Gypsies traditional pilgrimage to Saintes Maries de la Mer |
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Collection title
Regional reportages for the national news
First broadcast date
05/25/1960
Abstract
Traditional gathering of Gypsies in Saintes Maries de La Mer, to venerate Mary Salome, Mary Jacob and Sarah the Black Madonna.
The women dance to the rhythm of the guitarist, the sardines are grilled on the brazier and the horses enter the sea...
Primary theme
Religious Practices
Secondary themes
- Society and way of life / Festivals and traditions
Credits / Cast
- Bellair Robert - Journalist
Map locations
- France - South East - Saintes Maries de la Mer
Context
Gypsies traditional pilgrimage to Saintes Maries de la Mer
Bernard Cousin
Every year for the last century or so the Gitans, or nomadic gypsies, have gathered together at a small town in the French Camargue, Les Saintes-Maries-de-la Mer, to celebrate an unusual saint, a black servant, Sarah. The town itself is an unusual place, right at the tip of the Rhone delta and facing the sea, so squeezed between the two bodies of water. It could be the end of the world. The church, originally Roman then fortified in the 14th century, was a stopping-off point on the pilgrim route to St James of Compostela. Two saints are worshipped there, Marie Jacobé, the Virgin Mary's sister, and Marie Salomé, mother of John the Baptist. According to medieval legend, written down in 1212 by Gervais de Tilbury in his chronical Otia imperiala, the two Mary's came ashore here with Lazarus, Martha and Marie-Madeleine to spread the Gospel in Gaul. Excavations in the church in 1448, carried out on the orders of King René, uncovered some bones at the time considered to be those of the two Mary's. They were kept in reliquaries, which are still up in the "high chapel" consacrated to Saint Michael. Later Sarah became associated with the two Saintes Maries, sometimes being shown as an eastern princess sometimes as their servant. The Gitans adopted her as their patron saint: "Sarah la kâli". Her statue, like a black Virgin Mary, is down in the church's crypt.
The earlier form of worship was rekindled at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th by the Marquis Folco de Baroncelli, a félibre, or student of Camarguais customs. He was the creator of "traditions" which have made the Camargue's cow-boy gardiannes famous. On May 24th the reliquaries containing the bones of the saints are lowered by winches from their raised chapel. A great procession of Gitans from every corner of their world mingling with tourists who want to be part of the pilgrimage, accompanies the statue of Sarah, clothed in brilliant and embroidered cloths, to the sea. The four gypsies who carry her go into the sea up to their thighs, then the statue is taken back into the church. The effigy is followed by a throng of ordinary people with cries of "Long live Saint Sarah". After the procession is a nocturnal Mass, prolonged with singing and dancing to gypsy guitar music. The next day another procession takes the effigies of Marie Salomé and Marie Jacobé in their boat. Brought out of the church, they are put on the sea as a reminder of the legend that they landed here on their journey from Judea, before being taken to a sanctuary. The film is 50 years old and shows the thronging crowd, the joyous atmosphere and the different phases of the pilgrimage, now enshrined as an immutable traditon and celebrated every year.
