Bull cults are ancient, but they never ended well for the animals with one exception: the wild black bull of the Camargue is at the heart of a unique niche culture which leaves them alive and adored well into their old age. Intelligent, extremely agile and aggressive, they perform in thrilling games, the courses camarguaises, in dozens of arenas. Here young men risk their lives trying to pick tiny trophies tied between the horns of the bull – who will defend his crown by chasing his opponents across the sand and beyond.

Under the Black Bull’s Hooves is their story. Over many centuries, poetry and songs, novels and festivities, even politics evolved around these legendary animals who can never be tamed. Locals, usually reluctant to allow strangers into their tribal cosmos, helped to create this personal account. It is a declaration of love, describing the passionate, often quirky personalities of men and beast alike, their history, the sadness and the joy of individual events in a mysterious world so close and yet so hidden.

The Camargue and its wild riches of nature would cease to exist without the black bulls.

MARITTA KAUMANNS was born in Germany in 1952. Her chosen journalistic career began with a two-year internship at a daily newspaper in Bonn, writing about art, theatre and politics. Gathering more experience as co-editor of a cultural German magazine published in six languages she went on to become press officer for a large development aid charity. Time between employments was dedicated to travelling through Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Going freelance at the age of thirty she covered the Middle East and other conflict zones for magazines, newspapers and radio. Since 1992 she has been based in London while continuing a semi-nomadic way of life.

More an adventurous tomboy than a conventional feminist, she took to the sky and spent seven years flying aerobatics whenever work permitted. She was one of the first women to obtain a commercial pilot’s licence in the UK – not in order to join an airline but to overcome a paranoid fear of exams.

Yet her true love has always been nature and anything to do with animals. She lived for two years in a tiny desert community, among palm trees yielding juicy dates in the breath-taking setting of the southern Negev. Staying with Bedouins in Tunisia and Jordan resulted in a special relationship with camels. Whenever possible, she volunteered at rescue centres while promoting animal welfare and natural environments.

As a lover of Provence, in the early 1970s she accidentally came across an eccentric niche culture in the Camargue centred on black bulls and white horses. She had to wait nearly forty years, until her retirement in 2012, to rediscover and study in depth this last coastal wilderness in Europe. Her journey into a world where animals are as respected as humans continues.

Find out more and connect with Maritta via her website blackbullmagic.com.

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