FIELD RESEARCH IN BAVARTÉS AND LAYRISSE
Bagnères-de-Luchon canton (municipalities of the former Saint-Béat canton)
Haute-Garonne (France), July–August 2024
Activity carried out by the association Eth Ostau Comengés as part of the Tramontana Network project, co-funded by the Creative Europe program.
From August 2024, after scouting out the terrain and informants, the Eth Ostau Comengés team carried out an initial phase of ethnographic research among the last speakers of Gascon in the 21 targeted municipalities.
The main focus of the research was practices and perceptions related to water. Indeed, this territory, crossed by the Garonne and the Pique rivers, is marked by the irrigation of hay meadows, the transportation of wood by floating (an activity that is no longer practiced today), other economic activities using water as a driving force, but also disastrous floods and rain rituals.
Also, the topic of migration seemed very important because of the proximity of the French-Spanish border and the specialization of certain villages in the trade of travelers and peddlers, particularly in Boutx. Moreover, within the commune of Boutx, we are in the process of intensifying our research on the case of two communities that are somewhat apart in the valley in more ways than one.
Firstly, Le Ger-de-Boutx, due to its geographical isolation (in the Ger catchment area) and its unique history, cultivates its own cultural and linguistic identity. The issue of sharing and/or managing the mountain pastures, as well as the water, forests and the Mourtis ski resort, is still the subject of heated debate today. And secondly, the case of Argut-Dessus, a very isolated and rugged territory, deserted by three quarters of its population, which saw the arrival of a new population of urban origin in the 1950s, a pioneering experiment, as part of civil services supervised by the Mountain Holiday Association, under the aegis of Doctor Heurté de Cierp. Two cultures and philosophies of life coexisted peacefully and sometimes intermingled in interesting ways, rebuilding the ruined houses but not without crushing the indigenous culture, which had become an ultra-minority.
Finally, these two valleys are marked by a very pronounced decline in pastoralism, and they were also the scene of the reintroduction of the first Slovenian bears in 1996, in the commune of Melles. In addition to practices related to transhumance, the relationship with predators will be the focus of our future investigations. This last subject, which is very sensitive and divisive, especially with the announced return of the wolf, is the subject of very lively debate in the valleys. In the midst of an agricultural crisis on a European scale, several informants have already confided in us that they see it as the end of a pastoral civilization and, beyond that, the end of the villages themselves.