Trifter

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Like many countries around the world, the Annual carnival held in Aalst in Belgium celebrates a mixture of traditional and Christian values. It is held at a time of year that bids farewell to the cold dismal days of winter and welcomes the onset of spring. It takes place over three days finishing on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent, traditionally the start of forty days fasting before Easter Sunday, celebrated by Christians as the  resurrection of Christ. (Carnival is taken from the Latin “carne” meaning meat; “lent” means little or no food)

Day one. Aalst (or Oilsjt), situated 19 miles north-west of the capital Brussels, starts the carnival on Sunday with a procession, “The Parade of the Giants”. This includes Aalst’s own giant, Ross Balatum. Ross Balatum is a giant horse from French and Flemish mythology, which is always givn pride of place in the procession and bearing the town’s coat of arms

Image credit Erik De Troyer   (The coat of arms of Aalst is seen below the head)

This is an opportunity for the participants to give their interpretation of the last twelve months’ world and local events, with both costumes and giant floats. There are oversized characters from the world stage that outsiders will recognize, and comments on local issues, usually politics, that the visitor will not understand. The emphasis of the day, however, is definitely on slapstick comedy.

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image by bram_souffreau via Flickr

Image by bram_souffreau via Flickr

 
Image by bram_souffreau via Flickr

Day two and the fun goes on. There is another procession.

 
Image credit Erik De Troyer 

 
Image credit Erik De Troyer 

Image credit Erik De Troyer 

Image credit Erik De Troyer 

This one culminates in onion throwing at the Schepenhaus (the Town Hall). This beautiful building, started in 1225, is the oldest surviving building of its type in Belgium and dominates the Grote Markt. The Belfry tower built in1470 and bearing the town’s motto “Nec Spec Nec Metu” (Neither Hope Nor Fear) may have become a World Heritage Site in 1997, but it does not stop it overlooking the town’s onion throwing. This takes place from the Town Hall  and unsurprisingly the surrounding hostelries and houses. In the past the people of Aalst had been called “onions” because as a Belgian friend described “they ate a lot of onion soup in the old days”.

Nowadays the onions tend to be less dangerous and are made of confectionary. They also contain numbers and the lucky winner of the draw goes home with a golden onion!

Image credit Erik De Troyer      “Nec Spec Nec Metu”

The day is not over yet, for in the afternoon The Gilles d’Aalst arrive. These insanely exaggerated characters, their costumes overstuffed with straw, to driving drumbeats, sweep tourists and locals alike off their feet. They perform their “danse de balai”, literally the broom dance, well into the evening.

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Day three of the carnival sees “The Procession of Voil Jeannetten” or the “Procession of Dirty Jenny”.

Men dressed as women and women in false beards arrive in their thousands. This whole colourful sight brings out the real audience participation of the three days. Confusion adds to the fun. Is that a man dressed as a woman? Is that a woman dressed as a man? Is that a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman? Is that a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man? “Oops sorry madam, I did not realise that you were not part of the parade….” The combinations and confusions are endless.

 As the travelling melee courses along the route of the procession, watchers are met with a barrage of insults and some choice Flemish slang abuse to get everybody in the mood for the evening and the final night of partying ahead. This is probably the reason for fasting, so that some of the participants, or some of the particiskirts have forty days to get rid of their hangovers. (Please yourself this is merely a suggestion, but at the end of a night in the bars, do not commit yourself to a long term relationship with a person you have just met, although there are probably a number of visitors who have woken up with a sore head in the morning looking at the person next to them wishing or praying “Please tell me I didn’t.”)

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image credit Erik De Troyer

When a town like Aalst celebrate a carnival it is a time when the whole society pulls together. Not only in the enormous amount of work that goes into the planning and preparations or the amount of time making costumes and building floats. It is a time of older generations encouraging the younger generations to carry on the traditions and to provide and enjoy the festivities for those still to come.

Image credit Erik De Troyer

Image credit Erik De Troyer

So if you want a trip to see Belgium’s best kept secret, or if you simply would like to try a change of fashion, now you know where to go.

Especial thanks to photographer Erik De Troyer, whose photographs are copyright, for allowing me to use them here, and to Belgian author Patrick Bernauw for checking my translations.

Other writing on social events and places of interest by this author:
A Cultural Landscape: Yorkshire Sculpture Park 

Hilarious Flashmob Craze is Spreading Around the World

Diary From a Greek Island

Fingal’s Cave and the Incredible Architectural Rock Formations of Staffa

Banksy in Bethlehem: Art and the Barrier Between Two Nations

Banksy Storms New Orleans: Banksy vs. the Grey Ghost

Advice on how to use the work of photographers in a written article:

Black Holes and Revelations: Creative Commons and Nasa’s Stunning Images