Nubbel

Nubbel is a name for a dressed straw doll that emerged around 1950[1] representing the scapegoat in the Rhenish carnival.

[1] The burning of a figure at the end of Carnival has been historically verifiable in the Rhineland since the beginning of the 19th century.

The Cologne author Ernst Weyden writes in his memoirs of the 1820s, when carnival events in Cologne were reorganized, that on Ash Wednesday "the carnival was carried to its grave": "With a solemn funeral procession, a doll was carried through the city on a bier and burned in a square."

Normally, on Weiberfastnacht, the start of the street carnival, the Nubbel is placed on the facade of the pubs near the door.

[3] In a short parade around the block, he is solemnly carried to his grave on Shrove Tuesday at midnight by torchlight or candlelight.