Fêtes Du Papogay

Ariège and the surrounding departments are full of festivals and activities throughout the summer.  It seems that every weekend there is something to do and see within an hour's drive.  Last weekend was the Fêtes Du Papogay (Festival of the Parrot) in the medieval town of Rieux Volvestre in the neighboring department of Haute Garonne.

The festival has a variety of activities, but is most known for it's archery competition, where competitors of various ages attempt to shoot a bird shaped wooden decoy (Parrot) off poles of varying heights, up to 45 meters (147 ft).  The archers (all men...see history section below) are divided into three age groups, Petit (14 and under?), Moyen (teens), and Grand (18+).  Each group, consisting of 20+ archers, shoots at a decoy at a height that tests their skill level and it takes several volleys of arrows before a bird is knocked down.  The archer who knocks the bird down for their age division is crowned Roi (king) of the festival for the year.

The roots of the festival stretch back to the 14th century, when King Edward III of England defeated King Philip VI of France at the Battle of Crécy in 1346 (one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years War).  Edward used the Welsh Longbow and superior field position to defeat the French, despite being greatly outnumbered.  Philip realized the tactical value of the bow and proclaimed a series of ordinances to encourage the development of archery in France.  Gunpowder replaced the bow over the next two centuries, but the tradition of archery remained in the culture, especially in the North and South.  The first preserved records of archery traditions in Rieux Volvestre date to 1585 & 1589. 

I'm not sure exactly how the tradition of the festival evolved from the middle ages to the mid 20th century, but apparently the event took on a legendary aspect in 1958 when a Gascon poet named Jules Ponsolle wrote a ballad to describe the event.

Rather than a mere display of archery, Ponsolle converted the event into a tale of seduction and trickery, where the Devil sought to seduce the daughter of the lord of the town.  The lord feared that his daughter would become enchanted, so he ordered the town people to kill the Devil, promising the hand of his daughter to whoever killed the demon.  To escape the horde, the Devil converted into a parrot (Papogay) and attempted to flee, but was shot down by a young shepherd boy named Tantiro.  As a reward for killing the demon, Tantiro won the title of "king" of Rieux and the heart of the lords daughter.  

Today, the archery portion of the festival begins with a parade of all the participants through the narrow streets of Rieux.  It is a lively display of horsemen and horsewomen, bands of various sorts, people clad in medieval garb (frequently displaying the yellow and green colors of the city), and archers (all men) dressed in black pants, a white shirt and a red sash.  The parade ends at a soccer field where the archers set up and arrows start flying.

The birds are difficult to knock off (they weigh 4.5 Kg, 9.9 lbs)  and generally take several shots before eventually getting brought down.  We watched the kids burn through all their arrows before someone realized that the bird was still totally stuck to the pole and wouldn't fall.  Watching the kids shoot at the bird was sort of like watching an inevitable bicycle crash...They all line up directly under the bird, then launch arrows straight into the sky...most of them fly in all sorts of random directions, bouncing off the poles, bird and other random things.  Usually the arrows fly into the field to be later recovered by the overly excited kids, but occasionally, arrows fly directly back down into the archers, or into the crowd of musicians and spectators behind them, making for some exciting sports action.  :)

They fixed it and after a couple more volleys, one of the kids knocked the bird off the pole and was crowned.  We didn't stick around for the men to shoot at the highest bird at 45 meters, but I imagine it would be an impressive sight.  Apparently, there can be up to 100 archers that each shoot 20-30 arrows per volley....

The king of the 2010 Fêtes Du Papogay!