Before the colonial conquest, which led to the implementation of a large-scale drilling project, the Algerian oases were the scene of the exploits of rhetassin, divers specialized in the development and decongestion of wells. This study returns to the cultural destiny of these atypical figures by explo ring a large corpus : from the texts of medieval Arab scholars – Ibn Khaldun in particular – to the accounts of French travelers and geographers during colonization until the reappropriation of these figures by Tahar Hanache in the first film of Algerian cinema and by Sven Lindqvist in a more recent travelogue. The article hypothesizes that divers reveal the gaze of those who observe them : the ecological and political « meaning » of their practice is really grasped only by rare artists.