An innocent anthropologist in the Valls d'Àneu

Nigel Barley, educated at Oxford, spent two years in Cameroon doing fieldwork. From the experience came a hilarious self-critical chronicle, The Innocent Anthropologist. The Dowayos certainly pulled his leg. And he ended up going along with them. The work has become a classic.

This happened in the late 1970s. A few years later, Toni Anyó, a disciple of one of the fathers of Catalan anthropology, the forgotten Claudi Esteve Fabregat, instead of going to Oxford, where he might have met Barley – and where he had been offered further training – settled in Son, the second highest village in the Valls d’Àneu, and dedicated himself to collecting filmed testimonies of the lives of its inhabitants (1982-1985), most of whom were still farmers. The people of Son took it well, without the trickery of the Dowayos. In this case, innocence was shared and symbiotic. Those images have a strong evocative power, in addition to being valuable documents.

The collected material – many hours of filming – which was initially intended for a TV3 documentary that the public channel did not end up making, configures the swan song of a society that for centuries lived from the land and for the land. Today the images can be viewed at the Pyrenean Documentation Centre, a small museum-archive in the village of Son itself, supported by Anyó and a group of members of the non-profit association he heads. The museum opened its doors a decade ago. It receives no public funding.

Anyó is a passionate scientist who has lived on the fringes of academia. Son is his adopted world. He is also the one who, in practice, takes care of the church's Gothic paintings, an altarpiece from the 15th century preserved in situ, by Pere d’Espallargues. It is the only one in the Valls d’Àneu that remains in its original location. It is perfectly restored. The stone fonts for oil and baptism are also admirable.

Another essential character for understanding Pallaresa life is the writer Ferran Rella, from Esterri d'Àneu, the cultural soul of the valleys, which this year celebrates the 35th anniversary of Dansàneu. Without him, culture would not have flourished as it has in this corner of the Pyrenees. Among his latest initiatives is the graphic book Les Valls d’Àneu desaparegudes (Efadós), where, as Martí Domínguez says in the prologue, "Ferran Rella reaps, plows memory anew" with that essential touch of nostalgia and affection. The images, again, like those collected by Anyó, are evocative of a 20th century that experienced the transition from the rural world to electrical and tourist modernity.

The Àneu Valleys, a Pyrenean dead-end for centuries, from 1924 onwards, with the opening of the Bonaigua pass, which connected them by road with Aran, and in the 50s with the hydroelectric power plants that took advantage of the water from the winding Noguera Pallaresa, left behind a mountain-enclosed life, encapsulated in time. The last peak moment was the business that Pallaresa farmhouses did during World War II, selling herds of hoofed animals to the allies: mares, mules, donkeys... In Son, some made a lot of money.

The ancient world from which the Pallaresos came has somehow been preserved at Casa Gassia in Esterri, which houses the Ecomuseum of the Vall d'Àneu valleys, also promoted by Ferran Rella and inaugurated in 1994. By the standards of the time, it was a rich house. By today's standards, it is of a wild austerity. They must have endured a tremendous cold, or perhaps not so much, at least until the 14th century, when what is known as the Little Ice Age (1300-1850) began in Europe.

The large number of Romanesque churches scattered throughout these valleys, of a rustic beauty, in which Lombard influence prevails, are a reminder of secular religious dominance: in the valley, more than a hundred priests served at the same time. In the village of Son alone, there were eleven, spread across three churches, one of which has since disappeared. The Church was a very earthly spiritual power.

Religion tinged everything, from the calendar to aesthetics. Anyó notes the exceptional Romanesque seraphim in the paintings of Pallars. Seraphim were the highest angels, closest to God, with their six wings with all-seeing eyes: the pharmacist Joaquim Morelló, who died 100 years ago, was the one who discovered the mural paintings of Santa Maria d'Àneu with the marvelous seraphim for Domènech i Montaner, Gudiol and Pijoan. Anyó also notes a peculiarity of the Madonnas, such as the one from the monastery of Sant Pere del Burgal, figures who in Romanesque times held a chalice or lamp in one hand, an early connection to the myth of the Holy Grail – perhaps due to Cathar influence? With the Gothic period, it disappears. Women lost power.

Anyó, Rella and, with them, many other scholars and activists have dedicated the last decades to continuing the pioneering work of the ethnographer Ramon Violant i Simorra (1903-1956), originally from Pallars Sobirà. Or to the testimony that Josep Maria Espinàs left in 1959, first in the magazine Destino and later in book format, about the livestock fair in Salàs, which would disappear just a few years later after six centuries of continuity. Today, in Salàs, there is another interesting period museum, the Botigues museum.

This year, the abundant spring has once again tinged the Vall d'Àneu valleys with a dazzling green. Come to Àneu to walk and read a resurrected past.