P.N.ZOYTLOW

A word like “transhumance” is irresistible. It means the seasonal migration of herding animals, chiefly sheep, goats, and cows. Cows ignore this word in their chatter on the meadows, and so should we.

The site of this business of seasonal movement was the village of Elm, Canton Glarus in an obscure, narrow valley, the Sernftal.  This is Deepest Switzerland. Each year, Elm celebrates the end of upper meadow grazing  by parading its prized Brown Swiss cows, bedecked with floral crowns and great bells, through the village. Another season in the Alps ends and the cows will winter in barns in the village. The villagers, proud of these beasts,  use the event to draw attention to local products, Alpkäse, a cheese from the high alpine meadows and Schabziger, the curious greenish cheese sometimes called sap sago elsewhere.  And so, while the cows were the main event of the day, the local heros were the herders who had kept them safe in the high meadows and the brawny cheese-makers who had turned bovine grazing and ruminating into a renowned and profitable product.

A word about the High Seriousness of this social science research: it is not a lark undertaken by a dilettante lacking in method and purpose!  Those familiar with this series of occasional Field Reports already know that the author each time lashes himself to the mast and allows no more than seventy-five minutes of observation time rendered onto no more than four pages of typescript.  And so, the first task was to determine which particular seventy-five minute sampling of an all-day festival would nail this thing.

Here a debt must be acknowledged to Frau R. who patiently suggested a number of options. The owner of a small hotel, she had witnessed many such October days in the village, though she acknowledged that most of them were ruined by bad weather with fog in the morning and then sleet and cold the rest of the day. Would such weather not interfere with the passage of the cows down from the meadows?   But Frau R shook her blond curls and dispelled this notion: the cows were already down from the meadows. What!?  Yes, it was the law of the Swiss Confederation that ALL cows MUST  descend by September 30th without fail. To wait longer was to risk entrapment by early snows. Well, no matter, the cows would march through the town, however symbolically, beginning at 2:00 PM. They assembled some miles up the valley, moved through the village, then turned back and disappeared from where they came from.  Frau R. suggested that one should wait for the procession in front of her hotel and then follow it down into the village.

That first Sunday in October in 2008 was bright and cloudless and almost warm, conditions greeted with amazement by many villagers.  By ten in the morning, the village was in the midst of one the best “descent-of-cattle-from-the-upper meadows” i.e transhumance [such an economical word!]  parties ever. Since this is a small nation, it takes little effort the check the weather over breakfast and then drive an hour or so to Elm from the larger cities. By noon when the sun had warmed the beer tents, several thousand visitors were present.  By two in the afternoon, great anticipation was building in Elm.  People were leaving the eating and drinking venues and lining up along the main street. Faces appeared at the windows of the home for the aged and limber octogenarians came out to the street. Old women, dressed in cotton stockings and clunky shoes, their hair pulled back in a bun. Old men, curved pipes in hand, squinting up the valley. How many such parades had they witnessed in their years in Elm?  “Gruetzi” or at least an abbreviated “tzee” sound, the conventional greetings, were heard everywhere and all were in a very fine, even welcoming mood.

What was keeping those cows?  “Are we on the right street?” asked the visitors?  [Elm has two streets.]  Frau R. had divulged that the cows do not like to get festooned with flowers and bells and fuss quite a bit. Perhaps that was keeping them, an outbreak of bovine crankiness.  Then, down the  street from the south they came. First, a faint thumping sound, hard to define, perhaps like a Roman legion banging its shields with stubby swords. Louder and louder, until several dozen cows came into view, each with a large bell and most decked out in floral arrangements. Soon the sound was loud enough to drown out all conversation below the level of a shout.  Through the town they clanged, towards the parade’s terminus where the largest crowd would be waiting. At times, the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona came to mind as one or two cows ran to the sides until a herder expertly waved a staff and the cow returned to the parade. Who knew, maybe you could get gored by a flower-bedecked milk cow in a little village in Switzerland.  You might slip and fall underfoot on the excrementally-splattered cobblestones. Maybe you could even die there, a choice piece of 10 PM news in your hometown.  At the end of the route,  two miles from the start, the herders simply turned the cows and retraced their steps. Twenty minutes later they were out of sight. Many people, wanting more, followed until the road got steep and curved out of the village.

With less than an hour left for research, an observer has to struggle against the impression that once the cows had passed the party was beginning to deflate.  But no, here were the wrestling clubs from neighboring villages, the members dressed in baggy canvas shorts as they worked lethargically to flip each other onto piles of sand trucked in earlier.  Then the booths of the cheese makers, samples of “alpkäse” both mild and aged and also sales of the green cheese, “schabziger”, for which Canton Glarus is known. As noted, cheese makers are celebrities, proud families who are known for their many years of skill.   The greenish schabziger has been around for a thousand years and was officially established as a unique product with its own official specifications in 1463. This cheese was originally created by monks. [And by the way, did you know that St. Fridolin, who brought Christianity to Glarus, was Irish?!]   Both of these cheeses  (shabziger and alpkäse) get their unique flavor from the herbs present in the upper meadows in summer. The key herb is a local variant of fenugreek and many health benefits are ascribed to it, including an alleged ability to lower cholesterol. That alone would make Alp cheese unique among cheese anywhere.

A thousand visitors sat at tables eating and drinking. Served on white plates, the food itself blended right in–all of it was white: the bread, sausage, noodles, potatoes, cheese and so on. Even the most popular desert, a meringue, was white.  The place was dense with the odor of cheese.  Several accordions and a bass fiddle struck up old yodel songs, but there was little actual yodeling. Now and then the bass player gave out a yodelesque yelp much to the delight of the crowd. Clearly, it resonated with them. Just what kept them from letting go in Alpine ululating was not explained. Despite this lapse, had this not been a perfect day with the rest of the troubling world far beyond this green valley with its snowy peaks on all sides?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question, so rhetorical, must be no. Although everyone seemed in the best of spirits here in Elm, it would be careless to not comment further on the cows who had provided the Main Event. From the viewpoint of the principal actors [the cows] this had to be a less than perfect day. They must have wondered [Alert! Do cows wonder? Do they ponder? We are on unfamiliar ground here!] but verily they may well have wondered about this day. Roused from their village pastures or barns, they were assembled at a point outside the village, had huge bells strapped to their necks and floral crowns attached to the heads. Some of the bells must have required the efforts of two adults to attach. Their horns were polished. They were washed and wiped of any unsightliness on their posteriors.

Then it began, the clamorous march through the town with hundreds of humanoids lining the road. Behind and beside them walked their familiar herders with long sticks. There would be no stopping and no way out. Those who saw a break in the crowd and bolted were quickly directed back by the stick-wielders. What was all this?   None remembered this pace from the time in the upper meadow. What is this thing on my head?  And that heavy and deafening bell many times larger and deeper in tone than the ones worn to work.  The shame of it: no place to stop for the frequent urgencies of bladder and bowel.

And another thing: at intervals these parading cows passed fenced pastures where other cows were grazing;  how shameful to be prodded up and down the village in front of these loafers!  The grazing cows moved to the fences and stared at their marching sisters. Curious or sorrowing, who could tell what may have passed between them?  Lumbering amongst the  human gawkers in the lane and arriving at the turnabout point, a beer tent reeking of bratwurst and cheese–what self-respecting cow did not smolder at the injustice of the day?  Those sharp and shining horns!  What murderous impulse had these festooned cows suppressed by centuries of dull duty to the happy folk of Glarus?  Was life fair?  A question beyond the limits of the present research, but one not likely to be answered in the affirmative by these festive cows.