Great balls of fire: Scots New Year’s custom of swinging fire-balls among “world’s strangest”
…Irish custom of banging bread on the walls stranger still, but “world’s
strangest New Year’s custom” is… Hanging out in graveyard with dead
relatives (Chile).
It beats…
- Trying to hear animals talking (Romania)
- Flinging furniture out the window (South Africa)
Diving into a frozen lake, carrying a tree (Siberia)
Friday, 27 December 2013:
The Scottish custom of parading the streets on New Year’s Eve while swinging blazing balls of fire above the head has been voted one of the world’s “strangest New Year’s customs” in a global poll.
The tradition is part of Scotland’s Hogmanay celebrations on December 31st, although its roots trace back to the Vikings. It is, however, merely the planet’s eighth strangest New Year’s custom, according to the poll conducted across 18 countries by Badoo.com, the world’s largest social network for meeting new people.
The strangest such custom of all, judge Badoo users, is to one unique to a town in central Chile, where locals gather late each New Year’s Eve in the town cemetery to welcome the coming year in the company of dead relatives.
This distinctive local custom outpointed such rival candidates as… banging bread on the walls to scare away bad spirits (Ireland); trying to hear animals talking (Romania); and throwing furniture out the window of tall buildings (South Africa).
But then what’s strange for some is normal for others. So, while hanging out with the dead in the municipal graveyard is not everyone’s idea of a wild party, in the town of Talca in central Chile each New Year’s Eve, it’s the thing to do.
Badoo asked 7,200 users across the world to vote for both the world’s “strangest” custom for celebrating the New Year and also its “most fun”.
While the vote for strangest custom went to Talca’s graveyard gathering, the vote for “most fun” New Year’s celebration went to one practised for some years in the Italian city of Venice, where revellers in the city’s famous St Mark’s Square have established a custom in recent years of joining lips on New Year’s Eve for the world’s largest mass kiss. What began as an organised event has by now evolved into an informal custom.
The recently invented Scottish tradition of the “Loony Dook”, which involves stripping down to a swimsuit and plunging into a freezing river on New Year’s Day, was voted the ninth “most fun” custom.
Talca’s custom of gathering in the municipal cemetery on New Year’s Eve is thought to have started when one local family broke into the graveyard on the last night of the year to be near their dead father. Since 1995 it has been a local tradition.
The town’s mayor now opens the graveyard gates around 11pm on New Year’s Eve, after the end of late-night mass, and thousands of locals assemble to welcome the New Year with dead relatives and friends. The cemetery is lit with candles, while classical music plays.
Talca’s tradition, however, also reflects a broader Latin American custom of remembering the dead on the annual Day of the Dead, typically in early November.
“It’s not a mournful time but a wonderful, happy way for families to get together and preserve the memory of loved ones who have died”, says Mary Andrade, who runs www.dayofthedead.com and is author of the book, Day of the Dead: A Passion for Life. “The belief that the soul comes back every year, to be honoured by relatives, is a legacy of pre-Hispanic civilizations that believed in life after this life.”
The tradition has many local variations across Latin America. In Talca, New Year’s Eve is considered a particularly good time to honour the spirits of the dead.
Second place in Badoo’s poll for strangest New Year’s custom was the Romanian ritual, practiced particularly by farmers, of trying to hear animals talk. If they succeed, it’s a bad omen; if they fail, it’s good luck.
Third place went to another tradition designed to bring good luck – the Irish custom of banging Christmas bread on the walls and doors of the house at midnight, in order to dispel evil spirits and the bad luck they bring. It stems from the belief shared by various cultures that making maximum noise at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve will scare away bad spirits.
Ranking fourth in the poll was the tradition of flinging furniture out the window. Like the Thai custom of welcoming the New Year with a giant, three-day water fight – rated the tenth strangest custom – it’s based on the idea of purification and starting afresh.
It’s practised with most gusto in the Hillsboro district of Johannesburg, South Africa, where locals welcome the New Year by flinging everything from old microwaves to entire beds through the window, often from tall buildings, causing safety concerns for the local police.
The tradition is also still observed in parts of southern Italy, where locals don’t want any old junk to accompany them into a New Year and so chuck unwanted possessions out the window.
Fifth place went to the Siberian custom of cutting a hole in the ice covering Lake Baikal and diving to the lake’s bottom while carrying a New Year’s tree. Note: only professional divers participate.
This was followed in sixth place by the New Year’s custom in the American town of Brasstown, North Carolina where a possum in a transparent box is lowered over a noisy crowd, in the world’s only known “possum-drop”. It reflects Brasstown’s claim to be “the possum capital of the world”.
• The World’s “Strangest” New Year’s Customs
Q. Which custom for celebrating the New Year sounds the strangest?
1. Gathering in a graveyard to be with dead relatives (Talca, Chile)
2. Trying to hear animals talking; if you fail, it’s good luck (Romania).
3. Banging bread on the walls to frighten away bad spirits (Ireland)
4. Throwing furniture out the window (Johannesburg, South Africa)
5. Diving into a frozen lake, carrying a tree (Siberia)
6. A “possum drop”: lowering a possum over a noisy crowd (North Carolina, U.S.)
7. A village punch-up with neighbours to settle old disputes (Peru)
8. Parading the street while swinging balls of fire over your head (Scotland)
9. Watching an old British TV comedy sketch about a lonely dinner (Germany)
10. A giant, three-day water-fight, with water balloons and buckets (Thailand)
• The World’s “Most Fun” New Year’s Customs
Q. Which custom for celebrating the New Year sounds the most fun?
1. A mass kiss, or “kiss-in” in a Venice piazza
2. Wearing red underwear for good luck (Spain, Italy, Mexico)
3. A giant, three-day water-fight, with water balloons and buckets (Thailand)
4. Throwing furniture out the window (Johannesburg, South Africa)
5.= A village punch-up with neighbours to settle old disputes (Peru)
5.= Making home-made cannons from heated milk-jugs with tight lids (Netherlands)
7. Watching an old British comedy sketch about a lonely dinner (Germany)
8. Diving into a frozen lake, carrying a tree (Siberia)
9. Diving into a freezing river while wearing fancy dress (Scotland)
10. Gathering in a graveyard to be with dead relatives
Source/Methodology
Badoo polled 7,200 users online across 18 countries – 400 per country – in November and December 2013. The 18 countries polled were USA, UK, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Russia, Poland.
About Badoo.com
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