Mardi Gras, just before midnight. The carnival reaches its peak. Two hours earlier, the famous peluches, the main characters of the Evolène carnival, had placed the Poutratze, a straw man symbolizing winter, in a snow-covered field where the pyre had been set up. The execution took place as it should, with the reading of a will, written in patois and… in French.
A symbolic tradition that marks the end of winter and the arrival of spring.
A theatrical and liberating scene that precedes the official end of the carnival.
It is midnight, the silence of the night is heavy, but the moment is solemn. On the square in front of the church, the peluches, with their visagères adjusted, have gathered, and in a final burst of jingling bells, the masks are removed. Each of them knows that the time has come to end this ancient tradition. Now, after days and weeks of excitement, it is all coming to an end. The peluches line up, with agile hands, they “tschargatten” endlessly, as if they want to prolong the moment, to suspend it in time. Then, in the joyful din, the masks are removed and the faces appear, revealing hidden emotions. There are smiles, knowing glances exchanged among all those who have lived this festival with contagious enthusiasm, but there are also tears. They are not tears of sadness, but of emotion, the emotion that one feels when one knows that one has just experienced something exceptional, something that will not be repeated until… a long and endless year.
Waiting weeks, months, for the magic of Carnival to return, for the village to wake up again to the sound of the bells. These tears, this emotion, are also a testament to the attachment that one has to this tradition. A deep and unshakable pride also shines in their eyes. These young people, these men and a few women, have carried the tradition of their village with a sincere love and fervor that makes them touching. They are the guardians of a living culture, passed down from generation to generation. Their presence, usually so noisy and festive, is now imbued with a strange solemnity. In a few minutes, everything will be calm again. The stuffed animals will have left the stage, the fur costumes will be put away, the masks too. The eyes of the onlookers, the residents and visitors who stayed up late, are fixed on this scene that marks the end of a Carnival like no other. The sound of the bells is no more, but something persists in the air, like an invisible imprint. It is the memories. It is the intensity of the Sunday’s surge with the stuffed animals and the empaillés. It is the excitement of a morning of empaillage or the arrest and trial of the Poutratze. These are all those moments of sharing and conviviality.
All these strong moments exist and persist thanks to the will of the villagers. Whether they are in the limelight or in the shadows, they are all the ones who give this event its unique and living character. Behind the scenes, away from the public eye, there are the hours spent preparing for the festivities. The costumes are made from animal skins, the masks are carved from arôle wood, and the details are carefully painted. And the people who do this are all generations, working together in beautiful harmony. Men, women, children, everyone is involved in this carnival, making it an intergenerational sharing experience. But it is the young people of the village who give the event its soul. From a young age, they grow up with this tradition, eager to take over and make Evolène come alive. These young people are not just “carnival-goers” – they embody the tradition. Every weekend, the peluches face the cold of the night and roam freely through the village streets. In this cozy atmosphere, they are not there just to make noise or cause trouble; they have a mission: to chase away the bad spirits. Their jingling bells sound like a call for renewal, a call to banish the darkness of winter and make way for spring.
Then there is this pride, this local identity, which is indescribable. It is also found in the traditional summer ascent to the alpine pastures and in the midsummer parade on August 15. It cannot be described, it can only be experienced and felt. It is in every gesture, in every smile. It is the invisible bond that unites all the inhabitants of Evolène and the entire Val d’Hérens. It is a bond woven over generations and makes this carnival so unique. It is a pride to belong to a village, a valley, a territory where tradition is more than just a legacy: it is lived, felt, and shared with one’s whole being.
As the peluches, their faces now revealed, gather one last time, a final wave of emotion sweeps across the square. There is a sense of gratitude in the air, a mutual recognition between the inhabitants and the outsiders. Everyone knows that, beyond the celebration, it is a real collective force that drives this tradition. It is this shared energy, this desire to preserve something precious, that makes the Evolène carnival never wane from one year to the next.
Midnight has passed, the carnival is over, but Lent is beginning. A sense of nostalgia sets in, as everything that has just happened seems unreal. In everyone’s heart, the carnival will continue to live on, immortalized in the collective memory of the village. In Evolène, every carnival is not just an event. It is a promise: the promise to meet again and again in the fervor and warmth of this living tradition. And that is what makes this moment truly magical.
