Pissevache waterfall: Papaaa, just where this name?

This article is kept on Quelbazar as a historical witness of a time when this site was still a personal blog where we talked about everything and nothing.

On an almost sunny Sunday in June 2006 (yesterday, what…), a small educational interlude on the motorway between Sion and Lausanne: On the right before arriving in Martigny, education of the kids by showing them the Waterfall of Pissevache,an impressive waterfall of 114 meters, at the foot of the Trient gorges.

Three reactions of the generation that goes up, from the top of his 6 years:

• But it is not polite this name!^[1]
• And why they call it the Pissemouton, or the Pissechevre?
• Dad, we can watch on the internet why it's called like that?^[2]

So after a long ^[3] mass, an afternoon at the table and a night of digestion, let's go hunting for information on the Internet:

On the site of Vernayaz (the town on which the waterfall is located), this is where I found the most information:

Before the man intervened, the waterfall of Salanfe, pure daughter of the glaciers that a slingsman nicknamed Pissevache, tirelessly unrolled its long silver mats from the top of the rocks. His enthusiasm was such that the dust of water described by Ramuz deposited on the hands and faces of many tourists until they reached its height.

Goethe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Madame de Staël, Emile Javelle and many others praised her beauty: "Everything shines and sparkles! Like the swan that sings at its last hour, like the flame that revives at the moment of extinguishing (…)".

Others disdained her: "(…) the waterfall is bare, poorly framed between all the waterfalls, not to mention its vile name (…) and the harpies of the place rush there with their unripe apples and their equivocal crystals… We meet some naturals, very good people, all a little morons"…

In 1866, a bridge hung boldly halfway up the fall invited even tourists (for 1 franc) to pass under it.

And the man began to tame the bottom of the waterfall capturing water to power a tannery and a factory of sticks to guns.

At the end of the century passed was built at the top of the waterfall, there where waters are preparing for the big jump, one of the oldest power plants still functioning today. Despite a controversy, the dam Salanfe imprisoned waters in 1952 and don't let escape today only a timid NET.

So Pissevache is just the nickname given to the Salanfe waterfall by a singing… But we do not know why.

In bulk, links on this stunt:

• On the Vernayaz website
• At Suisse Tourisme or bluewin
• A stereoscopic view.
• Photos: Here and here.
• A page in the Encyclopædia Britannica

Note also that Pissemouton,it does not exist, but that Pissechèvre seems to be a pillar on the diablerets massif