Orri

A orri is an old installation of mountain pasture in high and medium mountains ariégeoise or Catalan woman, having been used with the draft of the ewes or the goats and with manufacture of cheese as orri.

Origin and evolution of the term

In the the Eastern Pyrenees, until the middle of the XXe century the Catalan term orri in the broad sense indicated a district of pasture for the sheep and with the direction restricts a non covered lodging, while the hut of the shepherds had as a name barraca (francized in barraque , with two “R”, in documents of file of the XVIIIe century, cf “ the orri with the barraques ones who are built there for the residence of the guards ”). The term orri was also employed in the top Vicdessos, area of the close department the Ariège, in the direction of exploitation site pastoral in the Estive S. The orri of the Roussillon or high Vicdessos was thus the equivalent of the jaça the top Couserans, of the couyelà of the Bigorre and the cujalà of the Béarn, installations of mountain pasture which included/understood one or more huts for the shepherds, a girded surface of a dry stone wall for the draft or the rest of the ewes and various shelters for the manufacture of cheese.

For the Pyrenean shepherds of the XIXe century, iron orri / to make (it) orri , it was to settle in the pastures of mountain pasture for the draft of the ewes and the manufacture of cheese, the famous formatge of orri / cheese of orri .

Following a bearing misinterpretation on this expression and against any linguistic obviousness, one wanted to see in the term orri an architectural and either space reality: dry stone sheep-fold in Conflent, cants of shepherd in high Vicdessos, so that today barraques and huts is found baptized orri by Tourism.

Life in the orris ariégois

The life in the orris ariégeois at the XIXe century was described by various authors (Joseph Dangerma; Claude Rivals; Jean Besset and Al), by taking as example high Vicdessos in country of Foix.

While part of the family was activated in the valleys with the meadow and agricultural work, one or two members “went up to the orri ”, i.e. with the mountain pastures, to supervise there the animals, sheep or bovines. The orri included a whole whole of small buildings or devices: the hut of the shepherds, the masuc , the cabanat , the marga , the parec .

The hut of the shepherds was a building arched by corbelling, 3,50 m length on 2,50 m broad on average and of at least 2 m in height, covered a good thickness of ground turfed or girbage and equipped with a long corridor of entry being used as hopper, with for any chimney, a hole in the wall. No the table, knees by holding place. Like seats, a district of rock or a banquet out of wooden. A beat-side in lauses, or jas , covered with straw, heather or broom, for any bed. A trunk for the provisions. finestroles , or niches, for the arrangement of the menus objects. In a corner, ustensils for the manufacture of cheese. Beside the entry, the niche of the affected dog to the guard as with defense.

The masuc , formed of a driving conduit in a high underground room on average of 1,20 m, was anything else only one cellar where, on racks, the cheeses matured. It was sometimes integrated into the hut of the shepherds. Its site, its orientation and its material were selected carefully.

The cabanat was a large shelter for the animals sick or ready to put low or for the ass.

The parec , or parré , was an enclosure of dry stone walls being used to protect the animals from the wolves the night or to gather them for the care or of the draft.

A marga , or margue , corridor more or less long, as one meter of width approximately, served to tighten the ewes for the draft, thus facilitating the task of the milker who was held with the narrowest end and freshest, often in the shade of a rock. The margue was sometimes semi-underground, even underground, and finished then in the cabanat .

With these five fundamental buildings were added:
- the soue, PEN or parson LED pig , where each evening the pigs were locked up, nourished with small milk;
- hen houses, rudimentary shelters integrated into the walls of the buildings and provided with perches;
- the feeder canal of water, besau or canaleta , leading water to the orri .

The construction of all these works required the use of various tools: dig, bars with mine, lever, mass, goat or hoist. Certain shepherds, the peïriés , were even specialized in the construction of the orris . The stones were taken in the close falls.

The division of the mountain pastures, the spatial distribution of the orris concerned tacit agreements. There were groupings of several orris pertaining to various families.

Today, the shepherds “do not make any more the orri ” and the sites of mountain pasture are with the abandonment since 1965.

Sources

Joseph Dangerma, It was a vault… at the bottom of a valley , impr. Gadust-Steffan, Foix, 1979, in share. pp. 11-16 and 104-106 (photographs)
Claude Rivals, volume Toulouse and Pyrenean Midday of the Corpus of the French rural architecture, Shepherd-Levrault, 1979, in share. chap. 6 (the pastoral habitat of high mountain), pp. 102-104
Christian Lassure, Huts and cortals of Roussillon or the myth of the capitelles and the orris , Studies and searchs for vernacular Architecture, No 11,1991,9 p.
Jean Besset, Patrice Manor house, Olivier Sanchez, the orris of the haut-Vicdessos, in vernacular stone architecture dries of the South of France: unit, diversity, prospective , Acts of the conference of Auzat and Juice-and-Sentenac the June 12th and 13rd 1999, southernmost Federation of the dry stone, S.L., 2000, pp. 3-15
Yves Gruet, orris of Vicdessos (Ariège) on average and high mountain: environment, the structure and the operation of these stone habitats, communication to the 126e national congress of the historical and scientific companies (Grounds and men of the South) , Toulouse, 2001, summarized with http://www.cths.fr/4DACTION/www_Con_Communic/75

Internal bonds

Pastoralisme Definition
Aas old pastoral saving in a village of high Béarn

External bonds

Haut-Vicdessos (Ariège): huts of orris
Huts out of dry stones in the Eastern Pyrenees
coueylas in country of Toy (valley of Barège) (Hautes-Pyrénées)

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