At the last moment the Bullfighter is one

Launched as a train brakes were released, the cattle darkens the motionless man, hitting the runway of the foot, from the cause. Five centimetres of the horns, the daring, without outline a step aside, undulates in a contortion of Indian dancer by the trance, and one iota, deflects the load of the animal. Olé!

Anyone who attended the spectacle of racing Landes the first of the season, which lasts eight months, took place early March to Gamarde, small village of Chalosse knows how this bullfighting has little to do with the cartoon in formerly proposed television in "Intercity". The restaurateur Alain Dutournier, originally of the Chalosse, in has convinced me one day where we talked about bullfighting. As the head of the star restaurant Le Carré des feuillants long chaired the Dax feria racing and was also honoured in the arenas of Bayonne and Saint-Sever. He is himself a little "show Toreador" and is not reluctant to take the cape in private forums.

Ancient hobby

This true aficionado has supported me, between PEAR and cheese, that Landes race was the Bullfight art par excellence, sincere of the Bullfight and the even more distant origins, as evidenced by the frescoes in the Palace of Knossos in Crete. In fact, he explained to me in an assault of scholarship as impetuous as the load of a bull, "found mention in a letter of remission of the 15th century the authorizing the streets of Saint-Sever for the holiday of the Saint John." During all the previous regime, religious authorities tried to ban Bull Racing in the Southwest and, finally, in the 18th century, Antoine of Etigny, intendant of Gascony and Béarn, seeing that he could not prevent the Gascons to kill between them, them was tolerated on condition that they take place in arenas.

Half satisfied, I have decided to join friend Dutournier to pot near Dax where, every summer during the "temporada", he transformed his family home in a private sort of "peòa". Because the Dax feria, in addition to being one of the highlights of the Bullfight season in France, opens with the "great competition landais" in which the best bullfighters, since it is also the name given, face the toughest cows. Their connection, Alain Dutournier had held me warned: "Do not think that a cow is less dangerous than a toro bravo." As it does kill at the end each has hundreds of mano a mano with human experience. This makes them extremely intelligent. "And, in fact, until the balls at the horns become mandatory in 1924, there were a death by season, told"a pierced ". The great carnage of 14-18 and the revolt of the tenants of the Bas Adour in 1920 changed the gives of an art where, unlike bullfights, the animal had chance and human very little.

These cows, we will see in a "ganaderia" of a small village in the Chalosse, to AMU, in Jean-Louis Deyris. All winter, peaceful Bovidae graze in freedom on the rolling hillside. But this apparent peace must not be illusion. Since the end of the 19th century, they are from the herd of bulls of combat in the area of Salamanca. When it comes to the season, the farmer brings together in a corral where they return of fierce fighting. "The vaca brava, such as the bull, is the only animal that does not stand to flight distance before human but if it considers its threatened territory in our country," said Jean-Louis Deyris by travelling with us pens, safely perched on a tractor. "ganadero" is a compelling character of the Landes race. Not only because it provides the livestock but because it maintains its costs his team of toreros, the "cuadrilla". He is able to provide a complete show to the hundred of arenas, South of the Adour, hosting from new races.

Bovine cunning

In a triangle whose peak would Auch, Bayonne and Dax, small village step indeed that has its enclosure. Of Pomarez, where are the first arenas covered France, AMU where they bask in the shadow of the plane passing through the beautiful arenas of Dax, more major arenas of the Southwest with their eight thousand places, planted by the Adour as a cathedral, part of landscape and the pride of the inhabitants. In fact, throughout this territory of Biscay, North of the Béarn, West of the Gers and of course the Chalosse, with its polyculture prosperous and its many rural world and good living, is the election of the Landes race ground. As rugby, which recruits here its best elements, this pays de Cocagne, homeland of armagnac, liver

fatty and the said ham "of Bayonne" is autocélèbre in holiday season where wild cow plays the role of a unifying totem, symbol of the indomitable small homelands.

The arena, secular temple

Need to browse these extended villages where each farm is a Kingdom on its Hill. On the main square, the Church and the Town Hall, the secular power and religious power, the arena seems to represent the permanence of an age-old culture, secular or Christian. And at the same time, always of news. Michel Lalanne, President of the French Federation of the Landes race, a solid gaillard at the beautiful Bacchae of Gauls, explains in his own way this visceral attachment to a tradition dating back to prehistory: "Before, young people who were successful in studies, went looking for work in the city." Today, with the rise in power of the agri-food in the economy of the region, those returning farms have gone at least to the BTS. They are proud of their values and to are amazed. If the Landes race missed falling into folklore in the 1960s, vitality rural.

Goes to this socio-economic explanation. But once past this doctoral approach, recognize also that the Landes race, like all tauromachies, is a show that takes tripe and you also returns to primitive fears, to extraordinary courage. Because he needed to confront the "vaca brava". Alain Dutournier said at his former manner: "it is a little Fanfan la Tulipe, anyone that does not face the Bull. Belluaires entering the arena know well: the couriers have beautiful have buffers at the end of the horns, be held at the end of a rope by the "courdayre" that anticipates their movements, they know enough to drag a leg at the last moment and offset by a ruse in their own way the means implemented to channel their aggressiveness. At the last moment, the Bullfighter is one.

Great contest of Dax

And here we are to Dax for the feria, the Summit of the Bullfight season both for the bullfights for Landes race. In 2005, 800,000 people met in the middle of August in a city which has barely 20,000 in normal time. On the large shady Plaza of plane trees in the Adour aplomb, it is the great day crowd to arenas. Aficionados are distinguished by their uniforms, trousers and white shirt, red scarf around his neck. "bandas" cut their way in music. It feels good the merguez.

The first day is reserved for the Grand new competition and attracts a crowd also dense than come to the bullfights in the coming days where El Fundi and Juan José Padilla are announced. For the moment, the toreros have names which good smack the Biscay: Loïc Lapoudge, Eric Labeyrie or Guillaume Vergonzeanne. These belluaires that the arena is full, they are not more than eighteen years on average. Proof of its vitality, the Landes race saw these last two years a whole generation replace glorious elders. What are these kids that go to make the show.

First, the jumpers open ball: the beast, they pounce, the arms on the cross as the divers in Acapulco and collect behind the animal in a spectacular parachute. "estrangers" as we say in the South of the Adour appreciate, but the real enthusiasts also prefer the work of the spacers, more technical and more risky. There is a simple movement of the hips that it deflects the load of the beast. A step aside is allowed by a disapproving murmur, two steps constitute a real departure from the rule.

Discussions are Byzantine in the aisles as the choice with the evasion is also important: the most beautiful runs are on the inside of the rope. The "courdayre" happy here compared to the drill of the Bullfight then loses its grip on the cow and is no longer able to control the treacherous Horn kick where the anticipation of the gap by the beast. A few good firm "tumades" are assessing the bravery of those who are. Their exploits are commented on intarissablement by the "débisaire", the speaker whose flow is also appreciated by the crowds as fans cursed. In the end, a wounded shoulder removed, toured with the other runway. The "Cazérienne", the anthem of the Landes race flonflons, echoed. Next to me, Alain Dutournier resumed at screamed the chorus singing in chorus by spectators: "Hi toréadors whose eye sheds the flame, you, a light step, look bulls, moods, move the crowd you cheers, come and defeat the death to the noise of our bravos.