The battle to recuperate the misplaced reminiscence of the Palomares | Culture | EUROtoday

A pigeon flock lifts the flight. Beating its wings is a deaf applause suspended within the wind. Where do they arrive from and, above all, the place are they going? When the evening falls, the place do you dream your desires? These birds sleep the place they will, beneath the bridges, in cornices and in cavades of partitions; In the sector, in bushes and escarpes. Only some do it within the Palomares, a conventional sort of development that’s regularly misplaced. In its dissemination and conservation, the Leonesa has been dedicated for 15 years – though born in Switzerland – Irma Basarte Diez (Zurich, 55 years outdated) who, along with the photographer José Benito Ruiz Limiñana, has printed Singular Palomares of Spain (Fine Art Editions). In this guide, divided into two volumes, there are a whole lot of images of a number of the nearly three thousand dallomars that Irma Basarte and José Benito Ruiz have visited and geolocated, together with ruins and stays. Through a QR code you may comply with your steps on a map, from palomar in Palomar.

“The palomars were very hungry in this country. Then, especially since the sixties, which is when the people of the villages migrate to the cities, they begin to abandon themselves. If there are no hands that take care of the earth, because to take care of pop Because, with water, the doves are coming down, since most are mud, ”says Basarte. In addition to preventing starvation, with the elevating of pigeons and pigeons, the dove the down and the popcorn took benefit of, the excrements of those birds, which served as fee for the crops, to tanch skins and for the manufacture of gunpowder.

There are popcorn in castles and convents, in photo voltaic homes and within the Pazos de Galicia, the place it’s stated: “If you have a chapel, dove and cypress, Pazo is.” There are popcorn within the fields of labor of Spain, but additionally in lots of cities. Basarte claims city doves, even being conscious of the issues that often happen in cities with these birds. “In the cities there have been popcorn all their lives. Some restore them, they leave them beautiful, and they close them to the pigeons. That makes no sense,” he says. And it emphasizes: “Palomares are, together with the hives, the only constructions in which animals enter and come free.” When requested about her favourite dove, the reply comes out instantly, as a result of it’s the origin of this winged ardour: it’s the dove that she and her husband restored within the city of this, holy Martas, in León, after which stuffed with pigeons. It was the start of the Association of Friends of Los Palomares and the start of his dissemination work.

In these first steps a reputation stands out: Casado Concha. Leonese’s philologist and ethnographer had labored within the Department of Ethnography of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), in Madrid, and after his retirement he started a piece of restoration and dissemination of conventional tradition in León. Casado participated within the creation of a number of museums, similar to Alfarmuseo, in Jiménez de Jamuz (León), devoted to pottery; The Museum of Arriería, in Santiago Millas, and the Batán Museo de Val de San Lorenzo, destined to the information of textile crafts. “Concha Casado was the president of honor of the association. Well, it still is. She was a very intelligent woman, very cast. “When I went to know her, I was eighty -and -year -old. I think this would go differently. ”

Among the most unique popcorn in Spain is that of Huerta Noble, in La Redondela (Huelva), which is considered the largest in Europe. It was built in the 18th century, it has about 36,000 Nidales and has been declared a cultural interest. Another of the largest is the one located in the Natural Park of La Breña and Marismas del Barbate, in Cádiz. The uniqueness of both is that the nest are made with pottery of pottery. In Asturias, doves are usually built in stone. In Castilla y León there are mud doves, especially by land of fields, but in other territories of that autonomous community they are made of stone. In La Rioja there are some in Cuevas, excavated in the rock, such as the Palomares Rock Set, in Nalda. “There are popcorn in all provinces. For instance, within the Tabernas desert, in Almería. And now we have discovered doves in curious locations, as one in a cemetery, in Paramos, A Coruña. When the cemetery was prolonged, the palomar was revered,” says Basarte.

The Friends of Los Palomares association considers that their work is not over, because there are still many unique doves to discover and geolocalize. For the maintenance of these constructions, Basarte believes fundamental that the restorations made by individuals are supported. “There needs to be assist of the administrations in order that whoever needs to revive their household dove, or whoever has, can do it. The Leon Institute of Culture has been taking out assist for the restoration of palomars for greater than thirty years and we all know that different provinces even have related aids or they’re approving them. There are somewhat little bit of hope, since of their twenty years most of the palomars will solely stay within the books, as a result of half will now not exist.