Krampusnacht

He sees you when you're sleeping 

And he knows when you're awake ... [1]

 

 

One of the more amusing festive trends of late has been the rise in popularity (in the US rather than the UK) of a horned figure born within Central European folklore known as Krampus. He is, if you like, the anti-Santa, who punishes children who misbehave during the run up to Christmas, in contrast to St. Nicholas who rewards the well-behaved with toys and other gifts. 

 

Speaking personally, I would've loved as a child to have had a visit from Krampus with his long pointed tongue hanging out, rather than some faux-jolly fat man with a beard ho-ho-ho-ing down my chimney, even at the risk of being eaten or kidnapped and carried off to Hell. Similarly, I would have much preferred to find a lump of beautiful black shiny coal in my stocking than an orange.  

 

Hated by all the usual suspects - the clerical fascists of the Vaterländische Front prohibited the Krampus tradition in Austria during the 1930s - there has been a popular resurgence of activities in recent decades, not just in Austria, but also Bavaria and other alpine regions. 

 

The fact is, no matter how hard you attempt to shut the Devil out, he always finds a way to creep back in and enthrone himself. Just as Christ had to have a Judas among his disciples, so does there have to be a hairy-bodied demon in the Yuletide celebrations. "Why? Because the nature of man demands it, and will always demand it." [2] 

 

Papa Noël, the baby Jesus, and Bing Crosby only appeal so far ...        

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie (1934).

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 67.  

Thanks to Thomas Bonneville for suggesting this post.

My Pagan Self Revealed (Reflections on a Mexican Devil Mask)

I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus 

and would rather be a satyr than a saint

I.

I have already written elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark about how, for me, the way to move beyond the ruins of the late 1970s was not via a poppy new romanticism or a shameless embrace of free market capitalism, but, rather, towards a post-punk paganism inspired by a wide range of influences including Nietzsche, Lawrence, Jung, Crowley, McLaren, and Jaz Coleman.*

Thus, after 1982, I defined myself less as an anarchist and more as an anti-Christ and the task, as I saw it then, was to aggressively confront Occidental reason and Christian morality with its absolute Other by promoting a pessimistic vitalism tied to an anti-modern politics. 

In other words, safety pins were replaced by horns on head and the vintage Mexican devil mask that I can be seen holding in the photo above became the face of my soul; i.e., my essential self is a concealed self, a disguised self, the product of playful dissimulation. This is what Wilde refers to as the truth of masks and those who are profound enough to be superficial will understand the philosophical importance of this fact.  

II. 

The native peoples of Mexico have had a thing for the making and wearing of masks for millennia; i.e., long before the Spanish arrived - or the tourists. Obviously, the masks had a ritual and magical significance and were worn during religious ceremonies and festivals. Sometimes they had human features; sometimes animal.

And sometimes they incarnated deities, demons, or devils; the latter often having real horns and images of snakes, lizards, or frogs added to the usually grotesque facial design.

Although my mask is hand-carved from wood, traditional masks were also made from other materials including clay, leather, and wax. After the Conquest of Mexico (1519-21), the Spanish outlawed indigenous beliefs, but Christian evangelisers were happy to exploit the love of masks, dance, and spectacle to propagate their faith amongst the natives.

Often, however, rather than successfully replace old cultural traditions with entirely new forms, masked events became a strange amalgamation of paganism and Catholicism. It was Carnival - but not as the Europeans originally understood it.

Today, masked festivals remain very popular and prevalent in parts of the country with large numbers of native peoples and old customs and beliefs live on, if only in a commercialised and aestheticised form.           

* Note: Readers interested in this earlier post to which I refer - with my reflections on Pagan Magazine - can read it by clicking here. And for another post on the truth of masks, click here.