Butte News

The Year of the Snake celebrated with a bang in Butte

Posted: Feb 16, 2013 4:34 PM by MTN News
Updated: Feb 16, 2013 4:52 PM

Butte welcomed in the Chinese New Year with its famous parade, known as one of the shortest, loudest, and coldest parades in the nation.

The parade was named one of the 6 most interesting processions in America by Reader's Digest in 2009. This year marks the Year of the Snake, one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and related to the Chinese calendar, as well as in related East Asian zodiacal and calendrical systems.

According to one mythical legend, there is a reason for the order of the 12 animals in the 12 year cycle. The story goes that a race was held to cross a great river, and the order of the animals in the cycle was based upon their order in finishing the race. In this story, the snake compensated for not being the best swimmer by hitching a hidden ride on the horses hoof, and when the horse was just about to cross the finish line, jumping out, scaring the horse, and thus edging it out for sixth place.

The annual parade, sponsored by the Butte Mai Wah Society, features a dragon donated by the people of Taiwan, firecrackers and revelers of all ages.

The news station's Jonathan Kershaw takes us to the streets of Butte for the start of the year of the snake, followed by the sound of a hundred thousand firecrackers, a perfect end to the parade.

For more info, click here.

Photos by John Sherer