Sunday 14 October 2012

Whipping: it's a cracking tradition





Embach was the place to have a cracking good time this weekend and not just because it played host to the annual whipping championships. The Embachers really know how to party.

Was that really “whipping championships”?

Yes, 270 heats were judged to find the best whipping teams in the pairs, triples and foursomes, juniors and seniors. But there's no S&M here. Schnalzen is an old tradition thought to have its origin in beating away the cold winters and welcoming the spring, and is popular in many villages in this mountain area.

The short-handled whip or Goaßl is made of plaited rope, can be up to 4m long and is swung around the head to make a loud crack. Working in pairs or bigger groups each schnalzer times the cracks of his whip separately from his team mates to make a rhythm. Each heat lasts just a few seconds with competitors marching formally to their places, and away again at the end. Judging is on style, rhythm and presentation.

Schnalzen is popular among the young
Whipping up the party atmosphere started at 4pm on Friday night with a parade through the village , a ceremony to bless the Embach Schnalzer flag (as our club is only a year old), music and festivities in a marquee packed with 1000 villagers and guests, a number of bands and other schnalzer clubs.

The community pulled together to serve drinks and food to the mass of people. Drinks were delivered in seconds and empty glasses whipped away by young lads. Flocks of fried chickens and schnitzels which laid side by side would cover a soccer pitch, were brought in moments. The music continued throughout the night.

Nevertheless, the Saturday began at 9am with a parade through the village, a mass in a meadow and parade back to the start, ready to begin the competition in earnest.

All day the village reeled to the rhythmic cracking of whips. The competition over, the marquee reeled again to the village band playing popular traditional tunes and festivities continued to midnight when fireworks closed the party. One can only admire their staying power.
Marching to their positions
Competitive whipping is another example of local traditions being kept alive, not as a tourist attraction, but as a community activity, an opportunity for the Einheimisch (locals) to strut their stuff in lederhosen, dirndl dresses and club uniforms. Maintaining traditions here is not a matter of flogging a dead horse, just another reason for a party.


The judges had to assess 270 entries
The competition brought visitors from many villages in the area


Tuesday 2 October 2012

Misplaced post goes to postcode twin


Only two letters, a and l, determine whether our post goes to the far side of the world or comes to Embach. Occasionally the post office makes a mistake and instead of coming to 5651 Austria, it goes to 5651 in South Australia. Fortunately, there is a nice man in 5651 Kyancutta, South Australia, who re-addresses our envelopes and returns them.

So where is Embach's “postcode twin” and how similar are they? Well, both are small agricultural communities, both pretty close to the centre of a continent. But beyond these and the postcode, we don't have much in common.
Mail returned from round the world trip to Kyancutta -
making it clear where Austria is

Kyancutta lies astride the Eyre Highway, which crosses thousands of kilometres of the desolate Nullarbor Plain in southern Australia. Farming is mainly of cereals and the village is dominated by a huge grain silo. A look at Google Earth shows a scattering of buildings spread out along the road with sparse vegetation growing in the rust red soil of southern Australia.

In stark contrast, the houses of Embach huddle together on a sunny shelf of land, meadows and woods rise steeply behind the church and a stream chuckles its way over a mill wheel and through the village. To the north, the land drops steeply into the Salzach river valley.

Kyancutta's glory days lie behind it. First settled in the early 1900s the township was proclaimed in 1917. Over the years, as the population grew, a hall (The Institute) was built for functions, a school was opened, a museum whose minerals attracted world interest was established, and a cottage hospital cared for local needs. Once there was an airport where flights between the east and west coasts would land and refuel and regular train services carried freight and passengers.

Now things are looking pretty different. Planes fly over without a glance below. Children are driven to another town for school and patients can no longer have minor ailments treated locally. There is a village store with petrol pumps for the long-distance traveller making his way along the highway – which connects Perth to the next state capital, Adelaide, thousands of kilometres away.
The Todd Highway runs south from Kyancuttta

Kyancutta's general store and post office
However, there are some things that haven't changed. That nice man who re-addresses the mail, Newton Luscombe, Ned to all in Kyancutta, is a multi-tasker who for years with his wife, Margaret, has maintained a three-hourly weather observational programme which is fed to the National Bureau of Meteorology. Ned is also curator of the museum, school bus driver, silo manager, sexton and probably scorer for the local cricket club when they can rustle up a team. His daughter has recently taken over his former role as postmaster and now runs the post office from the local store.
Kyancutta's main street and store

Although Embach is a tight, but flourishing community, with active clubs and village band, one or two new homes being built each year for growing young families, it has no museum, petrol pump or post office. It lies on an ancient north-south trading route along which produce was carried over the mountains. The church is centuries old and many houses have along history behind them. The snow we welcome every winter is never seen in the hot, dusty plains of the Australian south.

Despite our differences, we have a postcode in common and whenever a letter arrives with a Kyancutta postmark and Ned's “G'day” wishes on the back, I feel a pang of kinship, a sharing of something more than just four digits.
Embach's huddle of houses and the mountain rising behind the church