Carnival

It was also on 6 January that the oldest Upper Valais carnival society, the ‘Türkenbund’ association, was founded in Brig in 1903. The hotelier Dr Alexander Seiler (1864–1920) from Brig liked to dress up for the carnival in Simplon from a young age, choosing to walk the streets dressed as a Bedouin or in other Middle Eastern clothing. Such ‘foreign’ looks can certainly be interpreted as deliberate provocation. Seiler and his followers saw themselves as a ‘progressive democratic group’ that wanted to shake up the supremacy of the ‘old conservatives’.

The conservative Visper newspaper ‘Walliser Bote’ ultimately also threw down the gauntlet, which was picked up with humour. On the question of which route should be used to connect Bern with the Valais, they favoured the Wildstrubel option in Visp, while the people of Brig were naturally in favour of the Lötschberg project in the dispute so that Brig could become the junction of the Jura-Simplon railway. The ‘Bote’ newspaper mockingly commented that ‘The so-called city of Brig certainly doesn’t hold the reins yet and it will never become a Mecca for us Upper Valaisans.’ Dr Alexander Seiler was happy to challenge this and called for a ‘pilgrimage to Mecca’ during the carnival of 1903 in the ‘Briger Anzeiger’ newspaper. After many ‘Bedouins, dervishes, [...] Turks [and] hajis of all kinds’ had showed up, the carnival society named itself the Türkenbund the following year – at a time, it should be noted, when the Republic of Türkiye did not yet exist and the Ottoman Empire was still in control.

In 1959, a local carnival was organised for the first time by two people from Glis, paving the way for a local carnival society – the Bäjizunft.

In 1966, the time had come for the initiators to officially launch the Bäjizunft Glis-Gamsen-Brigerbad society. Soon after, its members appeared with their red pointed hats and identified themselves as Bäjini.

The Bäjizunft society consists of 13 cliques and seven board members. Under the reform-minded direction of the society head who took office in 1979, the Bäjizunft started accepting women for the first time.

As early as 1973, the international collaboration between the Türkenbund association, the Drachentötern society and the Bäjizunft society had become so established that the organisation of the major Upper Valais carnival parade was handed over to one of the three carnival societies of BriGliNa in turn. In 1975, the Bäjizunft society bought a storage hall, which was set up in Holowistutz as the ‘Bäjihitta’. In 1977, the Bäjizunft society visited the curative education school for the first time and established the tradition of an annual visit.

When the Bäjizunft was originally founded, the main aim was to revitalise the village carnival. Today, the society would like to increasingly offer young people the opportunity to play a meaningful role in shaping carnival events. You have to be at least 16 years old to join a clique. Presented as a ‘green bäji’ at the Chessletta, new members have until the AGM in autumn to prove their good will and suitability for the clique and the society. Their entry into the society is then put to the vote at the AGM.