Basque Country

Two streams descend from the Pyrenees and join to form the R. Nive at the French Basque town of St. Jean Pied-de-Port, so called because of its position at the beginning of the routes that climb to the pass of Ibañeta at Roncesvalles. This is the Nive de Behérobie. [St. Jean Pied-de-Port, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1973]

Climbing into the Pyrenees from Saint Jean Pied-de-Port in France, the medieval pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela reaches the crest near Roncesvalles, where Roland fought to protect Charlemagne's rear guard. From there the road stays on high ground for several kilometers, passing the Spanish villages of Burgete, Espinal, and Viscarret, in the province of Navarre. [Viscarret, Navarra, Spain, 1967]

Smuggling has long been a source of income for Basques living near the frontier between France and Spain. The building at this crossing point is not the customs' house but a Spanish store selling wine and other items to French households. The parking lot (in France) can be seen at the left foreground. The line of posts marks the boundary. [Col d'Ispéguy on the road between St. Etienne de Baïgorry in France and Erratzu in Spain, 1973]

Early industries in the Pyrenees included forestry, iron and copper mining and smelting, and charcoal production. In modern times hydroelectric power grew in importance, though most power plants were small. This hydro station was built in 1913. [near Banca, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 1973

After World War II sheep raising and the provision of ewe's milk to make Roquefort cheese brought prosperity to Basque farmers in the French western Pyrenees. The Basque farmstead is usually made of whitewashed sandstone, with a red tile roof, like this one near St. Etienne-de-Baïgorry. [Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1973]

Most Basque farms are dispersed, but in some places farmsteads cluster together to form a village, as here. [Anhaux, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

After the seventeenth century maize grew to become the most important forage crop in the Basque country. [Almandoz, Navarra, Spain, 1967]

In spring entire mountainsides are burned to encourage the grown of bracken (ferns) which will be cut and harvested to serve as bedding for the flocks and herds that spend winters stabled at the farmstead. [Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

The bracken is harvested in fall. [near Louhossoa, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1967]

Pyrenean sheep are bred for milk production as well as wool and meat. On the French side the most valuable commodity is milk to make Roquefort cheese. [Larrau valley, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1967]

M. Mandabidéa, his son, and their two prize rams [near Urepel, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

These are summer pastures on the heights between France and Spain: a prehistoric cromlech surrounds a boundary marker on Mt. Artzamendi, near Itxassou [Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

On their mountain pastures, shepherds spend the summers in stone huts like this one, called a borda in Basque. [Baztán valley, Navarra, Spain, 1973]

Because ewes can be milked they are more valuable than rams, so most male lambs are sold for meat. This is the farmers' market for spring lambs in Baïgorry. [St. Etienne de Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

At the lamb market in Baïgorry: a Citroën 2CV used for transport. [St. Etienne de Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

In the 1960s, when I made these photographs, farmers in the western Pyrenees were gradually shifting to mechanized equipment. One could still see the old ways. As the sun sets, a horse-drawn dump rake makes windrows in a Baïgorry hayfield. [St. Etienne de Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

A Basque farmer pauses with his oxen and cart as he returns home in the evening. The oxen are fastened to the cart's drawbar not with a yoke but with leather lashings to their horns. The leather straps are protected from shrinking in rain by sheepskin covers. [near Hélette, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1967]

The transition to mechanized ways began after World War II when the US Army released surplus equipment. Thousands of Jeeps were sold by the French government and were relatively inexpensive. They transformed farming in rural France, and in the Pyrenees they were still widespread, still going strong, more than twenty years later. [Aldudes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

Jeeps could do almost any job in the mountains, but they eventually wore out. As farmers gradually prospered they could invest in newer equipment, like this Swiss vehicle made especially for mountain agriculture. [Bizkarenea Farm, near Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

Manech, whose farm was near the road that leads from Baïgorry up to the Ispéguy pass, preferred the old ways. He is scything hay for forage. [St. Etienne de Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

Manech's neighbors on the other side of the valley had invested in a motor-scythe. After a Jeep, a motor scythe was often the first piece of modern equipment purchased by a Basque farmer. But a motor scythe does not leave the mown hay in windrows (unlike the hand scythe, which does), so here the farmer's son follows with a rake to pull the mown hay into windrows so it will dry properly. [St. Etienne de Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

Scything the old way -- Manech and his brother pause to rest. The wooden holster holds his whetstone. [St. Etienne de Baïgorry, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, 1968]

In the spring, these French cattle that will spend the summer on nearby Spanish pastures are branded with a B (for Baïgorry) before crossing the frontier. This practice, centuries-old, is one of many exceptions to the usual notions of national sovereignty that can be found in the Pyrenees. In many places pastures on either side of the international boundary are shared by adjacent valleys, and the 19th-century treaties that established the modern boundary between the two countries recognized and preserved these ancient pastoral rights. In this case, the cattle will graze on the 'Quinto Real" -- Spanish territory which is reserved exclusively for use by French herders. [Urepel, Pyrénées Atlantiques, France, 1968]

Each year villagers from the Spanish valley of Roncal and the French valley of Barétous gather at the Col de la Pierre St. Martin on June 13 to celebrate the renewal of the treaty between the two valleys that confirms the sharing of pastures on either side of the boundary. The ceremony includes the transfer of three cows from France to Spain, said to be owed in perpetuity as compensation for a murder committed by French shepherds in the fourteenth century. [Roncal-Barétous boundary, Spain and France, 1968]

Signing the Roncal-Barétous treaty on the boundary stone. At the end of the ceremony the representatives of the two valleys, dressed in their seventeenth-century robes of office, place their hands atop one another on the boundary stone and with the words "patz abant" swear eternal peace. Even the German occupation of France during World War II did not stop the annual ceremony. [Col de la Pierre St. Martin, Spain and France, 1968]