It was wonderful to meet Andreas Keller who told me about a Swiss tradition of blessing the land using a milk churn funnel.
Apparently it used to be a deeply Catholic ritual, that included the honouring of Saints. They used this funnel to call upon first Mary, the Mother of God and then one or two saints specifically designated for protection, each called by name. Then they called upon the Almighty God himself in an act of worship to Him. The tonality and the wording of the prayers had a little different flavour in each canton (state). It would take place in the evening, after a day’s work. You would go out and position yourself in the open, in the most open place, take the funnel and start proclaiming the blessing. The blessing always contained protection over cattle, over nature and the earthly elements, like hail, the wind, and the worship of the Godhead. This was passed down through the records – today even secular people are doing it with the same wording. There have been interviews in the newspapers, bringing it to the forefront and a documentary where people said that we just feel that we have to do this. They are not people of faith or church goers, but they feel they need to do it, they feel an obligation to their genealogy and bloodline to stand and to do it. They say, well yes, it’s kind of a tradition but tradition prompts us to go.
Andreas Keller held a gathering where he observed this tradition – he said, “There‘s a Folks element that we use right now – in one of the last conference’s – there is the yodelling we have all heard which is interesting, but there is a much deeper yodelling sound that comes from the most central Switzerland, in Uppensala where the Uppensala cheese is made. So called Sollyale which means – there is no notes, there is no sheet music, there is no words. The men stand in a circle and one person starts and there are set songs, but these set songs are all given to you and then you start picking up each other’s melody until you have a full harmony in that circle.
It is said that if you have an issue with each other of unforgiveness of hate or anger it will not work, you have to have a purity, you have to approach it openly so that you can pick up the other sound.
(Mostly Andreas’s words but some editing to make sense from me – as it was a dinner time conversation).
