Beyond Rivalry

This article -- "The Last Untouchable in Europe" -- in the Independent on Monday brought to my attention a group of people I had no idea existed: the Cagot, in the Pyrenees region of France, who may or may not be descended from "Moorish soldiers left over from the 8th century Muslim invasion of Spain and France."

"'To talk about the Cagots is still a bad thing in the mountains. The French are ashamed of what they did to us, the Cagots are ashamed of what they were. That is why no one, these days, will confess they are of Cagot descent.'" 

From before the 13th century until well after the French Revolution in 1789, the Cagot were regarded as an inferior people: 

• They lived in ghettos "on the malarial side of the river"

• When they came into town, "they had to report their presence by shaking a rattle."

• They were forced to "wear a goose's foot conspicuously pinned to their clothes."

• In churches, they had to use their own doors and fonts and "were given communion on the end of long wooden spoons."

• They were forbidden from most trades and professions.

• "They were not allowed to walk barefoot, like normal peasants."

• They were perpetual scapegoats: "'If there was any crime in a village ... the Cagot was usually blamed. Some were actually burned at the stake.'" Others had hands chopped off and their feet pierced with hot iron spikes.