No need for snow to anchor the Christmas spirit in this Mediterranean region.
Once the candle for the first Sunday of Advent has been lit, churches and individuals compete in inventiveness by composing their nativity scene from these red clay figurines, better known under the name of
"santons"
(from the Provençal
"santoun"
,
"little saint ”
).
We keep the baby Jesus warm in the box until Midnight Mass, to hold the donkey, the ox, the shepherds, but also the boumian, as best they can, on the hastily picked up slabs of foam. the ravi, the drummer.
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In the Provençal tradition, transmitted by the famous
"pastorales"
, Christ was indeed born in a region of olive trees, but... in Provence, on a mistral night.
The shepherds warned by the angel Boufaréo relay the message to the inhabitants of the village, a crowd of small characters with various trades whose santon makers continue to lengthen the list each year.
Do you know the most traditional ones?
The delighted
It is the very type of simpleton.
Some make him the village idiot, hence the expression
“delighted with the crib”
which mockingly targets the idiot with his almost silly enthusiasm.
But for the others, he is the inhabitant to place closest to the manger, because his simplicity makes him understand the mystery of Christmas before everyone else.
He has kept his nightcap on, and raises his arms to heaven in wonder.
In Yvan Audouard's pastoral, he never ceases to exclaim:
“How beautiful the world is!
It is not possible that it is so pretty!”
, attracting the ire of well-meaning inhabitants and especially Pistachié.
The farmhand scolded him sharply:
"Oh, listen to Ravi, you're starting to annoy us, eh!"
Of all the inhabitants of the crèche, the ravi is certainly the most
“fada”
.
The drummer
Nicknamed Guillaume, perhaps because of the old Burgundian song “
Guillô takes your tambourine
”, he leads the farandole with the stick.
He is an elegant notable, with a felt hat, a black velvet collar, a wide belt in red woolen fabric (the “
taiole
”).
A man-orchestra, he plays the galoubet, a traditional three-hole flute, with one hand, while he beats time on his tambourine with the other.
The boomian
"The boumian, his job is to steal the hens"
, launches the angel Boufaréo between two bursts of trumpet.
The 18th century of the pastorals is also that of the beginning of the great pilgrimages to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue.
From where a figure of the bohemian, that the Provençal patois contracts in
“boumian”
, very present in the popular culture of the time.
The legend also says that the word comes from the massif of Sainte Baume in which the boumians are forced to hide after their banishment by the first count of Provence.
Just like the term
“bohemian”
, it comes to us from
“Bohemia”
.
Pistachio
He is a farmhand with a versatile and grumpy character, a little cowardly, a little drunk.
He is married to Honorine, the fishmonger.
He looks like he's fallen out of bed with the single strap that holds his pants, his lantern and his seal.
The name has not been translated from patois, and some ancients say it was forged from the “
pistachio
tree”, the Mediterranean tree that gives pistachios.