Dynamics of Informal Networking: Two Studies of Cattle Draft in the Perspective of Deeper Time

Abstract

At the present time, two thirds of the world’s farmers work with draft animals, most especially cattle. This has become exceptional in Europe, but such practices are today attracting attention as an example of intangible heritage seen in the new light of sustainability. This study is two‐pronged, focusing on the promotion of cattle draft through informal networking today and on an early medieval example of the process of engaging with technological change involving both material and immaterial heritage.

Keywords:

• Cattle Draft
• Harness
• Yokes
• Medieval Irish Literature
• Networking
• Intangible Heritage

Acknowledgements

A first version of this text was presented as one of the keynote papers in the ‘Sin am Fearann Caoin’ Heritage and the Environment Conference, held 19–22 June 2007, at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in the Isle of Skye under the auspices of SMO and Glasgow Caledonian University. The technical aspects are more developed in Griffin‐Kremer, ‘Du joug de tête au joug de garrot. Récit mythique et changement technique?’ and a brief survey of traditional sources in Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh literature is to be found in Griffin‐Kremer, ‘Bovine Bodies and the Domestication of the Human Mind’.

Notes

[1] Avon, Traction Animale, Inventaire des attelages.

[2] For example, the films by Vasco Lima and Lorène Cancel on the 2004 International Meeting in Alzen (Les boeufs au travail et les mules qui dansent), on the work of the expert ox‐ and mule‐driver Olivier Courthiade or scenes from René Duranton’s films on farmers still using oxen in work.

[3] NB. illustrations cited here are from several authors’ articles included in Pétrequin et al., Premiers chariots, premiers araires, Pl. III, pp. 12, 82, 284, 394; see full discussion in Pétrequin et al., ‘Travois et jougs néolithiques du Lac de Chalain à Fontenu (Jura, France)’, 91–103.

[4] See FECTU website: http://www.fectu.org.

[5] See EARTH website: http://www.earth.arts.gla.ac.uk/html/home.html.

[6] Starkey, Réseau pour le développment, 14.

[7] The Ecomusée d’Alzen in Ariège, southern France, hosted an international meeting in October of 2004 on working with cattle, the Rheinisches Freilichtmuseum in Kommern and the Westfälisches Freilichtmuseum in Detmold have both been hosts to the German working group’s meetings (Arbeitsgruppe Rinderanspannung).

[8] The Bergerie Nationale was the venue for a meeting in September of 2006 under the auspices of the FAIR (Festival Animalier International de Rambouillet) on ox‐chanting; the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales hosted an early 1980s meeting on cattle at work that inspired the 1997 and 1998 meetings, see Sigaut et al., Les bœufs au travail and Dalin, Les boeufs au travail; the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle hosted a November 2006 meeting of archaeologists, ethnologists, veterinarians and historians under the auspices of the SEZ (Société d’Ethnozootechnie) and the HASRI (L’homme et l’animal. Société de recherche interdisciplinaire, editor of the journal Anthropozoologica), cf. Denis and Fanica, Les Bovins: de la domestication à l’élevage.

[9] See, for example, research and development in the field of combined motorised and animal‐powered technologies such as those designed at Cart Horse Machinery in Great Britain, equipment provided by Prommata in France, not to mention the many public and private research teams around the world involved in development of light equipment for animal draft.

[10] A reshuffling of the guidelines set out in Starkey, Réseau pour le développement, 34–50, and Local Transport Solutions, 41.

[11] Lucas, Cattle in Ancient Ireland, 223–45; Kelly, Early Irish Farming, 27–9, 57–66.

[12] Skeat, A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 80, 86.

[13] Lucas, Cattle in Ancient Ireland, 125–99; Pennant, A Tour in Scotland, 204–5.

[14] O’Sullivan, Songs of the Irish, 33, 143–4, 164–5; or O’Sullivan and O Suilleabhain, Bunting’s Ancient Music of Ireland, 63–4, without even touching on the wealth of song associated with cattle in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

[15] O’Rahilly, Táin Bó Cúalnge, from the Book of Leinster, 272.

[16] Roider, De Chophur in Da Muccida, 19–21, 63–4, 75–6, 94.

[17] Kelly, Early Irish Farming, 48.

[18] Sherratt, ‘La traction animale et la transformation de l’Europe néolithique’; and all of Petriquin et al., Premiers chariots, premiers araires.

[19] All of Petriquin, Premiers chariots, premiers araires, illustrations on pp. 17, 18, 51–5, among numerous others in the book; Ebersbach, Von Bauern und Rindern.

[20] Bergin and Best, ‘The Wooing of Etaine’.

[21] Lucas, ‘Irish Ploughing Practices, Part One’, 55–6 citing the Fitness of Names (Cóir Anmann) in Irische Texte 3,330.

[22] Kelly, Early Irish Farming, 393.

[23] Most of the contents of Pétrequin et al., Premiers chariots, premiers araires.

[24] Jean‐Bruhnes Delamarre, Géographie et Ethnologie de l’Attelage du Joug en France du XVIIe siècle à nos jours, 15, 22.

[25] Mitchell Reading the Irish Landscape, Pl. 25, 122, 148; Pétrequin et al., ‘Travois et jougs néolithiques du Lac de Chalain à Fontenu (Jura, France)’; Burmeister, ‘Chemins néolithiques en Allemagne du Nord’.

[26] For nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century Slovenia, personal communication from Inja Smerdel, Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana, November 2006; for the Vosges area in France, see Méchin and Ronsin, Le bœuf d’attelage dans les Vosges; for individual cases in Ireland, see Bell, ‘The Use of Oxen on Irish Farms since the Eighteenth Century’; example from France in Des Colombiers, ‘Note sur le meilleur mode d’attelage des bœufs et des vaches’; and Juston, ‘Commentaires sur Des Colombiers’; for France generally, see Jean‐Bruhnes Delamarre, Géographie et Ethnologie de l’Attelage du Joug en France du XVIIe siècle à nos jours, 15–25; for Pyrenean Spain, see Krüger, Los Altos Pirineos, 33–7, 45–9, and Violant I Simorra Obra Oberta, 159–61, 169, 171–5, 207, 223, 239, etc.

[27] Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 8.70.179, Columella, De re rustica, 2.2.22–24.

[28] Conroy, Oxen, a Teamster’s Guide, 122–8.

[29] Bergin and Best, ‘The Wooing of Etain’, 7–8, 179 in English translation; Lucas, ‘Irish Ploughing Practices, Part One’, 55–6 for the brief passage in the Fitness of Names.

[30] Des Colombiers, ‘Note sur le meilleur mode d’attelage des bœufs et des vaches, 139–42; Bell, ‘The Use of Oxen on Irish Farms since the Eighteenth Century’, 22–26.

[31] Starkey, Polyculteur à traction animale for a comprehensive study of why a European‐developed ‘light’ technology may work handsomely in the research station, but not work out in everyday life for the ordinary farmer in a ‘developing’ country.

[32] Bell, ‘The Use of Oxen on Irish Farms since the Eighteenth Century’.

[33] Krüger, Los Altos Pirineos, 33–7, 45–9; and Violant I Simorra, Obra Oberta, 159–61, 169, 171–75, 207, 223, 239, etc.