A new exhibit at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum gives visitors an inside look at a centuries-old cowboy culture in France.

“Gardians of the Camargue: The French Buckaroo Tradition” is now open at the Museum in Las Cruces and will be on display through March 9, 2008. This traveling exhibit features 69 framed photographs and artifacts depicting the culture of the Gardians of the Camargue.

“We are not so far removed from people of other cultures,” said Curator Lorraine Rawls. “We have threads that connect us across lands and oceans — some through conjoined histories, some through poetry and music, and some through our passion for horses.”

In a small area of France called the Camargue, along the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Rhone, there are cowboys not unlike our own. They are called gardians. The Brotherhood of the Gardians dates back to 1512 and centers on century-old traditions. In 1905, this culture was revived by a Frenchman named Folo de Baroncelli, a writer and rancher living in the Camargue. Baroncelli was inspired by Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show when he saw the show in Paris.

The exhibit features the black-and-white photography of Kevin Martini-Fuller, the color photography of Rawls, the interpretive paintings of Karen Foster-Wells, along with tools and clothing unique to the Camargue region.

For more information contact Craig Massey at (575) 522-4100.

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