Passadoc Gazette - No. 101

Blood and gold
Nove sena luna...
About the dust
Lou cacho fio
Ulysses... Phébus... the Vizir...
Alley of the 15th Army Corps
Mount Vinegar
The bugadière
Transhumance

The Library of Passadoc

25 DECEMBER! Merry Christmas to You All!

In French, it's quick to say! In the countries of Oc, this is another matter.

My niçois neighbors celebrate « Calena » or « Calèna »I saw the two spellings.
My Languedoc friends celebrate « Nadal »... I suppose that an ancestor of tennis player Rafael Nadal, originally from Majorca, was also born on Christmas Day.
In Rhodanian Provence, this is « Nouvé » and in Provence maritime, it is « New » (or Novel according to the graphic used)... Minuscule difference!

By the way, I specify that the fisherman of Calendal, the hero of Frédéric Mistral's magnificent poem, bears this name because he was born on Christmas Day.

Blood and gold...

I find this picture of 1989, when the Provençal flag was laid over the front door of my bastide. I forgot that my boyfriend Denis, in a great spirit of generosity, had put a fifth blood-colored band on that flag. The error had been corrected, with only four remaining.

But by the way, do you know what these blood-colored tapes correspond to?

Provence has two flags which descend from the coats of arms of the two families of Counts who ruled the region in the Middle Ages.

The Provencal Band Flag « blood and gold » (in heraldic, they say gold with four red pals) was that of Catalonia, of which Raimond-Berenger III, Count of Barcelona, obtained Provence by marriage in 1125.

The origin – mythical – of these colors goes back to a companion of Charlemagne: seriously wounded in a battle and feeling his next end, he caressed his golden shield with his bloody fingers.

Nove sensa luna, very cabras t'n remained una...

André Abbe says:

If you have goats on Christmas night, look at the sky...

Peasants and shepherds formerly looked at the sky with great attention, day and night. Some predicted time by rarely making mistakes. But observing the sky sometimes led to curious omens.

My friend Clement claimed that there was one that never failed to come true, which he himself had seen several times: Nove sensa luna, from very cabras you never remained una [On Christmas night without the moon appearing, of three goats, there will be only one]. The next year will be bad, méfi.

Once all the shepherds but also the peasants of the lower country had goats. At least two per family, to dispose of milk, to make cheese (and add bush).

The most superstitious of them hardly slept on Christmas night when the sky was cloudy.

About the blast.

XIX^e Century... The plague – unless it is cholera – wreaks havoc at Châteaudouble (Var village which was the subject of a prophecy by Nostradamus).

The dead are numerous, the sick even more; apart from the wine friction and vegetable broth, the good doctor only words of comfort to give to his patients; So to this poor man:

– Doctor... I'm gonna die, right...
- Alas, my friend...
– Before I leave, I'd like to eat a little more of our country's dust one last time.
– I don't see any problem!

And the doctor himself prepared him a nice slice of bread that he spread cheese. The moribond chose... and fell asleep.
The next day, he seemed a little better... The appetite returned to him and he swallowed the whole pot of old dust. A few days later, he was on his feet and out of business!

Some shouted at the miracle! The good doctor asked:
– Miracle... or cheese?
But he did not take part!

It was no longer in this world when in September 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered in his Petri boxes strains contaminated by a microscopic fungus... a mould like the one found on many cheeses, including the dust!

Research: Character Villages – Jeanne Monin

Lou cacho fio

Claude Boyer

One of the oldest traditions of the holdandal period*, i.e. the Christmas period (in Provencal calendum is the cacho fio).

* Calendal is also the name of Cassis' intrepid fisherman from Frédéric Mistral's poem, but that is not my point.

The cacho fio takes place in front of the chimney just before the « Big dinner »On Christmas Eve.

I did not experience this already lost tradition when I was a child, but my grandfather told me that he was the caganis, That is, the youngest of the assembly who carried the log with his grandfather, the oldest.

Here's how this ceremony took place:

The oldest of the audience, accompanied by the caganis brings the biggest log likely to burn three days and three nights; This must come from a fruit tree (poir, cherry, olive tree). It is then a sign of the return of the new fire, the fire of the first sun of the new year.

All the assembly must then go three times around the table covered with three tablecloths, while the youngest one makes a triple libation on the buch with the help of a branch soaked in wine while the aiel pronounces the words of blessing in Provençal:

Cacho fio, toto fio

Algebra, Algebra Dièu alegre us

Calèndo vèn, every ven ben

We're being given the grace to be sure that we're ready.

And nanny sian not May, that nanny rungue not lie

Christmas log, give fire

Let us rejoice

God gives us joy, everything comes well

God give us the grace to see the coming year

And if we are no more, we are no less.

All these actions were done three times in reference to the Holy Trinity.

It was then drawn omens of the way the log was burned and was to last until the day of kings, the day of epiphany.

Once fully calcined, she was considered miraculous and my great grandmother did not fail to place a piece of it under the bed to preserve the house from thunder and fires while the great grandfather brought a piece of it to the stable to protect the animals from disease.

Ulysses... Phébus... The Vizir

Giselle Penat-Lorde

Years 50

All our horses actually came from the maquignons of Luke.

I remembered beautiful beasts, with impressive legs, who did not bear the name of Bijou!

My father had had a magnificent black horse, a rare elegance that provided exemplary work. Many people came to admire elsewhere The Vizirthe name of the Emperor's horse, [even if The Vizir of Napoleon was a small Arabic purebred, with a light grey gilt dress].

Féru d'histoire, Papa often gave his animals historical and mythological names, Ulysses, Phébus, for example.

One day The Vizir He went crazy, almost killed Dad, while one morning he was preparing him to go to the fields; He was fortunately wary of it, for a few days, The Vizir I didn't think it was going well.

He had already given some sudden and unexplained signs, with unexpected, increasingly dangerous reactions. Dad immediately warned the said maquignons and a veterinarian.

Diagnosis : one « bug » in castration, obviously missed, which had certainly damaged his neurons; It had to be separated quickly.
Unrecoverable, dangerous. He was taken on board for slaughter and slaughter.

Our little bitch of the time used to sleep very close to the horses in the straw, but there she always got quite far from the Vizir.

It is to be believed that Dolly felt that the horse was not reliable or quiet and that it was better to keep away from it.

Her death, which had already reached the age of 18, was accelerated by the arrival of the tractor.

How to sleep between the cold wheels of this device?

There was a famous mule in Roquebrune: Petou, the mule of Marius Hyacinthe, often photographed on the road of the Pétignons, which thus passed to posterity.

I also remember very well the marshal-ferrant, Mr Penal and Mr Roustan as well.

Both were taking care of our equine shoes.

Alley of the 15th Army Corps

The cities of Fréjus, Toulon, Nice, Saint-Raphaël – to name but a few – have an avenue of the 15th Corps.

But what was that army corps and why do so many public places bear its name?

Read this very interesting account of Claude Boyer.

Avenue du XVe corps

Mount Vinegar

Mount Vinaigre (618 m) is the highest point of the Esterel in the Var.

This is the fire watch tower. My grandfather was there watching.

It is a photo of the family archives of the old tower that was demolished by the NFB, as well as the house of the watchmen... go know why...

My grandfather was also a watchman at the new tower. I slept there and saw sunrises on the breathtaking Bay of Cannes and sunsets on the Rock of Roquebrune.

Maryse Laugier

The bugadière

André Abbe

[...] about 30 years ago in Vinadio (Cuneo Province – Italy), in the upper Stura Valley, a country where we speak "a nostro modo", a Vivaro dialect – alpine of l'occitan.
The milk can tells us that we are in the country of breeding.

I wonder today what this lady was doing. Did she just wash all that laundry at the washing room, or did she just rinse it out after he was bugging?

We washed her laundry once a week, but we only did the bugade once or twice a year, especially for the sheets that boiled in a laundry machine...

The bugadières (laundries) that found themselves around the washers to wash the little linen did not make the bugad: they came to wash.

In popular French directly from the occitan, they said "I'm going to wash", "I'm going to stretch" ... "I'm going to give" (to eat and drink on the horse) ... "I go to the hens"...

Once it was felt that the interlocutors were sufficiently numb to understand without the rest being added.

Transhumance...

Transhumance towards the Serre (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) towards Entrevaux, around 1980. Photo André Abbe.

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