Where Women Wear Trousers.
By L. Van der Veer.
There is a place up in the mountains of Switzerland where from time immemorial the women have worn the garb and done most of the work of their men-folk, who stop at home and smoke or mind the babies, while their be-trousered wives and daughters toil in the hayfields or among the live stock. In this article Miss Van der Veer describes a visit to this strange and little-known community.
Away up in the mountains of one of the most beautiful cantons of Switzerland, the Valais, the peasant women have for years found it expedient to don the garb of their men-folk and work in the hayfields and among the grazing cattle on the slopes, while their lords and masters lounge their days away in ease and the quiet of their log huts.
Curious to relate, they all seem perfectly contented with this inverted order of things—the men in particular. They brew the herbs, fry the tough-as-leather mountain meat, and look after the babies, while their buxom wives are wrestling with the sterner duties of field and stable.
A SHEPHERDESS ON THE MOUNTAINS.
From a Photograph.
During the summer of 1908 I spent some days in Champéry, the little village in the valley at the foot of the mountains where these strenuous women work and their lazy husbands smoke. At first I felt great disappointment at not seeing them about the village streets, but soon found that they seldom or never came down the mountain-side in their strange garb, or, at any rate, walked about the village in it. Tourists have become so numerous of recent years, and their curiosity so troublesome, that the village fathers have forbidden the women to come into the hamlet without skirts over their masculine nether garments. So whoever cares to behold them in the strange clothes of their choosing must scramble and toil their way up the mountain-side. On Sunday mornings it is highly entertaining to watch these women and young girls come down the zigzag footpaths to the tiny village chapel, where, just outside its doors, they halt and throw their skirts on over their heads in the most unconcerned fashion, as thoughtlessly as the fashionable dame gives her hat a furtive touch as she enters the church doors.
