FUCK YEAH!
Europe’s Tribal Wild Men
Photo Essay + More

By Rachel Hartigan Shea via National Geographic
Photograph by Charles Fréger

A primal heart still beats in Europe. Deep beneath the gloss of cell phone sophistication lie rituals that hark back to harvests and solstices and fear of the winter dark. Monsters loom in this shadowy heart, but so does the promise of spring’s rebirth and fertile crops and women cradling newborn babes. It turns out that Europe—at least pockets of it—has not lost its connection to nature’s rhythms.

FRANCE
Spring festivals in the Pyrenees feature local men playing the role of bears awakening from hibernation.

That connection is rekindled during festivals that occur across the continent from the beginning of December until Easter. The celebrations correspond to Christian holidays, but the rituals themselves often predate Christianity. The roots are difficult to trace. Men—and until recently, it has almost always been men—don costumes that hide their faces and conceal their true forms. Then they take to the streets, where their disguises allow them to cross the line between human and animal, real and spiritual, civilization and wilderness, death and rebirth. A man “assumes a dual personality,” says António Carneiro, who dresses as a devilish careto for Carnival in Podence, Portugal. “He becomes something mysterious.”

PORTUGAL
During Carnival in Lazarim characters called “caretos” parade through the village in hand-carved masks to a bonfire where effigies known as the comadre and compadre are burned.

AUSTRIA
Every five years the men of Telfs collect lichen to create Wilder Mann, or Wild Man, costumes for the town’s Carnival festival. Tradition dictates that they nibble on a piece of this lichen before the festivities.

Photographer Charles Fréger set out to capture what he calls “tribal Europe” over two winters of travel through 19 countries. The forms of the costumes that he chronicled vary between regions and even between villages. In Corlata, Romania, men dress as stags reenacting a hunt with dancers. In Sardinia, Italy, goats, deer, boars, or bears may play the sacrificial role. Throughout Austria, Krampus, the beastly counterpart to St. Nicholas, frightens naughty children.

ITALY
Schnappviecher (snapping beast) on Shrove Tuesday

CZECH REPUBLIC
When jolly St. Nicholas visits the villages of Vysočina, he is joined by someone dressed as Smrt, or Death, whose scythe catches sinners.

ROMANIA
Stag on New Year’s Day

FRANCE
Bear at the Festival of the Bears

POLAND
Macidulas on New Year’s Day

But everywhere there is the wild man. In France, he is l’Homme Sauvage; in Germany, Wilder Mann; in Poland, Macidula is the clownish version. He dresses in animal skins or lichen or straw or tree branches. Half man and half beast, the wild man stands in for the complicated relationship that human communities, especially rural ones, have with nature.

The bear is the wild man’s close counterpart—in some legends the bear is his father. A beast that walks upright, the bear also hibernates in winter. The symbolic death and rebirth of hibernation herald the arrival of spring with all its plenty. For festival participants, says Fréger, “becoming a bear is a way to express the beast and a way to control the beast.”

SPAIN
Zezengorri at Carnival

SWITZERLAND
Sauvage at Carnival

GERMANY
Strohmann at Carnival

ITALY
Boes on the Eve of St. Anthony

Traditionally the festivals are also a rite of passage for young men. Dressing in the garb of a bear or wild man is a way of “showing your power,” says Fréger. Heavy bells hang from many costumes to signal virility.

CZECH REPUBLIC
In the village of Nedašov, devils join the retinue of St. Nicholas to frighten children into being good.

SCOTLAND
Thousands of burrs adorn the Burryman. The man who plays the role at the Ferry Fair in Queensferry must collect all the burrs himself. Once dressed, he walks the town, accepting offers of money and whiskey and bestowing good luck.

GERMANY
On Christmas Eve Pelzmärtle appears in the village of Bad Herrenalb with the Christkind (Baby Jesus) to scold naughty children and rap them with a stick. The straw costume is sewn on to the wearer.

SPAIN
Juantramposo, a mischief-maker, appears on Mardi Gras in Alsasua. The festival ends with all the participants taking part in a celebratory dance.

The question is whether Europeans — civilized Europeans — believe that these rituals must be observed in order for the land, the livestock, and the people to be fertile. Do they really believe that costumes and rituals have the power to banish evil and end winter? “They all know they shouldn’t believe it,” says Gerald Creed, who has studied mask traditions in Bulgaria. Modern life tells them not to. But they remain open to the possibility that the old ways run deep.