
Cagot: a persecuted and despised minority found in the west of France - benbreen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot
======
hitekker
The key paragraph:

>The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the
same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as
well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families
identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they should
be hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics,
cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil.

My take is that people generally enjoy having "punching bags". Based off this
article and other instances of man's inhumanity to man, "punching bags" are
people who are:

1) Outlets for existing grievances and resentments, a.k.a. scapegoats.

2) Powerless, weak, and unable to retaliate against abuse, a.k.a. victims.

3) Designed, in the minds of the abusers, for the purpose of being abused,
a.k.a. inferior, subhuman etc.

Through this lens, the aforementioned "reasons" are rationalizations, a facade
over our collective sadism. Sure, a single tragic event may start the cycles
of violence, but the reactor that powers it over generations is our built-in
desire to hurt "other" people, to take pleasure in "their" misery, and, most
significantly, to pretend that "we" are doing so in the interests of morality,
society, etc.

It feels good therefore, it must be good!

Such a twisted sentiment isn't always at the forefront of our minds, but given
how often we as a species and as individuals have sought to make "punching
bags" out of each other, I would say shared-sadism is more sublimated than
staged.

~~~
laretluval
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise
people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy
with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior
'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most
delicious of moral treats." \- Aldous Huxley

~~~
sorokod
The basic premise for most of the marcial arts movies.

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sevensor
I was interested by this story, so I did some more googling, but as far as I
can tell there are only two sources of information about the Cagots on the
internet. One is a widely copy-pasted article by the author Tom Knox promoting
his book about despised peoples, and the other is the 1911 Encyclopaedia
Britannica
([https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britan...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Cagots)).
Might be worth following up on the books cited in the Britannica article.

~~~
ykler
The French Wikipedia article has much more info than the English one.

~~~
sevensor
Thanks for the pointer! I should remember to check out the wikipedia in the
local language for subjects like this.

------
vacri
> _So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to
> walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots.
> The Cagots were often restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and
> rope-maker_

Not that bigotry ever made sense, but "your very touch spoils the road upon
which you walk... but by all means, cut up our meat for us" is a particularly
weird one.

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sevensor
Interesting. Unlike the suppression of linguistic minorities (e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha)),
this is very local and based purely on being a member of the wrong family. It
seems that even during the persecution, nobody could figure out what the
Cagots were being persecuted for, other than a vague notion that they might be
unclean.

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GuiA
Huh, TIL (I’m French). My mom and grandma frequently used the word “caqueux”
as a pejorative when I was growing up, but I assumed it was derived from
“caca” (“poop”). Makes more sense now.

~~~
thope
what about "caguer" ? it sounds even closer

~~~
Renaud
Caguer is from the south-west. It's derived from he latin cacare, to shit.

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projectramo
More info from a journalist with some origin theories:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285450/The-
untoucha...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285450/The-untouchables-
FRANCE-How-swarthy-Pyrenean-race-persecuted-centuries-abused-today.html)

~~~
sitkack
> Japan still has a class of people called the Burakumin: these untouchables
> are condemned to the lowest jobs and the dirtiest slums.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin)

~~~
jpatokal
Not really: they're almost entirely assimilated now thanks to social &
geographic mobility. Some prejudice lingers particularly around the Kansai
area, but as one example, being of buraku descent didn't stop Hashimoto from
being repeatedly elected as governor and mayor of Osaka.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dru_Hashimoto](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dru_Hashimoto)

~~~
panglott
I do not believe this is entirely true. Hashimoto had to change his name to
hide his background, for example. Many Japanese are extremely hesitant to
speak about this issue at all; it remains a very sensitive topic. There is
evidence of recent employment discrimination and marriage discrimination,
especially in western Japan. Japanese silence on the issue speaks volumes.
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2009/01/20/issues/bre...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2009/01/20/issues/breaking-
the-silence-on-burakumin-2/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Social_discriminatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Social_discrimination)

~~~
jpatokal
His mother changed their family name when he was a child. He was "outed"
during his first election campaign, but this did him no appreciable harm, and
the media made a bigger deal of his father having apparently been a low-level
Yakuza gangster.

Also, it's difficult to disentangle "extremely hesitant to speak" and
"genuinely unaware/doesn't care": as far as I can tell, for most Japanese, the
issue is an irrelevant historical relic. Living in Tokyo for years, the only
reference I ever heard or saw a single piece of train station graffiti
proclaiming that a certain train station was an _etamura_ (derogatory term for
buraku village). As noted, around Osaka it's a bigger thing, but the days of
employers or prospective inlaws routinely engaging detective agencies to root
out any trace of buraku origin seem to be long past. (Although doubtless you
could still do this if you really wanted to.)

Finally, it's indeed a political issue, and often in unsavoury ways: the
article you link to goes into some detail about how the Buraku Liberation
League, which has... non-mainstream views on how many buraku there are and how
badly they're persecuted, has Yakuza ties and earns considerable profits from
government assistance projects.

~~~
panglott
As far as I can tell, the fact that it remains a taboo to discuss means that
it remains extremely socially salient. Some of that is the fallout of the
1960s-era denunciation campaigns, which were both seemingly effective and very
painful in the context of Japanese values. Most Japanese I have talked to
about this view the whole topic as extremely shameful. But with something like
this, it would be useful to have some kind of positive indication that it is a
historical relic, rather than just something declined to discuss anymore. But
any effort to gain real demographic information is seen as a threat, because
that's how buraku people were systemically blackballed in the past.

------
akkartik
One of my all-time favorite characters is Le Cagot from Shibumi by Trevanian.

[https://www.amazon.com/Shibumi-Novel-
Trevanian/dp/1400098033](https://www.amazon.com/Shibumi-Novel-
Trevanian/dp/1400098033)

Up there with Edna from the Incredibles.

~~~
throwawayknecht
Somewhat bizarrely, though, he is Basque and it's suggested he's wildly
divergent genetically (though it's not clear if it's really suggesting that,
or just Hel using it to rile him up - Hel is enough of a Marty Stu it's
reasonable to read some authorial belief into it), neither of which is true of
the Cagot.

~~~
akkartik
Yeah he's not going for accuracy with the _nom de guerre_. The name is part of
his campaign to create a larger-than-life cartoonish character to help the
Basque movement. Saying crude things is very much part of it. In that regards
the choice of name may not necessarily be progressive and an attempt to
identify with the Cagot. (Though I haven't read the book in 20 years.)

 _Edit_ : I just remembered the Author's Note at the front of the book saying
something like, "With the exception of <three people including Le Cagot>, none
of the characters in this book are real -- though they may not know it."
Unfortunately Google Books doesn't show that page.

------
sitkack
> Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified
> as Cagots.

~~~
fvdessen
> Rhyming songs kept the names of Cagot families known.

~~~
sitkack
So if you could move and change your name, you would be instantly off the shit
list?

~~~
vacri
In the time period we're talking about, what you're saying is not trivial.
Hell, it's not even trivial today - look at the stereotypical 'poor white
trash' guy. Scrub him up and put him in a suit, and the way he talks and
behaves isn't going to make him indistinguishable at an upper-class dinner
party. Or a different angle: take a modern-day American and put him in the UK.
Without a _lot_ of work, it's clear what his origin is from his speech and his
customs, despite the similar cultures.

Now go back 500-1000 years, where people didn't move around much (sometimes
enforced by law) and most people only spoke their regional dialect. And if you
were able to move town, the work you knew how to do was still the shit work
for the lowest class - it's not like you could just pick up silversmithing on
a lark, for example.

~~~
munificent

        > They spoke the same language as the people in an area
        > and generally kept the same religion as well. Their
        > only distinguishing feature was their descent from 
        > families identified as Cagots.

~~~
cwyers
I think you're underestimating how much linguistic drift and regional dialects
and accents there were before widespread literacy and then radio, film and
television helped to further standardize things. They spoke the same way as
the people in their area -- but that's no guarantee they wouldn't stick out if
they moved far enough away that nobody would recognize them.

~~~
mastazi
In central Italy (e.g. Tuscany or Umbria), still nowadays, you can experience
a clearly recognizable change in accent by just moving to the next village
5-10 km down the road. Until not so long ago, it was normal in many places in
Europe to call "foreigner" anyone who was not from the same village (my
grandparents, born in the first half of the '900 in a village which is less
than 30 km from Rome, called people from Rome "stranieri" which in Italian
means "foreigners"). This must sound almost incredible to someone from e.g.
North America, but you need to realize the feudal past left major traces in
modern European culture.

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nwah1
Fascinating, and sad.

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legostormtroopr
>The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the
same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as
well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families
identified as Cagots.

Yet, now despite a history of abuse and segregation, descendants of the Cagots
are now just seen as "privileged whites" who need to apologise for historical
slights against ethnic groups their ancestors never met.

