Smoke

When the most beautiful cows of the Appenzell villages are crowned in autumn, smoke rises over the festival grounds. On this day, children—often still in their early single-digit years—puff unabashedly on Krumme cigars, or Stumpen as they are known locally, emblematic representatives of Swiss tobacco culture. They do so not in secret or as an act of rebellion, but in the midst of the village community, which not only tolerates the tradition but is also the very source of it. It is a gesture o…