AEMI

206 AEMI JOURNAL 2015 2016
Fig 3. The focal point of the Waldenserfest is an historic parade where many women and children and
little girls wear the typical Waldesian dress.
establishing rigid boundaries of belonging,
on the other hand there are criteria
of permeability that allow one to cross
the boundary, even if the boundary itself
remains, as noted by Fredrik Barth
(1969) in his influential discussion of
ethnic boundaries.
Another feature of the Waldensian
heritage of Rohrbach-Wembach-Hahn
is a particular celebration, connected
with the memory of the forebears. This
celebration is called Waldenserfest and
takes place every year at the end of June
since the middle of the nineteenth century.
In 2014 a delegation of Pragelato
took part in it during the twinning celebration.
The focal point of the Waldenserfest is
an historic parade that starts from a forest
on the edge of the village, after the
celebration of a religious service. Here
there is a sort of cabin called Waldenser-Schutzhütte,
where the ancestors are
believed to first stopped when they arrived
in Rohrbach. The parade crosses
some streets of the town and arrives in
the central square, in front of the temple.
This procession is full of symbolic
elements: there is the Waldensian emblem
6 ; some people dress like ancient
farmers, as their ancestors from the
Valleys are thought to have done, and
carry some old agricultural tools; many
women and little girls wear the typical
Waldensian dress 7 ; there is also a torture
wheel, to remember the ancestors’