One of clichés about summer (clichés are always a valid example of reality) is the craze for holidays.
These matters don’t concern me at all, because my attitude toward summer is rather peculiar. I simply tend
to ignore it and to become quite sedentary and domestic and to spend most of time indoors, in my voluntary form of summer hibernation.
But it’s not interesting speaking of me at all.
I’m going to tell my two readers about a category of Swiss inhabitants who have probably the longest summer holidays of all.
Swiss cows.
In this period cows are ready to get on holiday and their departure, according to their different area of residence, is imminent.
Swiss cows spend their holidays on the mountains in natural resorts, nearly four months of relaxing holiday, pampered by their minders; it’s not too bad is it? Of course there is also the other side of the medal, that is they have to reach their mountain holiday resort walking, no transport…
But they can walk at their pace, they are trained and it’s a kind of joyful kermesse.
We call this annual transhumance to the summer pasture “Poya”, which comes from the Latin “podium” very probably and simply means more or less “to get up”.
Taking the cows up to the summer pasture is a time-honoured custom.
A dairyman - called “armailli” in French - and his helper looks after the cattle of several different owners, who
stay in the valley to tend their crops.
The armailli shares his hut with the cows, and it is his task to take them to pasture and milk them twice a day, and to make the milk into cheese. The cattle do not necessarily stay in the same place throughout the summer, but move up to higher pastures as the season progresses.
Once they have grazed the highest meadow they come down the same way, since the grass has grown back in the previous pastures.
At around the end of September it is time to go back down the valley and it marks the end of cows’ holidays, which is celebrated once again by another parade with the joyful cows all decorated with fresh flowers.
The work up in the Alps is long and hard (for the dairymen, not for the cows).
Fourteen hours a day for four months, with practically no time off. Yet the dream of sun and freedom and pure mountain air has a powerful attraction for many city dwellers, and every year lawyers, doctors, teachers, artists and waiters can all be found looking after the cows.
They include women as well as men - another break with tradition. All have to take a qualification first, and must spend at least one season as a helper before being allowed to go up alone.
Today only about half the dairymen and herdsmen come from a farm background.
These matters don’t concern me at all, because my attitude toward summer is rather peculiar. I simply tend
to ignore it and to become quite sedentary and domestic and to spend most of time indoors, in my voluntary form of summer hibernation.
But it’s not interesting speaking of me at all.
I’m going to tell my two readers about a category of Swiss inhabitants who have probably the longest summer holidays of all.
Swiss cows.
In this period cows are ready to get on holiday and their departure, according to their different area of residence, is imminent.
Swiss cows spend their holidays on the mountains in natural resorts, nearly four months of relaxing holiday, pampered by their minders; it’s not too bad is it? Of course there is also the other side of the medal, that is they have to reach their mountain holiday resort walking, no transport…
But they can walk at their pace, they are trained and it’s a kind of joyful kermesse.
We call this annual transhumance to the summer pasture “Poya”, which comes from the Latin “podium” very probably and simply means more or less “to get up”.
Taking the cows up to the summer pasture is a time-honoured custom.
A dairyman - called “armailli” in French - and his helper looks after the cattle of several different owners, who
stay in the valley to tend their crops.
The armailli shares his hut with the cows, and it is his task to take them to pasture and milk them twice a day, and to make the milk into cheese. The cattle do not necessarily stay in the same place throughout the summer, but move up to higher pastures as the season progresses.
Once they have grazed the highest meadow they come down the same way, since the grass has grown back in the previous pastures.
At around the end of September it is time to go back down the valley and it marks the end of cows’ holidays, which is celebrated once again by another parade with the joyful cows all decorated with fresh flowers.
The work up in the Alps is long and hard (for the dairymen, not for the cows).
Fourteen hours a day for four months, with practically no time off. Yet the dream of sun and freedom and pure mountain air has a powerful attraction for many city dwellers, and every year lawyers, doctors, teachers, artists and waiters can all be found looking after the cows.
They include women as well as men - another break with tradition. All have to take a qualification first, and must spend at least one season as a helper before being allowed to go up alone.
Today only about half the dairymen and herdsmen come from a farm background.
The armailli is an emblematic figure of the peasantry of Fribourg and
Vaud Mountain, his presence is required in many folkloric events, they wear a typical costume called “bredzon” and guide the herd of cows led by the queen cow decorated with fir branches and flowers. All the cows wear proudly their big bells.
The most important piece of musical folklore is the calling song, the Ranz des Vaches ( something I might try to translate as “call for cows”), which occurs in numerous regional variations.
The best known is the Gruyère version, which is regarded by some as a kind of unofficial anthem of the French speaking part of Switzerland. So evocative was it, that Swiss mercenaries serving in the French king's royal guard before the revolution were forbidden to sing it, because it made them homesick and even encouraged them to desert.
The alpine cowherds used to sing it in order to call the cattle from the pasture when it was time for them to be milked in the stables. It has the same function as alphorn tunes used to have. And, just as
using the alpine horn for this purpose was dying out after 1800, so was using the voice to call them.
In 1921 a young music teacher, Joseph Bovet, arranged the
traditional ranz des vaches of Gruyère to a men's choir song.
The Ranz des Vaches has spread far beyond the Swiss borders, since Beethoven, Berlioz and Rossini all used it in their works.
Vaud Mountain, his presence is required in many folkloric events, they wear a typical costume called “bredzon” and guide the herd of cows led by the queen cow decorated with fir branches and flowers. All the cows wear proudly their big bells.
The most important piece of musical folklore is the calling song, the Ranz des Vaches ( something I might try to translate as “call for cows”), which occurs in numerous regional variations.
The best known is the Gruyère version, which is regarded by some as a kind of unofficial anthem of the French speaking part of Switzerland. So evocative was it, that Swiss mercenaries serving in the French king's royal guard before the revolution were forbidden to sing it, because it made them homesick and even encouraged them to desert.
The alpine cowherds used to sing it in order to call the cattle from the pasture when it was time for them to be milked in the stables. It has the same function as alphorn tunes used to have. And, just as
using the alpine horn for this purpose was dying out after 1800, so was using the voice to call them.
In 1921 a young music teacher, Joseph Bovet, arranged the
traditional ranz des vaches of Gruyère to a men's choir song.
The Ranz des Vaches has spread far beyond the Swiss borders, since Beethoven, Berlioz and Rossini all used it in their works.
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