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NICE CARNIVAL / CARNIVAL OF NICE
Nice France : the city of French Carnival
 Ratapignata: expression of a wild thought.
In 1875, the appearance on the parade of Nice of the place of the Prefecture and of Saleya Court of the famous float of RATAPIGNATA (bat), and the consequences which it pulledin the evolution of the Carnival, made fly in brightness, the allegorical and a little bit stupid "purring", to which turned the grotesque holiday.
The use of the language of Nice, the inversion and the symbol, by the directors of the float of Ratapignata, allows them to assert the existence of a community of Nice, positive and more subtle than the sometimes depreciating images let suppose which the members of the " colony winter holiday-maker " wrote on their subject, either certain reports of French civil servants considering as "underdeveloped" the populations of the country of Nice.
Ratapignata, " mouse provided with wings ", is a representation (inverted) of the Eagle, a heraldic symbol of Nice. It is also a part of the grotesque bestiary, as the Bear, animal - key in this symbolic universe. As him, it winters and wakes up in spring. Animal psychopompe, it is an intermediary between the world of the darkness and that of the light. It opens the way of the knowledge, the initiation and the wisdom, even if one should sink into the darkness to reach there.
Because effectively, according to the cultures and the traditions, the bat, "empress" of the world of Darkness, is rather in charge of negative, " devilish " values, and apparently it seems "exorcised" by any malefic power, in the carnival but also the culture of Nice.
Let us not forget that the "precentor" of the country of Nice, Menica Rondelly, the author of the hymn Nissa Bella, had created afterward, the RATAPIGNATA, (newspaper completely drafted in language of Nice), and that the bat, became one of the strongest symbols of the cultural identity of the Inhabitants of Nice.
The impact of this float, on the parade, was of a big force: it was not there, a way of putting on, at first sight, the dark, ugly, "disturbing" aspect of the bat, and of transforming it into symbol of wisdom, perspicacity, intelligence.
It represented at the same moment subtle way and "a grotesque" on behalf of the autochthons to make front for the criticisms, for the feeling of superiority of the "foreigners" towards the popular culture of Nice.
It became the totem of the Inhabitants of Nice, and the assertion of a "wild" identity
The sacrifice of the cat, scapegoat of the Carnival The realization of the float of Ratapignata, was the object of a disproportionate passion, and an act which we would consider excessive nowadays and which goes to the direction of this " wild identity " which we have just evoked.
Indeed, the suit of the extra wings of black silk, mask of bat, and body in black fur. Skins of rabbit had been at first foreseen, but as they were in insufficient number, Jean Cuggia told the journalist Joseph Suppo, that with his friends, they had filtered in on the cats of the district: and so three hundred cats of the district disappeared. Effectively, the cat always has no happy lot in carnivals, that it is in past or same even nowadays.
In the past, several cities reserved a disastrous fate for cats, during the period of the carnival as clarifies it Van Gennep. According to certain popular faiths, the put to death cats represented the devil. Venice, in the Renaissance, was the place of a cruel called " game of the Cat ", during the Carnival. Men, shaved skull, should crush with the head the body of a cat, fastened (" put in cross ") all " claws outside " on a small board, fixed against a wall or a post. In Spain, Caro Baroja clarifies that one fools cats or dogs in the place of Pelele, this model who looks like Paillassou of Nice. In that case, the cat does not undergo a tragic fate, but it is used as an intermediary among the Height and the Bottom, the Sky and the Darkness.
To Rio or Bahia, the cat was very popular during the Carnival. Because for certain the skin would be of use to the manufacture of one of the most famous percussion instruments of the Carnival, " Cuica ", according to the Brazilians, to play Cuica, means " making speak about the skin of the cat ".
In the exceptional case of the float of Ratapignata, the sacrifice of the cat represented the sacrifice inverted by the dedicated bat animal totem, by a community of Nice, who became identified positively with it. |
The Devil, the Witch and the Babaou.
The appearance of the float of Ratapignata in the Carnival of Nice, had for consequence to develop the symbolic, fantastic contribution, of grotesque works in the grotesque parades, heirs of the popular mythological and rabelaisian universe. Very often the Carnival of Nice, is treated with Carnival "spectacle", with a pejorative sense given to this term.
I would prefer to use the expression of " mythological Comedy ", which takes place in front of the public, by means of these floats, and which sometimes gives the occasion to play psychodramas.
During Beautiful Time, the world of the Darkness, the fantastic and the devilish, was often represented, and numerous floats followed the example of Ratapignata, as those of Faust, Pluto, Satan, Lilith and its witches who were sometimes led to a " train of hell ", by some magnificent Babaou. |
The Sabbath of the Witches and Stove-building
The Witches appear repeatedly on the parade, but in 1884, they practise openly the Sabbath, together with their cat, naturally! And quite as Satan, it is around the gigantic pot that they celebrate their demonic feast.
A feast which could be placed under Ste-Agathe's " patronage ", boss of jerrycans celebrated on February 5, but which would be also called by the witches, because she protects, with the fire, the lightning and the name of which, would correspond in Provence, in that of the cat, " lou Gato ", (according to Claude Gaignebet).
Stove-building conceived by Mossa in 1895 is also tempted by the " Kitchen of the devil " and find the other familiar symbols:
" The devils are dressed in cooks with the traditional fur hat and Perched everything in the top of big fireplaces, they entice black cats with the lung in shape of hart, hung on at the end of a fishing rod. "
Here the transformation of the symbol of the bat and that of the cat converges the same image.
That of Lilith, the Vamp (or vampire), devilish seducer.
Because afterward all the representations of the float of Ratapignata, will evoke the bat in woman with a head. Of cat!…
Except maybe, in 1993, with the Ben's Ratapignata, which associates it more to Mickey-Mouse,. But in fact, " Ratapignata ", means in the language of Nice " the mouse, provided with wings "! |
Babau
The babau is an important animal in the grotesque mythology. The first appearance dates 1882, year of the creation of the float of Her Majesty Carnival. It is about a monster, sort of dragon, fire-eater often (red or green, under the circumstances) which is a part of the suite of the procession of Her Majesty Carnival.
In Castellana's dictionary French - Niçois, one finds the term of: Babau or Baboù who would come from the onomatopoeia " Slob, slobber ".
Hideous animal, or monstrous, croquemitaine, ogre, scarecrow, which frightens the children and which one finds in the legends of the country of Nice or Provence and which one can move closer also to the legend of the Werewolf, which appears for the period of the Advent.
Quite as Drac and Durance, Tarasque and the Rhone, we can establish a relation between Babaou and Paillon?
Our Babaou could, maybe go down from the Paillon of Coaraze (Cauda raze), the village which " shaved the tail of the Devil! Disguised as Lizard (Dragon), either of Tales, which he caught the tail with some birdlime.
- It is especially officialized in the Carnival, in 1893, year of the marriage of Her Majesty Carnival, but also, marks the inauguration of the coverage of Paillon on the garden Albert 1-st, and of the place Masséna, - so the Babaou which has no more a "bare" access towards the sea, goes out during the grotesque period and would show so " its frustration ", to the big pleasure shivering with children. - it is represented on a float to fire, formed by 4 capons " surprised in Paillon ", (The Small Inhabitant of Nice) and who surround a device spitting flames.
Cousin of the Tarasque, it is also bestridden as frame by Her Majesty Carnival, in 1884, in 1913, more recently in 1956.
But it is especially gigantic Babaou of 1905, conceived and realized by larnach, other big designer of the Carnival who remains registered in annals, big floats of the grotesque parade.
34 metres in length, it was risen on wheels and pushed by eighteen men a whole orchestra was held in its opened mouth.
Babaou is another privileged source of inspiration for carnavaliers, it seems at present much more often than the devil or the witch and was a notable part of the Procession of the Hundred years of H.M. Carnival in 1984.
In the grotesque universe of Nice, the world of the fantastic and the devilish holds a place of choice according to periods - with floats which join in the field of the terrifying, of " the disturbing strangeness. This thing of the terrible which is connected with the known things for a long time and of any time familiar ". (S Freud)
Sometimes without knowing it, the carnavalier joins in the inheritance of the popular mythology and it throws through its art, the certainties and the fears of its time, the fantasies and the dreams of its man's life. By the distorting mirror of grotesque and Victor Hugo said:
" The grotesque is the richest source which the nature can offer to the art " - the carnavalier adds to sound work a force, a human dimension which joins this eternal interrogation of the Man towards the world of the mysterious, magic or devilish beings, the Other World ", according to the Celts, that of the Darkness or the Magic Supernatural. |
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