FIELD RESEARCH
From August 2024
Bavartés and Layrisse (France)
Starting in August 2024, after scouting the area and identifying informants, the Eth Ostau Comengés team carried out an initial phase of ethnographic research among the last remaining speakers of Gascon in the 21 target communes.
The main focus of the research was water-related practices and perceptions. This area, through which the Garonne and Pique rivers flow, is marked by the practice of irrigating hay meadows, transporting wood by float (an activity that is no longer practised), other economic activities using water as a driving force, as well as disastrous floods and rain rituals.
We also felt that the theme of migration was very important, given the proximity of the Franco-Spanish border and the specialisation of certain villages in the traveller and peddler trade, particularly in Boutx. In addition, within the commune of Boutx, we are currently focusing our research on the case of two communities that are somewhat unusual in the valley in more ways than one.
Firstly, because of its geographical isolation (on the Ger watershed) and its unique history, Le Ger-de-Boutx cultivates its cultural and linguistic particularism. The sharing and management of mountain pastures, water, forests and the Mourtis ski resort are still hotly debated today. And secondly, the case of Argut-Dessus, a very isolated and rugged area, deserted by ¾ of its population, which saw the arrival in the 1950s of a new population, of urban origin, a pioneering experiment, within the framework of civil services supervised by the Mountain Holiday Association, under the aegis of Dr Heurté de Cierp. Two cultures and philosophies of life coexisted peacefully and sometimes intermingled in interesting ways, rebuilding ruined houses but not without crushing the native culture, which had become an ultra-minority.
Finally, these two valleys are marked by a marked decline in pastoral activity, and were also the scene of the reintroduction of the first Slovenian bears in 1996, in the commune of Melles. In addition to practices linked to transhumance, the relationship with predators will be the focus of our future investigations. This subject, which is highly sensitive and divisive, especially with the announced return of the wolf, is a hotly debated topic in the valleys. In the midst of a European-wide agricultural crisis, several informants have already told us that they see this as the end of a pastoral civilisation, and hence the end of the villages themselves.
