Dev WFC

Postmark: June 2005

Last weekend I returned home from ten days in France with singer-songwriter Lorraine Rawls and cowboy, musician, and filmmaker Gail Steiger. Lorraine has spent the last couple of years documenting the culture of the gardians, French cowboys in the Camargue region of  Provence in the South of France. Gail is shooting video for a documentary film on the gardians. On previous trips Lorraine was accompanied by photographer Kevin Martini-Fuller, whose black and white photographs are now part of an exhibition on the gardians that recently opened at the Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Comprising the delta region of the Rhône river where it enters the Mediterranean, the Camargue is a nature preserve and home to numerous species of birds, including stunning flamingoes and other wildlife. It is also the home of the white Camargue horse and black Camargue cattle, raised and tended by gardians for centuries. The Confrérie des Gardians, the brotherhood of gardians, was formed in 1512. The area is also home to many of France's gypsies who, along with gypsies from all over Europe, make an annual pilgrimage to the village of Saintes Maries de la Mer to honor their patron Saint Sarah in the church of Saintes Maries de la Mer.

On this trip Lorraine and Gail were specifically filming the gardians' participation in the gypsy pilgrimage ceremonies. The gardians, mounted on their white horses, escort the gypsies as they carry the statue of Saint Sarah to the sea to be blessed. The following day they escort the statues of Saint Mary Salomé and Saint Mary Jacobé as they are carried to the sea and blessed. View Gail Steiger's online journal entry and short video trailer for this journey.

As part of the Western Folklife Center's ongoing cultural exchanges with horse and cattle cultures around the world, we will be trying to raise funds to bring gardians and musicians to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 2007. Anyone interested in assisting with this effort should contact me at the Western Folklife Center, 775-738-7508.

By Charlie Seemann, Executive Director, Western Folklife Center