[I am using the information about May Poles sent by Elke Hall, who credits a school class in Germany as her source. Of course, Elke has a personal knowledge of the subject as well. If you want to do a search on the web for May Pole, you should probably use the word "Maibaum" or "Maibäume", which means "May Tree", or, as we know it, "May Pole".]
The custom is centuries old and seems to be connected with Walburgentag, the last day of April. On this day, a tree was cut and displayed as a symbol of spring. At first, the birch tree was used, because it was an early tree to be in leaf and therefore a harbinger of spring. In time, the desire for height became dominant and the emphasis switched to the spruce and pine trees. The land owners and the church opposed the idea because the owners did not want to lose a tree, and the church saw it as a pagan festival. After the tree was erected, the villagers were to dance under and around the tree to drive out the bad spirits.
Properly, the tree was to be cut on Walburgentag and erected on the next day, the first of May. At least some of the trees that I [John] have seen have had so much work done on them that I find it hard to believe that they could be cut on one day and erected on the next.
As the trees became larger, it became harder to erect them in the village. I [John] have been told by a German that no machines can be used to erect the poles, but an authoritative person, namely Elke, says that machines are used today. A procedure developed for putting them up using manual labor only, and it appears that half of the fun lay in standing the pole upright. The problem is, as the 100 foot (or even more) pole is tipped up, that a person can no longer reach the pole to push on it. So push poles are used in pairs, with a fabric or rope connection between the pair of push poles to provide the contact to the May Pole. During the erection process it is possible to call a halt to the operation. Then the labor can catch its breath and get some refreshment.
The best analogy here in the U.S. is a barn raising, where the framing for the side of a barn is built on the ground and tipped up into place. Even though the timbers are massive, the use of a lot of labor directly, and with push poles and ropes, can put the side of a barn into place.
Actually the best way to understand and see how it is done is on a website for which Elke gave us the address, which is http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Port/2945/Maibaum/Maibaum.htm .
I just tried this URL and it worked. The pictures are great. And they furnish a much better understanding of the process than I have given.
(27 Jun 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.