!!!Pfingstbräuche

Whitsun Customs: Whitsun, Pentecost (from Greek "pentekoste 
hemerá" = 50%%sup th/%  day (after Easter)), the 
feast commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of 
Christ and the beginning of the Christian Church's mission to the 
world. Accordingly, Whit Sunday is the principal day on and around 
which Confirmation is conferred in the Roman Catholic Church. Apart 
from its religious significance, confirmation has in Austria also 
become a secular feast of the family which is celebrated in accordance 
with a traditional programme (fiacre trip, visit to the Prater 
amusement park in Vienna). The theological significance of Whitsun was 
formerly symbolised by descending a carved wooden dove from an opening 
in the vault of the church ("Heiligengeistloch", 
"Heiligengeistschwingen"), a custom which is still practised 
in some places in Tirol.

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While in former times noisy and riotous processions 
("Pfingstschnalzen") were common around Whitsuntide, various 
villages, particularly in Upper Austria, celebrate the night from Whit 
Sunday to Monday as "Bosheitsnacht" ("Night of Mischief") ( 
Unruhnaechte), when young men engaged in all sorts of mischief. 
Customs like "Kranzelreiten" in Weitensfeld (Carinthia) and 
"Kufenstechen" (Slovene: "stehvanje"), which are 
practiced in various places in the Gail Valley, where contestants on 
horseback try to pluck wreaths or rings from poles as they gallop 
past, appear to be remnants of aristocratic tournaments. Processions 
of the "Whitsun King" ("Pfingstkoenig"), formerly a 
widespread custom in Lower Austria, were re-introduced as a custom for 
school children at Patzmannsdorf in the inter-war period and at 
Arbesthal in the late 1970s.

!Literature
L. Kretzenbacher, Ringreiten, Rolandspiel und 
Kufenstechen, 1966; G. Kapfhammer, Brauchtum in den Alpenlaendern, 
1977; H. P. Fielhauer, Alte und neue Pfingstkoenige in 
Niederoesterreich, in: Jahrbuch des Oesterreichischen Volksliedwerkes 
32/33, 1984.


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