User:JulietteBurton/sandbox

Sandbox

Walloon celebrations and games
Walloon traditions are full of celebrations and games. They all take place in accordance with the deep need and the keen pleasure to be together. They are good examples of the need for group expression that felt the ancients as well as creating, between working time, not only time resting time but also moments of joy.

Celebrating, the expression of a community
These celebrations and games are, nearly always, the expression of the whole community that takes part to it. Apart from more private and independent festivities (such as baptism and solemn Communion but not the wedding) and that are very dependent on liturgy, all the other celebrations take place within the community that takes part to them and even organises them by means of the “Youth”, that is an age group relatively similar of young single men. Each local community creates its celebration. For its own satisfaction, the community organises its own celebration as it wants it to be, this is why a Grand Feu (bonfire) or a Ducasse are only different in appearance from other villages’ celebrations. Everyone takes part to the celebration. There are never pure and, especially, passive spectators. The “actors” that parades in a Tour or a Carnival take care of involving to the festivities people gathered on both sides of the street, for example by directly touching them or, as in Malmedy, with an instrument: the “happe-chair”. Likewise, in Binche, orange throwing symbolises generosity, giving, but also the sign of a link between who gives and who receives.