For the past few months I have met and photographed quite a few people. I am usually trying to get close to them and create an environment and setting in which they feel safe - all in the attempt to tear down defense mechanisms, their carefully constructed images of themselves and waiting for the moment when I and the person in front of the camera connect.
Today - it is going to be some masked people for a change. So always something between them and me - a mask. I got up early to take my bus and trains and then a bus again in order to reach the small village of Splügen, in Kanton Graubünden. It is Ash Wednesday.
It will be a day of masked young men, the “Pschuurirollis”, to pin down young women and force them to wear blackface. Seen from the safe distance of city life, the “Pschuuri” festival in Splügen is possibly the least politically correct custom in the world.
“Pschuure”, which means “to blacken”, is an important part of carnival celebrations of this area. On the morning of Ash Wednesday, primary school children dress up and walk from door to door in groups, carrying baskets and reciting a rhyme. They ask for gifts, which they receive in the form of sweets.
The “Pschuurirollis” getting read and excited.
One of their early victims.
In the afternoon, young men dress up in shabby garments and wrap themselves in animal pelts and skins before stealing through the village streets. The bells they wear around their waists make a lot of noise and they carry the dreaded greasy mixture of coal and fat in a sack. Their aim is to catch children, girls and unmarried women, who at first try to hide, and paint their faces with the black paste. By dusk all victims must be wearing their greasy black masks.
In the evening, pairs of boys disguised as “Männli” and “Wibli” make their way through the village with a basket, begging for eggs and inviting the black-faced girls to an evening meal. Egg salad and “Resimäda” (a traditional drink) are prepared in a hotel kitchen, and the feast begins after midnight. Everyone is invited to the party, which takes place in an old barn.
She was caught quite late in the afternoon, the puppet being part of the accessories some of the girls carry with them indicating the custom is about fertility.
According to the tradition, the drinking and egg eating will increase and boost the young peoples fertility as well as the yield of the crops of the coming year.