the ships going up and down the Rhine mixed with the torches and the burning body. I approached two different young people to ask them "WTF"? Amazingly, neither of them spoke English. This would indicate a particularly backwards cultural environment, as all students must study English in school and (for crying out loud) it's the language of all the movies, videos, rap music, and video games these kids soak in daily.

This strange ceremony is called Nubbelverbrennung in Köln (meaning "burning of the Nubble") and Zachaies here in Rüngsdorf. It has been going on since at least the 18th century and is loosely connected to the Karneval (I told you in a previous post that the folks here prepare for Karneval all year long). The effigy does not represent a particular historical person (a la Guy Fawkes), but is supposed to embody the sins of the past year. By killing the effigy the sins are burnt away and yadda, yadda, yadda.

None of my (urbane, Berlin-raised) colleages had ever heard of this, and I they sort of dismissed it as just one of those silly proto-religious things that the barbarians here do in their free time. They tell me that this sort of superstitious hocus-pocus does not happen in Berlin.