Oh ! I know very well that a pigeon does not make spring, but a dove can make us hope for the time of peace. I assure you I wasn’t looking for her, and yet I found her in a dirty alley in the Quartier des Spectacles, bobbing her head and stalking her crumb on the floor, as rare as innocence. It must be said that I was accompanied by a strange sparrow, an applied anthropologist who has been interested in pigeons for more than ten years. Chloé Roubert came from Paris to live in Montreal with her parents and discover the pigeons there 20 years ago. She takes advantage of an exhibition on falcons and pigeons for which she is the curator-anthropologist to take an exploratory walk with me around the Belgo contemporary art building.
The sun brutally illuminates the Montreal wildlife that has survived the torment of the eternal snows. Homeless tenants of “Catherine”, passers-by who mumble without a phone, skimmers in garbage cans with a green bag on their backs, colleagues with their faces uncovered on the terrace of the restaurant opposite testify to the renewal of spring. This typically urban and fleeting fever of a weekday afternoon is palpable. All these bubbles brush against each other in the still chilly April air while pretending to ignore each other. Human and non-human animals do not have the same immediate goals.
Nose in the air, Chloé Roubert smells her pigeon. Ledges and droppings have no more secrets for this curious 38-year-old who chased pigeons of the large columbid family from Shanghai to New York, via Paris and London, on foot or by bike, map and pen in hand. I confide to him that my father repeated to us “Dove crucifix dove”, a kind of spiritual mantra.fly which was translated as “Peace, Christ, peace”.
Chloe smiles: “In the Catholic Church, the pigeon represents the Holy Spirit. But in fact, a dove is a white pigeon…it’s just that we find them more acceptable in white. We associate the pigeon with dirt because it feeds on our waste, the bread from our sandwiches. »
From pigeons with peas to vermin with small crumbs
Before being discredited and treated like winged plague victims, the poor pigeons still arrived first class in America, in the XVIand century, transported by the Dutch as a source of protein from the Mediterranean coasts. “Pigeons love facades. It’s like a cliff for them. It’s romantic…” thinks Chloé, scrutinizing the buildings with her rapacious eye. Even if the falcons are their designated predators, we feel that she could fly to their rescue. She spots everything: are there plastic owls (quite useless), anti-pigeon spikes, metal slides to prevent them from perching?
We wander rue Sainte-Catherine in search of the rare bird, because the noisy constructions of the city center distract them from their sociable and domesticated nature. There is not the shadow of a pigeon. “They are very smart! says the one who reads everything about them and forbids me to pass her off as a dingo. “People who feed them are perceived as mild weirdos, while it is touching. For me, it’s an intellectual subject, a way to bring the conversation. Darwin bred pigeons, the Greeks used them as messengers during wars and the Queen of England has her dovecote. »
Each species lives, no more and no less, in a distinct, foreign and unreachable world, an exoplanet yet within reach
What interests Chloé from the outset is to “tickle our paradoxes” with humor and in a playful spirit. Why do the white doves in Dove soaps inspire cleanliness and their grey-headed brethren dirt? White privilege is implanted on the sidewalk and emotional speciesism lives in us without our knowing it. We domesticate dogs and no longer eat pigeons. Who knows what the future will hold for these companions in misfortune? I always thought that with the cockroaches, the pigeons would outlive us.
Like a hope
The passion is contagious and generally arouses my admiration. That of Chloé will have led us to chase a pigeon that she sees flying towards the south, rue de Bleury. We take the alley behind the Belgo and immediately she sees them on the roof of 6and stage. They descend towards us, twirling like angels. And a rare white dove mingled with the group, like an apparition, a hope. I like to hear them coo, like lovers. We observe them and Chloé mingles with them.
“They are very open-minded sexually. They have a partner for life, but can look elsewhere. On the other hand, they raise the babies together. They are avant-garde,” notes the anthropologist of urban macadam.
“Perhaps they have things to teach us about couples and monogamy?” I dare.
— In fact, they make us feel uneasy, because we admire wild animals, we also like domesticated animals, but pigeons are out of the category.
They are asphalt homeless, nestled somewhere between the heights and the cobblestones, disdaining the trees.
In the sky above St. James’s Church we see hawks soaring. Chloe scans the skyscrapers: “When a falcon comes, they will split up and go behind it. They don’t attack. It is a pacifist bird. He is only love. And yet, he is treated so badly. »
It wouldn’t be the first time an innocent man was crucified.
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