TITLE: Fasnet Character Mask
TYPE: mask
GENERAL REGION: Europe
COUNTRY: Germany
SUBREGION: Garmisch-Partenkirchen
ETHNICITY: Swabian (German)
DESCRIPTION: Bearded Character Mask
MAKER: Unknown
CEREMONY: Fasnet (Carnival)
AGE: 1930
MAIN MATERIAL: wood
OTHER MATERIALS: paint; string
In many parts of Swabia and Bavaria, Carnival (usually called Fasnet or Fastnet in this region of Germany) is celebrated with parades of masked clowns (Narren) and characters lampooning local villager types. The beer-swiller, the gossip, and benign old man and woman, and the fool are all typically represented. This mask probably represents a drunkard, based on the reddish, bulbous nose.
Regrettably, the best text on Carnival in Bavaria and Swabia is still available in German only: Heinz Wintermantel’s Hoorig, hoorig isch die Katz (Würzburg: Konrad Theiss, 1978).
