Contenu de l'article

Titre L'eau du glacier vallée du Loetschental
Auteur Claude Macherel
Mir@bel Revue Etudes rurales
Numéro no 93-94, 1984 L'eau
Rubrique / Thématique
Les hommes et l'eau
 Imaginaire de l'eau
Page 205-238
Résumé anglais The Glacier's Water Attempting to give credit to the truth value of the origin myth of an alpine glacier, this paper discloses the inner workings of a symbolic explanation of the expansion of the glacier — a phenomenon made uncanny by its erratic periodicity and which alarms, by its sometimes inordinate amplitude, peasants whose life nevertheless depends on water from the glaciers. From the first verses of a cosmogony — that of the Genesis — which the sound patterning of the week locally translates into a way of life on every God given day, to the dark vision of a glacial Apocalypse which ends the paper, with, on the way, the cyclical management of the artificial irrigation systems of the Valais (deliberatly structured so as to signify in practice the continuity of vital processes and the solidarity of the agents who maintain them on earth as well as in Heaven), the analysis throws light on some of the aspects of a native sociological physics the consistency, the rigor, and, therefore, the explanatory power of which have nothing to envy from modern glaciology, this branch of a naturalistic and exogeneous physics.
Source : Éditeur (via Persée)
Article en ligne http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rural_0014-2182_1984_num_93_1_2999