Of Bones, Caves and History

JBN-8 EUROPE/RUSSIA Jean Benoît Nadeau is a Fellow of the Institute studying “the resistance of the French to the trend ICWA of economic and cultural globalization.” Of Bones, Caves and History LETTERS In Which Our Fellow, Having Set To Entertain Himself By Exploring Caverns, Finds That Looking At France From Below Is An Interesting Vantage Point For More Observations. Since 1925 the Institute of Current World Affairs (the Crane- PARIS, France October, 1999 Rogers Foundation) has provided long-term fellowships to enable By Jean Benoît Nadeau outstanding young professionals to live outside the United States “Oui allo.” and write about international areas and issues. An exempt “Chabert ici.” operating foundation endowed by the late Charles R. Crane, the I needed only one word, not even his name, to recognize the voice of Jacques Institute is also supported by Chabert, president of le Spéléo-Club de Paris (the Paris Speleological Club), a cen- contributions from like-minded tury-old association devoted to cave exploration. Because of an old interest in caverns, I had naturally been drawn to this Club in the first months of my stay. individuals and foundations. In April, I even participated in the Club’s annual underground pique-nique, for which the table was laid in a gigantic hall of chalk in a suburban quarry west of Paris. Having been properly wined and danced in the bosom of Paris, I was all TRUSTEES the more ready when Chabert phoned in early May to invite me to join him for a Bryn Barnard camping trip in St-Pé-de-Bigorre, a tiny village in southern France. The pretext Carole Beaulieu for this nine-hour road trip was five days of spelunking at the occasion of our Mary Lynne Bird sport federation’s annual rassemblement (gathering). What a great occasion to William F. Foote use again my good-old equipment! Peter Geithner Pramila Jayapal I had one good reason for bringing my exploration gear to France: With 30,000 Peter Bird Martin known caves, the République is the Mecca of speleology. The country numbers Judith Mayer about 20,000 modern-day cavemen — cavers, spelunkers, spéléos, spéléologistes, Dorothy S. Patterson as they call themselves.1 They survey 50 to 200 km of new galleries each year Paul A. Rahe and organize about 50 international expeditions per year. The other superpower Carol Rose of speleology is the U.S., which harbors just as many caves, and the world’s John Spencer biggest (Mammoth Cave, a 560-km maze, in Kentucky). There may be as many Edmund Sutton American as French spelunkers, but France enjoys a special status as the birth- Dirk J. Vandewalle place of modern spéléologie. Consequently the French, who were the first to sys- Sally Wriggins tematize and structure the discipline, remain the best organized. For instance, the Fédération française de spéléologie (7,700 members strong) is an active political HONORARY TRUSTEES organization that runs rescue missions and even a school (see sidebar 1). David Elliot David Hapgood I discovered caverns in 1987 when, as a young journalist, I embarked upon Pat M. Holt an expedition organized by the Société québécoise de spélélogie. I had then no Edwin S. Munger Richard H. Nolte 1 Because the French are not afraid of big words, everybody refers to them as spéléologistes, Albert Ravenholt who practice spéléologie, although the sportsmen refer to themselves as spéléos. English Phillips Talbot speakers who explore caves call themselves “cavers,” and non-cavers call them “spelunkers.” Those less concerned with sport and more with science are “speleologists.” To purists, the exploration of abandoned quarries is not speleology, properly speaking, because these are Institute of Current World Affairs artificial galleries and not real caverns. “I don’t share this view,” says Chabert. “Spele- The Crane-Rogers Foundation ologists explore the caves they happen to have. In the Sptizberg islands, it’s ice caves. In Four West Wheelock Street Hawaii, it’s volcanic caves. And in Paris, it’s quarries.” The central problem comes from Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 U.S.A. what you happen to call a cave. It is, after all, a very anthropomorphic concept: a cave is “enterable” space, which excludes a whole slew of orifices and conduits. experience with caves whatsoever, but off I went to ex- English Literature, had lent himself to such an experi- plore the caverns of Sierra Negra, in the State of Puebla, ment that consisted of spending four and a half months Mexico. The inhabitants of this isolated area of rainforest underground in a cave with no possibility of seeing natu- are Nahuatl Indians, descendants of the Aztecs. Because ral light! Those were the years. A passionate geographer, we could reach the sierra only by mule, getting there was Chabert soon after crossed Amazonia in a canoe with a half the fun. We explored impressive caves. One pit, called friend. He married, but this was not his last eccentricity. Le Petit Québec, turned out to be 328 meters deep in full Two years ago, he took off with his backpack to walk drop. Another discovery, Ehecatl, is 800 meters deep and 2,000 kilometers to make le pèlerinage de Compostelle (the eight kilometers long — and it still “goes” — meaning, pilgrimage of Compostela), a still-lively medieval tradi- that’s not the end of it and you can still go further. tion that took him from Paris to Spain’s land’s end in the western province of Galicia. This was how I discovered, at 22, this very bizarre discipline about which I have always remained ambiva- Old traditions die hard, and the date of the gather- lent. After all, this is an extremely eccentric activity, and ing had been set on le weekend (French for fin de semaine) a hybrid one too boot, half science, half sport, with the of a very important holiday in France, the Ascension of consequence that it’s hard to even figure out what it is Jesus, which is typical of the kind of practical jokes spe- exactly (see sidebar #2). I love the outdoors and don’t lunkers tell among themselves. mind getting cold, wet or dirty, but not cold, wet and dirty all at once, which is what you get in a cavern. This con- Nine hours of driving and 250 FF of toll later, Chabert tradictory attitude called for some compromise. I ended and I planted our tents in a cow field next to St-Pé-de- up editing the magazine of the Société québécoise de Bigorre in the Department of Pyrénnées Atlantiques, named spéléologie for five years and have been working on a novel after the barrier of conical mountains between Spain and on the topic. This is another common ground I share with France. Located in the foothills, St-Pé-de-Bigorre is the Jacques Chabert, who has been the perpetual editor of classical French commune (as puny towns are known in the publication of the Spéléo-Club de Paris. polite parlance). It features a public place, a central ar- cade, a big church, a 17th-century college and a few bars. * * * The town’s claim to fame is its proximity to Lourdes, the pilgrimage town where the Virgin Mary is said Chabert was the perfect companion for a peregrina- to have appeared to one Bernadette Soubirous in the tion across France. A self-employed translator of travel grotto of Massabielle in 1853. The Virgin hardly literature with an encyclopedic knowledge and an insa- showed any imagination in choosing such a place for tiable curiosity for people and places, he never runs short an appearance. Like a Swiss cheese, the area around St- of topics of conversation. He is a true-blue speleologist, Pé-de-Bigorre is riddled with 800 known caves — one by vocation, which sets him in a class apart both in the under- world and as a person, although he would be the first Jacques Chabert, in 1968, plays to deny this. I had called him guitar during the four months and one day in March to get some half he spent underground. The information about his club purpose of confinement experiments and we got along immedi- was to measure how humans adapted ately. Jokingly, we now call to an environment deprived of the each other Cher collègue (My normal day-night cycle – like in a dear colleague). spacecraft or a nuclear submarine. It was found that the physiological day An hour into our car trip, cycle could stretch from 24 hours to it came to me why Chabert’s 108 hours depending on the subject face had been so familiar. I had and that people in such environments seen his picture in the very tend to spend more hours awake first book I bought in France, without loss of mental ability or skill. Dans les abîmes de la terre (In These experiments were conducted by The Abysses Of The Earth). French speleologist Michel Siffre, The author, Michel Siffre, nar- who was even hired by NASA to rates the story of experiments perform one on himself in Texas in on confinement he conducted 1972 – he was locked in for six months underground in the 1960s and and thought he had spent only three 1970s (See picture). It turned when he was told his time was over. out that in 1967, Chabert, then a young holder of a B.A. in 2 JBN-8 walk, gutters, fake stalactites. The non-tour- istic part, farther in, required us to climb slippery talus and breakdowns and crawl about one kilometer in narrow tunnels. We had a map of the cave but it quickly became wet and dirty too, before shredding.

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