Last week I drove with F., and D., to the village of San Juan de Plan on the east side of Ordesa National Park. San Juan de Plan is one of 3 small villages in the Valle de Gistain, which lies between Ordesa to the west and Parque Natural Posets-Maladeta to the east. F. and D. have been working with the herders in this valley in the late 1970s and have a warm and close relationship with their local collaborators. The valley is remarkable in that it has retained more of the traditional land management and husbandry practices, and hence a more traditional appearance of the landscape, than many other valleys in the Central Pyrenees. F. and D. thought it would be useful for me to visit the valley as a reference point to understand the other valleys where I will carry out my study, and it was. When I say “traditional” I should qualify this a bit—it is easy for a foreigner, especially one from the US, to get caught up in the mists of history and imagine that the landscape is a medieval one to match the Romanesque churches or the ancient Roman footpaths. Actually, the landscape and practices have evolved and changed continuously, and the management system and landscape that is now perceived as “traditional” actually is only a remnant of the mid-20th century. Let me explain.
The slopes of this small valley are extremely steep, but have nonetheless been terraced for centuries. Originally, these terraces were planted with cereal grains—wheat, rye, barley--and much later potatoes. Livestock grazed on the crop aftermath and fertilized the fields with their manure. Cultivation followed a cycle of planting and fallowing, so that only one side of the valley was planted in a given year and the other side was fallowed and available for grazing. Beginning in the 1950s the cultivation of cereals began to decline and the crop fields were converted to perennial meadows (“prados”) which are cut for hay and also grazed. On the lower slopes of the valley these small meadows are enclosed with hedgerows or stone fences and are privately owned. One producer usually possesses a series of these meadows in a progression up the side of the valley so that in spring they move their animals slowly upslope from one meadow to the next until they reach the communal summer pastures. On the upper slopes, between the prados and the communal pastures, lie the “panares.” The panares (named for the “pan” or bread that the grains provided) were also cropped for grains, and cultivation here continued after the lower fields had already been converted to meadows. Rights to cultivate the panares were individually owned, but the right to graze the aftermath was communal. Thus, after the individual producer planted and harvested, the livestock of any villager was allowed to graze the stubble. These fields remain unfenced and unenclosed, and enclosure is forbidden. In several of the panares and prados we noticed wooden poles planted in the middle of the field and capped with an overturned bucket or empty feed sack. This, F. explained, is a sign that indicates that the field is not to be grazed this year. The panares are no longer cultivated, and now are used for hay and grazed in the autumn, under the same tenure regime (hay crop is individually owned and the grazing of aftermath is communal).
Another aspect of the traditional landscape is the lopping of ash trees. In San Juan de Plan, villagers still cut the branches of ash trees growing in and at the edges of their meadows to dry and feed to their livestock in winter. This practice produces trees of an unusual form from the repeated lopping and re-sprouting—sort of like multiple lollypops on one stick—that are a characteristic of this cultural landscape. Apparently this practice was once widespread throughout the central Pyrenees, but this is one of the last valleys where it is still carried out.
Although the community is traditional in some ways, it is also an engine of innovation and is recognized regionally for its commitment to sustainability. The reason for our trip to San Juan de Plan was an upcoming event in Zaragoza where the herders of the entire valley will be awarded a prize by the Spanish Foundation for Ecology and Development, in recognition of their sustainable practices and maintenance of a vibrant cultural landscape. F. and D. were making the visit to help the herders prepare their presentation for the award ceremony this week. Like most communities of any size that have their act together, San Juan de Plan has several movers and shakers, including both natives of the village and outsiders who contribute their energy, skills and ideas. One of the foremost indigenous innovators is the former mayor, a short, solid and energetic woman in her 60’s (I guessed). When we met, J. was dressed in loose-fitting ankle-length military green trousers, a bright red tropical-looking shirt, and a pair of plastic gardening clogs. Her chin-length grey hair was a bit unkempt and she peered at us intently through a pair of narrow spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose as she spoke with great animation. J. was clearly a fireball of energy and an effective squeaky wheel. Forewarned of our impending visit, she had a large bag of produce ready to give F. and a pot of beans cooking to feed him, but we couldn’t stay. She rattled off a list of complaints and requests in short order and sent us packing with the load of fresh vegetables from her garden and promises to return soon, make strategic phone calls to assist the local dance troupe in negotiating a performance, and help her locate a source for rye straw to weave large saucer-like baskets to place under potted plants.
Another local engine is a couple originally from outside the village, R. and E. R. is a musician who works as the community’s “animador cultural,” including helping with various projects and activities related to livestock, and his wife E. originally came to the valley to teach the local dialect, Chistavino. Chistavino is a living language, one of many dialects (or, some would argue distinct languages) that evolved in each of the isolated Pyrenean valleys after the fall of the Roman Empire. According to F., as Latin disintegrated or evolved following the withdrawal of Roman influence, it developed into many distinct dialects/languages in the different isolated Pyrenean valleys, one of which is Chistavino. During the meeting with the herders over lunch, I was frustrated not to understand much of the conversation swirling around me and chalked my lack of comprehension up to the background noise and my rusty Spanish. Only later did I discover that my neighbors at the table were lapsing into Chistavino when they conversed among themselves—I didn’t understand not because my Spanish was poor, but because they were speaking in an entirely different tongue.
Despite finishing off lunch with a strong coffee, I was certain that I would fall soundly asleep on the drive home, but it was not to be. D. decided (I think for my benefit) that we should go home on a different route—through Ordesa National Park. We turned off the mai” road into the Park and proceeded to wind along the River Vellos through a fantastic canyon of sheer limestone walls, populated with several endemic plant species found only growing on the sides of this canyon. The one-lane, one-way road was carved into the canyon wall about half way between the roaring glacial stream at the canyon’s bottom and the canyon rim far above. As D. and F. pointed out, the road was remarkable in how little it intruded in the canyon and how relatively little disturbance it had created to the surrounding splendor. Although the road was paved and had a guard rail on the river side, it felt more like an old Roman road than a 20th century one. At one point, before the road climbed out of the canyon, D. insisted we park and walk a short distance down one of the footpaths towards a hermitage on the other side of the river. Here, two foot bridges cross the river before the path heads up a tributary canyon towards one of the high passes in the park. First, we crossed over a modern bridge of steel and concrete with a green-painted chain link fence to prevent visitors from meeting an untimely end at the canyon bottom. The view over the railing towards the blue-green glacial waters below was dizzying, but the view skywards up the canyon walls and to the peaks beyond was awe-inspiring, rivaling the jaw-dropping sensation of standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon for the first time. When we reached the other side of the river on the modern bridge, we descended a short way down a gravel path and then returned via a stone footbridge dating to medieval or possibly Roman times. Here was cause to wonder not only at natural marvels but the courage of the man or men who laid the keystones to make the ancient bridge whole, and the skill of the person who designed it. The mists of history had me now and I had no desire to exorcise their bewitching power. Standing on a Roman bridge as the icy waters tumbled far under me and the mist floated in front of the peaks high above gave the sensation of being suspended in both space and time, hanging in the air between millennia, as if I might look up and see a hooded monk making his way across the bridge towards me on his way to the hermitage beyond, sandals slapping on the wet stones and the odor of damp wool rising from his cloak.
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