Abstract
The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a medieval pilgrimage trail that today starts in the French Pyrenees and travels west to the Spanish Atlantic Coast, holds a vernacular landscape layered by stone objects conveying stories and narratives. While modern Camino research often focuses on the trail as a site of medieval pilgrimage and architecture as well as churches, ruins, and tremendous views, verbal and pictorial evidence from the oral histories of fourteen pilgrims, historical resources, and contemporary media reveal that pilgrims played their own role in shaping the landscape. Inherently changeable gestures that generally go unnoticed by most modern users of the Camino take the form of waymarkers, cairns, and the Cruz de Ferro. As this research suggests, such gestures can serve as markers of pilgrims’ psyches that leave a lasting trace on the landscape. Placing stones on top of stone structures is itself an act that speaks outside of time and place to both the self and the community of pilgrims. By applying landscape theory, geocriticism, and folkloric studies, this article interprets these seemingly mundane gestures made with stones as evidence of profound transformations in a pilgrim’s mind and spirit and, more significantly, the architecture of place. The study underscores that these small gestures in the vernacular landscape potentially impact the pilgrim as profoundly, if not more so, than the medieval villages, churches, and ruins directly shaping the character of the contemporary Camino and its pilgrims.
Introduction
The eight hundred kilometers of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, which celebrates the life and history of Saint James with a pilgrimage trail through Northern Spain from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic Ocean, has become a palimpsest of changing landscape, form, and function over the last millennium. Pilgrims walk the Camino Frances over four to six weeks in the footsteps of those before them, creating both visible and invisible layers in the vernacular landscape. Pilgrims sense the invisible and actively create new visible layers. The route finishes at the famed medieval cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to the relics of Saint James. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela has its own particular language of rough terrain as it travels west, over the Pyrenees along the French border through farming fields, to the plateau of La Meseta, over the hills of Galicia, and finally into the descent to Santiago de Compostela (Figure 1). Along this linear landscape, stone structures such as waymarkers, cairns, and waystations for prayer arise and constantly evolve. They are physically marked and remarked on the trail the entire way, each leaving traces of its own story and significance.
Map by Kristen Dahlmann (2024).
This article investigates the fluid relationship between the linear, vernacular landscape and pilgrims in how they make small but significant changes to the infrastructure of the Camino by marking stone structures. This research highlights the significance of pilgrims’ mark‐making on the Camino by comparing the addition of stones to waymarkers, cairns, and an iron cross as the manifestation of their physical and mental states. Existing scholarship on walking and the landscape and landscape infrastructure, as seen in early literature by authors such as Rousseau and Thoreau, to a more modern understanding through critical landscape thought by John Stilgoe, J. B. Jackson, and Anne Spirn. However, the Camino literature lacks research on the physical and spiritual relationship of the pilgrim to the modifications made in the vernacular cultural landscape. It would be a misreading of the Camino landscape to see these small stone structures, altered by pilgrims, as insignificant and having little agency in the overall experience of walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.
Methodology
This research tapped into a broad number of primary history and cultural landscape management texts from the medieval Camino, such as the Codex Calixtinus, a medieval manuscript dedicated to aiding the passage and warning pilgrims of the dangers of the Camino, is a significant historic document that provides valuable insights into the medieval pilgrimage, and sometimes even to a modern pilgrimage. It offers guidance on the route, the dangers, and the spiritual significance of the journey. Javier Domínguez García’s extensive research offers plans for the management of trail resources to support pilgrims within the Camino, towns, and villages. Walking literature, first‐hand accounts, such as the documentation of his trip, of René Freund, presents as an enticement for the armchair pilgrim. One finds this pilgrim looking forward to the evening’s wine, worrying about the darkening clouds, and enjoying almonds off the tree. With photography, like Quitterie Cazes’ and Sébastien Rayssac’s books, we see beautiful examples of scenic stone churches, bridges, and ancient homes. Their landscape images show a high‐level view of the Camino through its landscape of mountains and forests in the distance. Within his photographs, one can observe the occasional waymarkers with stones piled on top. Perhaps more valuable to this research are video accounts of pilgrims walking, such as in Jan Russell’s and Chris Newland’s production of Walking the Camino. In these documents, we see the Camino from the view of the foot.
Secondary sources included academic journal articles, such as Carlos Lalien Corbera’s collaborative work analyzing the infrastructure and place within each region. The standard Camino history text by David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson adds a solid base of understanding to the landscape, structures, and history of the Camino. Religious interpretations, by Peter Jan Margy and Luis Orviedo, offer a counterpoint to the understanding of the secular pilgrim. Travel guides, such as John Bierley’s, serve to highlight key places of interest as the pilgrim walks from town to town. Theoretical criticism, such as Robert T. Tally’s exploration of space, time, and place or Eliade Mircea’s many works into the myths. stories, and spirituality of symbols, provides a varied perspective interpreting the actions, gestures, and reactions of pilgrims as they walk. This range of texts guides the conclusions of the significance of the physical and emotional relationships to the vernacular landscape.
More academic work needs to be done on the role of the vernacular landscape, stone structures, and pilgrims on the Camino Frances, the modern pilgrimage trail from Saint‐Jean‐Pied‐de‐Port to Santiago de Compostela. UNESCO has begun documenting the Camino Nord, which runs west through the Basque Country to Galicia along the Northern Spanish border. Most modern Camino research still focuses on maintaining the integrity of medieval villages, restoring churches, and stabilizing ruins. However, a significant research gap exists in understanding the vernacular and cultural landscape in relationship to the emotional geography of the modern Camino Frances and its pilgrims.
As a foundation for intimately understanding the use of the modern landscape, this study examines the unique oral histories of pilgrims. This documentation provides the basis for analyzing the pilgrims’ physical and emotional experiences while walking the Camino. Each pilgrim’s experience was unique, as were the reasons for walking the eight hundred kilometers; some walked for their souls, others to connect with a sense of spirituality, and some for pure adventure. Many were not entirely sure why they first embarked on such a journey, but many found answers along the way. Through in‐person and Zoom interviews, almost all pilgrims made clear that they left stones in the landscape as a gesture of physical and emotional connectedness to the pilgrimage process.
These fourteen former pilgrims demonstrated connections between mind, body, and spirit through long‐distance walking. One pilgrim discussed modifying stone structures, and others referenced similar actions; all shared photographic evidence of their stone gestures, providing most of the illustrations included in this article. A review of books, guides, and photographs further uncovered detailed proof that the vernacular cultural landscape is indeed marked in plain sight; we must learn to read the significance of the stone structures anew. I found pilgrims willing to share their stories through social media groups dedicated to the Camino, local/regional pilgrim groups, churches, and word of mouth. These pilgrims represent a wide range of ages (20–70), occupations (chef, teacher, school guidance consular, financial advisor, retiree), and genders (just over half were female). Pilgrims come from various faiths and different degrees of engagement with religion: they might be Catholic or Protestant, devout or non‐practicing, spiritual or secular. One‐third of the pilgrims actively practiced a religion. One pilgrim walked for no religious or spiritual reasons; interestingly enough, he reported that he did not feel compelled to place stones at any of the common locations. Nonetheless, he was enthusiastic about his adventure and recently decided to walk again. The experiences and stories of these pilgrims are fundamental to the conclusions drawn below. All pilgrims were drawn to the Camino through open interest or some internal calling. Their words and pictures illustrate a pilgrim’s experience and perspective in ways not found in previous Camino literature.
These interviewees demonstrated that most modern Camino walkers alter the landscape with structures and stones as a gesture of self‐awareness and awe. Keltner associates awe with a feeling of vastness, as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world” (Keltner, 2023, p. 7). Walking great distances through the landscape can trigger this feeling of better understanding the scope of the natural world. The unspoken words of the pilgrims interviewed for this study are tied to the creation of symbols and announce to the world, “I am Here!” “I have been here!” “Carry on, you can do it!,” or “I join you Here.” To walk the Camino is to embark on this modern journey of self‐realization, a contemplation of the past and future that develops deep ties to an intimate community based on shared experience.
The Medieval Pilgrim on the Camino
The lore of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela unfolds in the nineth century with a farmer’s discovery of Saint James’s bones in a tomb located in a field awash in starlight. This biblical narrative gives the cathedral its name: Compostela, the field of stars. The legend weaves a tale of his martyrdom in the Holy Land followed by a sea voyage of his remains to the Iberian Peninsula, where he had played a pivotal role in converting Celts and Moors to Christianity. A cathedral erected to enshrine his relics continues to hold the power of his name, and his holy presence persisted in pushing the Moors out of Northern Spain. The word and miracles of Saint James were so far‐reaching that between the 12th and 14th centuries, an estimated 250,000 pilgrims journeyed to Santiago each year (Gitlitz & Davidson, 2000, p. 22) (Figure 2). The mythological and religious power of Saint James led to the widespread practice of walking the Camino in its medieval heyday. According to the Pilgrim Office, the Oficina de Acogina al Pelegrino, in the year 1986, the very beginning of the pilgrimage revival, only 2,491 pilgrims walked the trail.
Illustration of the Camino de Santiago in the medieval book El Edad Media o el Medievo.
Medieval pilgrims walked the Camino hoping to have their sins forgiven; to reach Santiago de Compostela meant to be granted an ecclesiastical indulgence for time to be spent in purgatory. Reaching Santiago ensured the pilgrim’s afterlife, and the walk acted as a physical exchange for closer proximity to salvation; the hardship endured during the trip and the great distance covered served as penitence. Making a pilgrimage during a Jacobean Holy Year (occurring in the years when Saint James Day, July 25, falls on a Sunday) promised the pilgrim a complete plenary indulgence; God would forgive all sins. The idea of penance found on the Camino remains alive today. A highly devoted Catholic couple, Kathy and Tom Wolf, were two of the interviewees for this study. They walked the Camino on a Jacobean Holy Year for Lent, starting on Ash Wednesday from Saint Jean Pied de Port, and, through very precise timing of their trek, arrived at the cathedral for the Pilgrim’s Mass and Good Friday mass, then flew home for Easter. The Wolfs spoke of a deep connection to the landscape that enhanced their spirituality.
The Medieval Pilgrim in the Landscape
Early pilgrimages were vastly different from modern ones. In earlier times, there was no official starting point like the Pilgrim’s Office in Saint Jean Pied de Port, nor was there a finish line like Santiago de Compostela. Medieval pilgrims embarked on their journey from their own doorsteps, traversing countries and passing through cathedrals, monasteries, and albergues before finally reaching the Camino in Spain. The path was loosely marked with stone crosses, stone way stations, and even sections of old Roman roads, leading them to the spectacular cathedral. After achieving Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrim turned around and walked home, completing the full circle of the pilgrimage.
The medieval landscape of the Camino was structurally much the same as it is today, but the pilgrim was in constant peril and faced threats in the form of Moors, bandits, thieves, dangerous rivers and fords, and poorly marked paths (Gitlitz & Davidson, 2000, p. 25). The occasional stone cross or waystation for prayer confirmed for pilgrims that they were still following the Way (Figure 3). The medieval landscape of the Camino contributes to the complex and layered history of Camino pilgrimages. The remaining, sometimes ruined or significantly altered structures frame the ancient spirit of the Camino, enabling the modern pilgrim to tap into a deep history of the spiritual aspects of long‐distance walking.
Medieval wayside shrine, with the modern addition of a stone angel. Image credit: Kristen Graves, 2008.
Medieval and Modern Pilgrims in the Landscape
The vernacular landscape of the Camino unfolds today much as it did to the medieval or even the Roman eye: the majestic Pyrenees, La Meseta’s high plateau, and the Galician rocky hills all stand in perpetuity. Even sections of the old Roman roads can still be found in places along the footpath (Figure 4). Villages and stone fortresses dotted the hills in the landscape during the medieval ages, as they still do today. Bonnie Monahan, who walked the Camino in 2019, could sense the layers of history beneath her feet. Her words were echoed many times by fellow interviewees: she was constantly aware that they, as pilgrims, walk the same path as a Roman army or the countless pilgrims before them throughout a millennium, all walking together in this linear landscape. The connections give a sense of awe that heightens the mental and bodily awareness of the divine (Keltner, 2023, p. 10). Cees Nooteboom writes in Roads to Santiago: “There are some places in the world where one is mysteriously magnified on arrival or departure by the emotions of all those who have arrived and departed before” (Nooteboom, 1997, p. 15). Whether the Callanish Stones in the Hebrides, Pompeii, or the Pyramids, certain places evoke in visitors a shiver of awe and a sense of communing with those who have come before. The Roman, medieval, and modern landscapes along the Camino fold into visible and invisible layers of history. In long‐distance walking, many interviewed pilgrims indicated they could sense the layers of history around them, resulting in gratitude and joy for the experience.
Old Roman roads of the Camino, Galicia. Image credit: Theo Ball, 2020.
Walking the Camino fell out of favor in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, possibly because the relics of Saint James were lost or because the number of the faithful dwindled during the Industrial Revolution. However, the pilgrimage was redefined and revived in the 1980s when local churches and village residents requested the donation of yellow paint from the Department of Roads to blaze the trail with yellow arrows (Gitlitz & Davidson, 2000, p. 32). From 1993 onward, with the inscription of all routes of the Camino as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the now modern waymark infrastructure has begun to sporadically appear along the length of the trail, from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. As modern pilgrims walk, they repeatedly shape these small structures, waymarkers, and cairns in the landscape, thus leaving both physical and ephemeral evidence of their progress and a sense of connection to place‐space and the community of pilgrims.
Gestures in Stone
The oral histories of interviewed pilgrims inform and color the intangible aspects of the Camino cultural and vernacular landscape. Patterns in the oral histories of pilgrims, including the range of experiences and reactions to creative gestures along the trail, emerge in their statements. Once they had left the Pyrenees, pilgrims learned from previous pilgrims to leave stones as small mementos in meaningful places from Roncesvalles onward.
Waymarkers
The stone structure and its history
Today, local volunteers dedicate their time to installing structures to mark the place on the trail, indicating both direction and mileage. These concrete structures, adorned with two blue and yellow tiles depicting the Coquille Saint‐Jacques and a directional arrow, provide visibility and clarity from a distance (Figure 5). The remaining distance to Santiago de Compostela is engraved and blackened below, along with the name of the city or town. Along the path, between these stone markers, one finds on trees the remnant yellow blazes, which volunteers slowly replace with the blue and yellow coquille shell and arrow tiles. These waymarkers are typical, but pilgrims may encounter variations that convey similar information. The waymarkers pictured in Figure 5 are found throughout La Meseta, the high plateau.
Waymarker in Castilla y León. Image credit: Theo Ball, 2019.
History of the Coquille Saint‐Jacques
The Coquille Saint‐Jacques image (Figure 6) on the way‐marker tile symbolizes the miracles of Saint James, the pilgrim, and the Camino. It also belongs to the ephemera that spiritually define a modern pilgrim. Medieval pilgrims wore the Coquille shell on their capes or hats to announce they were Saint James pilgrims, allowing them to enjoy certain protections, food, and hospitality. The historian of religious experience Mircea Eliade posits that the bivalve shell is universally a symbol of the feminine, the womb, and protection; perhaps these protective designations on the coquille align well with ancient Jacobean stories of miracles and myth (Eliade, 1991, p. 128). Pilgrims claim that the walking routes throughout Europe, as represented by the ribs of the shell, all lead to one unifying point, the joint of the shell, Santiago (Figure 6).
The symbol of Saint James, the scallop shell, known as the Coquille Saint‐Jacques, traces its origin stories to the Bible. Image credit: Kristen Dahlmann.
Today, pilgrims hang actual shells, some depicting the red sword of the Knights of Templar, from their backpacks as a vernacular touchstone to the history of the pilgrim. Hanging the coquille still indicates hope for protection and way‐finding skills. One can buy a small pewter coquille charm necklace at stands along the Camino, such as the one the pilgrim Theo Ball wore when we met for his interview. He never removes the one‐inch icon from his neck, and it serves as evidence of his experiences walking and the presence of those lessons for him still today. The prevalence of the shell would suggest a mythology that has evolved around the Coquille Saint‐Jacques: it defines the pilgrim’s identity.
Pilgrims’ gestures
Pilgrims physically narrate their transformative journey through gestures of creative acts, from placing stones on top of the waymarkers to leaving behind wood carvings, handwritten notes, or impromptu drawings and watercolors that capture the spirit of place. In arriving at a particular place and time, the pilgrim recognizes this transition of arrival and departure, a threshold of sorts, and walkers pause and place a stone on top of the waymarker. Bonnie Monahan, a pilgrim from Rye, New Hampshire, describes this intentional gesture and its significance: she looked for attractive rocks daily while walking, placed them in her pocket, and continued walking. Upon arriving at a waymarker, she placed a stone, nestling it amongst others with a secular, impromptu prayer, and acknowledged the distance she had covered that day (Figure 7). In her own words, she described the encounter with the waymark as conveying the exact feeling of passing through to a new phase of the Camino.
Pilgrim Kathleen Barnes of St. Louis, Missouri, places a stone on a waymarker. Image credit: Sara Trezise of Scituate, Massachusetts, 2016.
Experiences and gestures can vary between Catholics and non‐secular pilgrims. Carmen Español, a Catholic pilgrim from California, talked about a particular place she had read about in books; she anticipated it around each corner as she walked. She found the religious marker dedicated to the Virgin Mary soon after Roncesvalles. She explained that it was a rounded stone altar with flowers and stones (Figure 8). She found a wildflower to offer and brought a stone from home to place at the altar as well. This waystation for prayer physically distinguishes itself from a geographical mile marker, prompting the act of personal prayer and a less physical gesture of stone.
Stone way stations dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Pilgrims leave prayers, flowers, and small stones. Image credit: Carmen Español, 2023.
Cairns
The stone structures and their history
Large stone cairns, a second structure of the Camino’s vernacular landscape, stand in various forms and heights. Stones piled one on top of the other appear in solitary stands or large groups. Some cairns present as squat and broad; others soar like pillars to the sky. Climbing toward a wooded hill in Galicia, the pilgrim finds a spectacular and moving display of cairns in a clearing just off the path (Figure 9); these structures’ sheer number and non‐design are a marvel. The cairns of Galicia are not just communal art but a testament to a shared ancient and modern walking history. Stone cairns of the Camino, known as milladoios in Spanish, were first used by the Celts in Galicia as a way‐finding tool when they held a stronghold before the Moorish invasion (Gitlitz & Davidson 2000, p. 169). The tradition of building cairns appears to be indigenous to Galicia. Topography plays a direct role in the creation of these stone structures. Here in Galicia, the terrain is extremely rocky and hilly, with many large stones. In La Meseta, where waymarkers with stones on top are common, the terrain is flat and dusty, with small stones.
Cairns near Narjara. Image credit: Jennifer Bess, 2011.
As a way‐marking tool in Galicia, cairns lend themselves well to directing with their towering heights the foggy, hilly, and sometimes slippery terrain. The term “cairn,” meaning “mound of stones” (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000, p. 261), comes from the Gaelic; the Scots used them to mark trails across the foggy, monocultured, heather‐covered landscape of the moors. However, cairns can be found universally and throughout ancient times. A set of tightly built cairns, known as Nine Standards, mark the top of a peak in the Yorkshire Moors, England (Figure 10). The origins of these Yorkshire cairns are not well documented; locals in the region claim that the Romans built these stone structures to mark a high mountain pass. The lack of a definitive origin story lends the site an aura of mystery that is shared with many stone structures on the Camino.
Stone cairns in Yorkshire, England. Image credit: Kristen Dahlmann, 2023.
Not all cairn‐making is condoned; in the United States National Parks, it is against U.S. federal law to move a stone on federal land (Williams, 2012, p. 15). National Park cairns, ranger‐made, are a tool to denote a specific, established, and safe route, as in a treacherous volcano hike through the crater of Kilauea, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Hawai’i (Figure 11). Cairns have historically been used for way‐finding and marking trails; on the Camino they are both indicators of a linear path and community art.
Stone cairns mark the way safely past vents and lava fissures through the volcanic crater of Kilauea. Image credit: Kristen Dahlmann, 2023.
Pilgrims’ gestures
The universal act of stacking rocks, a desire shared by pilgrims and walkers around the globe, holds a profound significance in Camino rituals. One selects a stone, places it on the pile, and thus establishes a physical and mental connection to the place and the walkers who have come before. One pilgrim interviewed for this research, Theo Ball, described feeling captivated by this site and compelled to leave a few stones as he moved through the space and documented its beauty with many photographs (Figure 12). Carmen Español paused at a large rock in her approach to Galicia and in prayer and meditation built a cairn (Figure 13). For Carmen, the cairn building is a physical and spiritual exercise connecting her to her religious pilgrimage. As a pilgrim, she was looking for forgiveness for a recent divorce. It was unclear to me whether she asked for forgiveness from God or herself; perhaps it was both.
Stone cairns and pilgrims in Galicia. Image credit: Theo Ball, 2019.
Carmen Español built this cairn in La Meseta as a form of religious meditation. Image credit: Carmen Español, 2001.
Cruz de Ferro
The stone structure and its history
The Cruz de Ferro (the Iron Cross) is the grandest stone structure of the Camino and is located near the end of the pilgrimage to Santiago. It stands tall, a five‐meter wooden post surmounted by an iron cross. Its unique feature is the massive hill of pilgrim‐placed stones accumulating over centuries on which the pole and cross stand (Figure 14). Ribbons and fabric, adorned with prayers and messages, encircle the base of the wooden pole for about six feet. This cross and stone mound at the highest mountain pass over Mount Irago outside Fonecebadón, Galicia, invites pilgrims to pause and reflect on this culminating summit of their journey; it is mostly downhill from here. Like the set of cairns in the Yorkshire Moors, this, too, marks a high mountain pass.
Cruz de Ferro under typical Galician fog. Image credit: Jennifer Bess, 2011.
The Cruz de Ferro is a Camino destination embodying folklore and myth. Many pilgrims embark on their journey knowing this place and its significance, carrying a stone the length of the Camino. These stones, often symbolic of a thanksgivwing, a burden, illness, death, or a prayer, are then added to the pile of stones at the Cruz de Ferro. The Iron Cross’s date of origin is a subject of much speculation, adding to its allure. Each source presents a different narrative. Some assert that the Church erected the Iron Cross in the 1800s, while others propose that Charlemagne’s men raised it. Some believe the site predates these accounts, harking back to the Roman era or even to the time of the Celts in Galicia, according to Camino historians and also the five‐time pilgrims David Gitlitz and Linda Davidson (Gitlitz & Davidson, 2000, p. 284). One imagines each origin story of the Cruz de Ferro as containing an element of truth that stacks together like a palimpsest of stone layers.
Pilgrims’ gestures
The tradition of leaving stones to mark pilgrims’ place and progress on the Camino reaches a zenith, physically and emotionally, in this structure. A grand mound of stones has grown incrementally over decades and centuries as pilgrims have carried them from their hometowns and placed them here in search of a spiritual connection. Some pilgrims place a stone with a traditional prayer, while others commemorate someone who has passed. Two interviewed pilgrims, Bill Ackles and his wife, Leslie, from Concord, Massachusetts, carried two stones the distance from home. The first gesture was to thank the universe for allowing him to walk the Camino in his 73rd year of life. Gratitude is a common theme among pilgrims. The second was a secular prayer for good health for their six children and many grandchildren. Bonnie Monahan, another interviewed pilgrim, picked out a stone from Rye Beach to symbolize her connection to home in Rye, New Hampshire. She carried it such a distance to say a curative prayer after a recent cancer diagnosis. She walked the Camino to gather mental and physical strength before returning home to undergo surgery. She believes that in her pilgrimage, she developed the strength to recover from her cancer. All the interviewed pilgrims remembered the Cruz de Ferro and the feeling of deep awe, spiritual meaning, and connection to walking across pilgrim history while participating in the specific gestures associated with the iron cross; each found it a unique and special place on earth. Their emotions spurred them to leave a stone as a symbol of their inner feelings.
Meaning in the Gestures of the Cruz de Ferro
The vernacular significance of the Cruz de Ferro compares similarly to the understanding of pilgrims’ gestures at waymarkers and cairns. However, the Cruz de Ferro speaks to the community outside the Camino, to those in their armchairs paging through large folio travel books. The vague story of an iron cross reaches out to future pilgrims; they take note and bring a stone. Thus, they build upon the meaning of the ancient stone mound. Through the oral histories conducted for this research, almost all pilgrims spoke of carrying a stone from home to this place on the growing medieval pile of rocks. Jennifer Bess, an interviewed pilgrim, expressed that what made her solitary journey across Spain so poignant and spiritual was that she felt in constant touch with all of those who had walked under her footfall: the Celts, the Romans, early Christians, and even modern‐day pilgrims, many walking with a similar purpose. As she arrived at the highest point in Galicia, she felt overwhelmed by the proximity to Santiago and the end of her journey. Upon climbing the hill and instantly recognizing the iron cross, it deeply moved and sustained her for the final miles. She left her rock as a symbol of her journey along the Camino, expressing gratitude as “part of this transcendent realm of feeling, the reverence we have for the gifts of life” (Keltner, 2023, p. 28). The stone placed at the Cruz de Ferro is a touchstone to the emotional geography of the Camino. From the Cruz de Ferro, the pilgrims have a hundred and forty miles left to walk.
Finding Meaning in the Stone Gestures of the Vernacular Landscape
The Camino de Santiago de Compostela has a spirit of place that emerges from the vernacular cultural landscape and topography as pilgrim gestures evolve the built environment, altering and marking the Camino infrastructure. As pilgrims walk, they develop a place‐based, vernacular knowledge of the landscape through sensory encounters while observing the natural world, small structures, and Camino pilgrims’ narratives. John Stilgoe, in Outside Lies Magic, indicates that bicycling or walking provides the optimum speed and visual acuity for observing the vernacular landscape. In long‐distance walking, one develops skills that foster creativity and invention. “How does one learn to be creative? How does one develop the ability to produce lots of new ideas to respond to problems easily and energetically? I think the answers lie outside. Exploration encourages creativity, serendipity, invention” (Stilgoe, 1998, p. 18). The repetitive, sometimes monotonous process of long‐distance walking slows the mind to open the senses and read the vocabulary of the changing terrain and vegetation. The monotony of rhythmic footfalls heightens the experience of arriving at small stone structures, which stand like beacons, like familiar street bollards, in the distance. The state of mind that walking brings about leads to individual creative acts as demonstrated by the waymarkers, cairns, and Cruz de Ferro.
These small structures in the landscape need further examination to understand their agency in the modern storytelling narratives around the Camino de Santiago de Compostela’s landscape and its pilgrims. A typology of stone structures will be examined through several lenses and philosophies as they apply to the studies of walking, placemaking, human geography, and comparative mythology. Placemaking plays a significant role in understanding the effect on the individual of recognizing communal waymarkers. Jackson describes a sense of place as composed over time:
It is my own belief that a sense of place is something that we create in the course of time. It is the result of habit and custom. But others disagree. . . . They believe that a sense of place comes from being in an unusual composition of spaces and forms – natural or man‐made (Jackson 1994, 151).
It could be argued that Jackson’s two statements are simply two sides of the same coin; place along the Camino does emerge over time, as evidenced by the stone structures, and its sense of place does come from unusual arrangements of stones left by pilgrims that stand out of place and away from time. Pilgrims note the unusual structure in the landscape and then recreate the space through their individual markings. The small stone structures of the Camino have evolved significant geographic agency in marking time, place, and space while carrying a sociological narrative of pilgrim history. The modern pilgrim can be seen walking, interacting, and performing rituals within a linear landscape toward a destination at the end of a winding path in a foreign land. The path and the waymarkers transform the long, linear, dusty route into the word “Way,” as in the way to Santiago de Compostela. Landscape wordsmith, John Stilgoe, dives into the word, its origins, and the meanings that history and culture have imposed on it. “Way is far older, hoary, distinct kin of Sanskrit vah, meaning to travel or carry, but likely not of the Latin via: its cousins, for example, wain in hay wain, are old too, rooted in Old English and Old Frisian. It means a track (a new word derived from ‘trace’) improved for travel (typically by felling trees, removing stumps . . . . . . Other cousins connect it with weighing, especially being weighed down, and with travel, travail, and work . . . ” (Stilgoe, 2015, pp. 171‐172). Somewhere between a road and a path, we find the way, a path turned into a cultural landscape through physical improvements where pilgrims walk, weighed down by their laden backpacks, supported by their walking sticks, all finding their way to Santiago.
Another pilgrim interviewed for the study, Kitty Formica, describes this process of traversing a foreign path where leaving a stone on a way marker is a grounding act that creates a profound sense of connection with the stone markers and the surrounding area. It creates a connection with the community of past and future pilgrims. The connections to the landscape and its structures define the modern pilgrim experience.
The Literature and History of Walking
A large body of nineteenth‐century and modern walking literature sheds some light on the impact on the body, mind, and spirit of long‐distance walking as it applies to the Camino. Nineteenth‐century writers and naturalists like Henry David Thoreau and John Muir contributed their Romantic ideas of the natural world as proximal to the perfect creations of God. Thoreau actively participated in the landscape, connecting to a higher spirituality in nature on his walks through the forests of Concord, Massachusetts, and New England. In nature he could commune with the trees and the pinecones, remarking on moss, lichen, and berries. Thoreau writes of his Walden Woods: “I am going into the wood and coming out taller than the trees” (Thoreau, 1862, p. 13). By stripping life down to its bare bones, much like a pilgrim with nothing but a backpack, he found what it meant to live essentially and deliberately outside of society. Thoreau’s relationship with Walden Pond and its woods was a love affair; he saw the natural world through rose‐colored glasses and wrote of place with exaggeration, describing red berries as “jewels worn or set in those sphagnous breasts of the swamp” (Thorsten, 2009, p. 4). Walking literature of the nineteenth century, with its emphasis on spirituality, resonates with the Camino pilgrim’s experience.
At the other end of the country, and a decade later, the great naturalist John Muir, with Walden under his arm, famously described hiking through the Sierra Nevadas to elevate the mind and spirit above and beyond the physical body: “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for in going out, I found, was really going in” (Muir, 1938, p. 18). In his writing, Muir, too, layers Romantic ideals onto the beauty of nature. It is as if he describes what his spirit observes, not his eyes. Much of his writing today seems laced with exaggeration and hyperbole: in his book The Yosemite, he describes Bridal Veil Falls as a tumbling flow of rainbows and comets (Muir, 2018, p. 57). Like Thoreau and Muir, pilgrims crossing a distance in the landscape enter their own minds. Still today, pilgrims repeatedly wonder about their place on the Camino and their role as citizens of the world and members of a changing planet. This process of self‐discovery through walking evolves into a modern‐day theme.
Contemporary writers use more functional language to describe walking, place, and identity; they focus on the impact on the walker with less colorful descriptions of nature and more reference to the connections between mind, spirit, and humanity. Today’s nature writers recognize the role of long‐distance foot travel as they break down mental and physical barriers to become one with the mountains and fields of the landscape. They develop connections with the people who walked before and addressed the ontological question of one’s place in the universe. Pilgrims also establish connections with those they meet along the way. Language barriers are immaterial, as they connect over the experience.
Modern writers of the landscape analyze the typology of a walking journey towards self‐discovery; both as inward and physical experiences, that explore the questions of identity. The physical duress of climbing a mountain, walking the holloways, or descending into caves alights meaning, curiosity, and value with the mind. Jackson, during his travels across America, famously penned: “It is place, permanent position in both its social and topographical sense, that gives us our identity.” As we stand at a waymaker, we connect to the place with the unique stories we carry. Nan Shephard’s lifelong passion for walking the Scottish Cairngorms connects to a deeply introspective, meditative process that is described in her posthumous book, The Living Mountain. Robert McFarlane, the author of The Old Ways, finds meaning in intertwining his observations of the natural world with the power of words and poetry, inspiring us, the readers, to also walk and reflect on the journey. Myth and reality merge within the walked landscape where “the geological and theological mingled, zones in which metaphor and reality merged one into the other” (Macfarlane, 2012, p. 96). Each footstep not only adds to the layers of history but also constitutes an acknowledgment of past, present, and even future social and communal acts.
MacFarlane writes of encounters that cannot occur in the built environment of towns and cities but only in long‐distance walking: “Everywhere I walked – the Hebrides, the West Bank, Sichuan, Spain, the chalk downs of Southern England – I met people for whom walking was a means of making sense of themselves and the world” (Macfarlane, 2012, p. 45). Whether it was John Muir, Robert McFarlane, or the modern pilgrim, walking is a method of connecting to the landscape, a journey of self‐discovery and an understanding of the metaphysical, the environment, the changing world, and the history of walking.
The connections between stories, wayfaring, marking the landscape, and footfall evolve and redefine the Camino landscape, creating an invisible thread connecting all pilgrims. This article’s research aligns with modern walking nonfiction and landscape historians in that these authors depict a universal experience of inward reflection after days and weeks of walking. The nineteenth‐century naturalist writers saw the world as poetry; today, as pilgrims walk, they do not see themselves as above the trees but more firmly grounded to the path and the surrounding elements. Walkers across the globe engage in way‐finding not for art but for self‐discovery and for the connections to place and community. On the Camino, these pilgrims uniquely mark and remark stone structures as they mentally and spiritually explore these themes.
The Language of the Camino’s Stone Structures
The stone gestures on the Camino are not mere physical structures but powerful voices recounting and connecting rituals, land‐use patterns, and newly emerged behaviors in the cultural landscape. Pilgrims’ gestures in stone represent an idea or expression of a personal understanding of the stone structure’s place. They alter the structure with a stone as an expression of emotional or spiritual sentiments: fatigue, awe, gratitude, and connectedness. As Anne Spirn writes in What is Landscape?, “To know nature as a set of ideas, not a place, and landscape as the expression of actions and ideas in a place not as an abstraction or as a mere scenery promotes an understanding of landscape as a continuum of meaning” (Spirn, 2000, p. 24). On a casual walk, one will find significant meaning in the beauty of the linear landscape; only pilgrims give meaning to seemingly insignificant features such as a signpost or cairn. These small stone structures represent the intersection of the profane and the sacred, exhaustion and awe, the vagueness of the footpath, and the specificity of space‐place in the stone structure. These dialectics form a center upon which the pilgrim can establish a profound emotional connection (Eliade, 1991, p. 51). The sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’s book On Collective Memory suggests that actions like placing stones on top of Camino landscape structures are impactful in that they “anchor[s] memory in spatial imagery and physical artifacts . . . that social memory endures best when there is a ‘double focus’ – a physical object, a material reality and also a symbol, or something of spiritual significance” (Halbwachs, 1992, p. 204). The physical placing of stones on stone structures acts to highlight and pin an idea or sentiment down in memory and place.
The waymarkers of the Camino are not just physical objects but a complex system of language and signs: numbers, town names, familiar symbols, and directions. In The Language of Landscape, Spirn develops a theory of grammar and language relating to the landscape that highlights the stone structures’ ability to communicate their signs and symbols with a language connecting the present to the past, to stories, histories, and folklore. As the pilgrim draws closer to the standing stone marker in the distance, the monotony of the sixteen‐kilometer stretch begins to fade. The diminishing mileage to Santiago is read, the local town is confirmed, and the blue and yellow tile bearing the Coquille Saint‐Jacques comes into view, welcoming the pilgrim. This symbol, the Coquille Saint‐Jacques, not only connects the pilgrim to each waymarker but also serves as a chain linked to the past and all the pilgrims who have journeyed this path, enriching the pilgrimage experience. Stones are placed on top, as on the last few waymarkers. Perhaps the placed stones take on the creative form of a cairn. There is a ritual and a narrative that has formed, a vernacular heritage of place. The stone marker narrates a sense of direction and purpose, speaking verbally and nonverbally of physical arrival and covering distance, of mental challenges and physical accomplishments. More abstractly, the small pile of stones notes that others have been this way. As the pilgrim moves towards the waymarker, the stones atop ask, “Who are you?”
The Geocriticism and Spatial Theory of Waymarkers and Cairns
The oral histories of the interviewed pilgrims highlight, inform, and color the very intangible, ephemeral, and unofficial rituals of the modern Camino. Theories of geocriticism and spatial theory (Tally, 2014) further enlighten our understanding of the way stone markers and cairns lend agency in communicating a spatial narrative of place and arrival, a story of the modification of a marker through multiple hands, sequentially and over time, by placing stones on top. The spatial narration of waymarkers indicates the physical distance left to Santiago, just as the pilgrim counts the more ethereal distance to enjoying simple physical, shared experiences such as the bliss of removing one’s boots, sharing a community dinner with pilgrims at the albergue, and hopefully a hot shower.
Understanding that the Camino is tied to the physical foot pain, the communal stories that create what Camilla Borg refers to as intangible layers creating a palimpsest: “What is missing is a better understanding of how the narratives and the trail itself are intertwined, tied and fused together. It is therefore worth investigating if it is possible to understand the trail itself as a nature culture zone, a storied space infused by narrative meaning, as well as, importantly, a material space that contributes to the creation of meaning and narrative structures in the stories ’along the trail’ (Borg, 2022, p. 155). When the pilgrim feels they are walking along a palimpsest, there is spatial connection to place and history. In approaching waymarkers, the pilgrim notes the cluster of stones, picks up a stone from the ground, and adds it to a growing pile. The verbal story told in this place is, “I was here; greetings from the past!” Or a traditional and ancient Camino greeting echoes off the stones: “Buen Camino! Ulteria e suseia!” The first half, in Spanish, wishes the pilgrim a good pilgrimage. The second half of this medieval pilgrim greeting translates from the Latin “ult” as further or beyond, and “eria” translates as “Let’s Go.” Together, we have the encouragement of “onward!” “Suseia” inspires one to go upward as a suggestion of aspiring toward the heavens. Pilgrims salute each other with the language of the Camino: “Onward and upward!”
Sometimes, pilgrims leave handwritten letters and prayers on markers dedicated to the sick or the deceased. These prayers go out to the loved one but also request that future pilgrims repeat the name of their loved one; the deceased lives on in memory. These mile markers, complete with stories, are the actual narrative map of the Camino, both physical and mental documentation, as if the waymarkers and cairns were little light bulbs signaling small linear communications across a two‐dimensional map of Spain. Robert Tally, Jr. writes that narrative structures are “used to map the real‐and‐imagined spaces of human experience” (Tally, 2014, p. 3). The creative gestures of building cairns and altering waymarkers constitute the pilgrim experience, the emotional geography that affects the environment through active and informal art in specific locations along the path.
Stone Structures as Liminal Spaces
Despite their physical differences, waymarkers, cairns, and the Cruz de Ferro all act as mythic thresholds in the landscape. Pilgrims arrive, and a liminal moment occurs between the past and the future. A gesture marks the present through mental connection to the previously left stones; the pilgrims then cross beyond the marker, the threshold, and move on to the slightly altered future. Victor and Edith Turner typify this ritual process in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. They term the pilgrimage process: “rites de passage.”
[They] are marked by three phases: separation, limen or margin, and aggregation. The first phase comprises symbolic behavior signifying the detachment of the individual or group, either from an earlier fixed point in the social structure or from a relatively stable set of cultural conditions (a cultural “state”); during the intervening liminal phase, the state of the ritual subject (the “passenger” or “liminar”) becomes ambiguous, he passes through a realm or dimension that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state, he is betwixt and between all familiar lines of classification; in the third phase the passage is consummated, and the subject returns to classified secular or mundane social life. (Turner & Turner, 1978, p. 2)
As the wayfarer reaches the next signpost, they step out of the cultural landscape, the path. In stepping off to approach the waymarkers or cairns located in the grass or dirt, the uncultivated part of the Camino trail bordering the more constructed environment acts as a liminal threshold, holding the pilgrim for a moment within its space. For a short moment, the pilgrim is bound within place, grounded to the earth, and reads the details of the waymarker, recognizing it as the trajectory of the East‐West, past‐future path. It is at this point that the pilgrim is inspired to make a stone gesture encouraging: “Ultreia!” Onward! The Iron Cross, also a liminal space, implies a slightly different mythology. The wooden pole and iron cross act as an axis mundus tying together up and down, heaven and hell (Eliade, 1987, p. 37); the rich spirituality of this place cannot be ignored. One looks at the cross and climbs the mountain, slightly off the path, at last reaching a space that feels sacred. There, the stone mound and cross offer encouragement: “Suseia!” Upward! In all these places, a pilgrim steps into the space of the structure that encompasses them, suggesting psychological transformation. An at‐one‐ness in the body, spirit, and mind compels the pilgrim to connect with that liminal center. A pilgrim alters the landscape structure with a mere stone to signify participation and connection to other pilgrims. These exchanges, the implicit sense of oneness, and the gesture inspire pilgrims repeatedly across eight hundred kilometers of walking and continue the modern ritual of marking the landscape in simple but unique ways. In passing the waymark, the pilgrim crosses a threshold of sorts, metaphorical, temporal, and geographical.
Pilgrim Community Around Stone Structures of the Camino
Camino walkers are known for their practice of acquiring uncommon friendships and building a pilgrim community as a form of modern ritual. Interviewed pilgrims told of the unique acquaintances they made during their treks: pilgrims meet fellow walkers and develop friendships outside of language barriers and often based on few commonalities beyond the emotional intimacy established through long‐distance walking. For the pilgrim on the trail, there are always two friends ahead by three kilometers and maybe one behind by four kilometers. Nevertheless, everyone meets at the taverna in the evening. Within the space of waymarkers or cairns, marking gestures need not be a solitary act—a space forms around the four‐foot waymarkers where groups gather for creative acts; perhaps one pulls a stone from a pocket and places it on top of the signpost while another photographs the gesture. Spirn describes this development of intimacy in a relationship dictated by small space: “An area 1 meter square is at the heart of the human experience, the scale of human companionship, conversation, touch, the size of a desktop, or small gate and it is a threshold, a narrow sidewalk, a bench for one person or two, close together” (Spirn, 2000, p. 172). While the surrounding space is intangible, pilgrims sense its intimate one‐meter border around the stone structure; pilgrims feel a connection to each other. These stones left by past pilgrims carry their own stories and link the present to the past or future: in the present, a pilgrim knocks the stone off a waymark or cairn; in the future, another pilgrim might pick up that same stone and later adds it to a waymark.
Conclusion
Most pilgrims arrive in Saint Jean Pied de Port with their aspirations, problems, and a large backpack. They embark on this journey not just to reach a physical destination but to discover more about themselves and find answers to life’s questions. Today’s peregrines walk across Spain for personal growth, well‐being, and peace with one’s spirit than it is the quest for the salvation of the soul, as it was for medieval pilgrims. Walking the Camino is a transformative experience, a journey of movement and emotive gestures, occurring in a physical and metaphorical geography. On the Camino one’s own experience and emotional response, as well as the responses of the community of past and future pilgrims play an integral role. The pilgrim’s unique modification of the stone structures adds to the vernacular cultural landscape. These alterations aid in physical relief, allowing for a pause in the walking, a moment of mental awareness of place, and a connection to a broader community of pilgrims; time stops for a moment. The stone gestures on the Camino pilgrimage are unique and not found in similar rituals on other long‐distance treks such as the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails. Placing a stone on a signpost or a cairn transcends its physical form, giving it spiritual significance and reflecting the identity of the pilgrim while modifying the vernacular heritage of place. Each pilgrim imbues these stone structures with a narrative addressed to past and future pilgrims. Here, the significance of pilgrims’ stone gestures lies in their role in creating a geospatial community that in turn informs their identities.
However, one is bound to wonder about the sustainability of such behaviors by using stones as a ritual to pile on waymarkers, cairns, and the Cruz de Ferro. As the modern vernacular landscape evolves, it is necessary to broaden our understanding of the impact of this ephemeral culture. Research into stone gestures warrants exploration beyond the identification and interpretation of behaviors; further work is needed to understand the importance of stone structures on a larger scale. In our growing awareness of the human impact on the world, does moving stones from place to place damage the vernacular environment?
Shortly after the 1992 UNESCO Inscription nominated the Camino de Santiago de Compostella a world heritage site, almost ten thousand pilgrims a year crossed Spain. That number has steadily grown to 440,000 pilgrims in 2023 (a count that significantly surpasses the medieval heyday). Without a doubt, it must be recognized these numbers have an impact on the trail, waymarkers, inns, hostels, and restaurants. How does one balance the strain accommodating this many people undoubtedly has on the Camino environment, ecology, and infrastructure while still weighing the significance of the vernacular heritage and the personal growth of pilgrims? The oral histories of pilgrims show the significant impact of stone structures on their experiences and memories. Their stone gestures are unlikely to have the same degree of impact on the local environment; they do not alter the physical wayfaring communication toward Santiago, and the small stones are generally not destructive to the structure, soil, and plant material surrounding the stone structures, especially since the waymarkers are directly on the side of the trail. Environmental impact surveys and a cultural landscape report of the entire pilgrimage trail should be carried out to determine the conditions of the path, its infrastructure and hostels to suggest a plan for maintaining the Camino de Santiago into the future as a vast cultural resource. To aid in planning for the continuation of the modern pilgrimage, surveys and reports should include preservation experts, cultural heritage scholars, and landscape practitioners to fully understand the existing conditions of the Camino in light of increased foot traffic through the environment, the growth in popularity of pilgrimages, and the sustainability of gestures in stone.
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References & Bibliography
Oral Histories with:
Non‐religious walkers: Michael Aboudalfia, Bill & Leslie Akles, Theo Ball, Kristen Graves, Maddie Kiszewski, Bonnie Monahan, Geoff Pingree, and Sara Trezise | Religious walkers: Jennifer Bess, Kitty Formica, Kathy & Tony Wolf, and Yiyi Zhang.
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