Las Hurdes
Las Hurdes is a low mountain range of around 500 km² and a community association ( mancomunidad or comarca ) founded in 1996 in the north of the Spanish province of Cáceres in the Extremadura region . The Hurdes gained a certain fame worldwide because of the documentary film Las Hurdes - Tierra sin Pan ("Land Without Bread") directed by Luis Buñuel in 1932 .
location
The strongly rugged landscape of Las Hurdes is located in the Iberian Mountains in the extreme north of the province of Cáceres on the border with the neighboring region of Castile-León at an altitude of around 400 to 1300 m , with most of the settlements at heights of 450 to 700 m. The highest mountains are the Pico del Mingorro (1627 m) and the Pico de la Boya (1519 m). A small part in the northeast of the Hurdes is taken up by the Las Batuecas-Sierra de Francia Natural Park . Despite the only average rainfall (approx. 570 mm / year), the landscape is criss-crossed by numerous brooks (arroyos) and small rivers (ríos) , which, however, can dry up in summer and early autumn; the most important of them is the Río Hurdano .
Communities
The community association (mancomunidad) consists of six municipios with a total of 40 hamlets (pedanías) and over 6,000 inhabitants.
| local community | Height above M. | Area km² | Population 1900 | Population 1950 | Residents 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caminomorisco | 475 | 147.1 | 964 | 1,852 | 1,203 |
| Casar de Palomero | 520 | 36.9 | 1,433 | 2.148 | 1,151 |
| Casares de las Hurdes | 690 | 19.5 | 381 | 922 | 405 |
| Ladrillar | 680 | 53.0 | 919 | 1,161 | 234 |
| Nuñomoral | 500 | 94.8 | 1,082 | 2,279 | 1,355 |
| Pinofranqueado | 450 | 148.9 | 1,092 | 2.023 | 1,785 |
economy
The traditional self-sufficiency economy on the rocky and barren soils of the Hurdes is based on a few products that could hardly be sold in markets because of the great distances and poor transport routes: barley used to be the main staple food, which was not used to make bread , but porridge or soup has been; there were also olive trees and garden vegetables such as onions , carrots , cabbage etc. In the 17th / 18th In the 19th century, potatoes were also added. Animal products were eggs and honey, as well as milk , cheese and meat from sheep and goats . Very tasty ham and sausages were made from wild and domestic pigs . However, the most important trade products in the region were cork and charcoal . During the Franco era, large parts of the once cleared mountain areas were reforested. Today summer hiking and fishing tourism in the forest and water-rich landscape of the Hurdes plays a major role in the economic life of the communities.
history
Stone Age hunters and gatherers left some rock carvings and egg-shaped steles with incisions. Celts , Romans , Visigoths and Moors cared only marginally about this remote region, which for a long time served the inhabitants of the surrounding valleys as a summer pasture for their herds ( transhumance ) and was probably only gradually settled from the Middle Ages onwards. In 1289 a Dehesa de Jurde ("pasture of the Hurdes") was first mentioned in a document. The playwright Lope de Vega described - based on a travel report - in his play Las batuecas del Duque de Alba around the year 1634 the area as unworldly and godless. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that researchers and photographers began to be interested in the unspoilt region: In 1904 the magazine Las Hurdes was created and in 1908 Francisco Jarrín y Moro, the then Bishop of Coria , founded the Sociedad Esperanza de Las Hurdes . In 1914, the French intellectual Maurice Legendre and the Spanish-Basque writer Miguel de Unamuno toured the region. They were followed in 1922 by the Spanish King Alfonso XIII. Maurice Legendre published his work Las Jurdes: étude de géographie humaine in 1927 , which ultimately gave the impetus for Luis Buñuel's film.
It is noteworthy that many places on the northeast side of the Sierra de Francia (e.g. La Alberca , Miranda del Castañar , San Esteban de la Sierra ), which is only a few kilometers away and belongs to the province of Salamanca , are significantly better developed.
Living conditions
The old one- or two-story houses in many places are often on (partly terraced) slopes and consist of small to medium-sized field stones that could be picked up anywhere and that were sealed with a little earth; Stone shingles (losas) that were found or appropriately hewn were used for the roofs . The old houses had no windows; Daylight only entered the house when the door was open. The smoke from the kitchen fire escaped through the cracks in the roof; Chimneys were unknown. With the first rays of sun you got up and at sunset you went to sleep - often on straw. Water was drawn from a nearby stream, which in summer was often reduced to a series of brackish pools. In winter one was cold; Malaria epidemics spread in summer . The infant mortality rate was high and the average life expectancy was only 35 to 40 years. Churches or chapels were rare and even monks avoided the area - so various pre-Christian superstitious customs and healing arts could persist until the early 20th century.
Movie
The documentary film Las Hurdes - Land without bread , shot by Luis Buñuel in 1932 not in the Hurdes itself, but in the vicinity of the neighboring Salmantine town of La Alberca , traces the extraordinarily hard and arduous life of the people in the remote mountain regions of Spain, some of them Scenes should also be deliberately exaggerated and shocking.
