Basque ethnography at a glance

Detail of The creation of Adam, the fresco painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

All changes undergone by human activity could symbolically be reflected in the length of an arm.

When there were no machines, labourers were the main workforce and their arms the instrument of labour. In point of fact, an arm bent at the elbow flexing bulging biceps represents physical strength. More skill-demanding jobs that do not rely on force are mostly accomplished with the hands. Such is the case with craft and artisan work. Moving forward within the realms of intellectual pursuit, the fingers become particularly relevant. It is the fingers that hold the pen we write with or the brush that captures on a canvas an artist’s inner self.

Handwork requiring fine manual and finger dexterity is nothing new. How otherwise could an axe have been carved out of stone? Or let us think about the artistry involved in cave painting. Only now it is in reach of an overwhelming majority.

As we made steady progress towards a digital age, the focus shifted from the fingers onto the fingertips. We started to strike the keys of mechanical and later electric typewriters to end up with our fingertips at computer keyboards. In a mode of gradual withdrawal from reality, we are at present fully immersed in a digital culture environment. Instead of tapping keys, nowadays we swipe our fingertips across glass surfaces. The human bond with the material world has been reduced to gentle caressing of screens and will eventually break. It is only a matter of time before communication without actual contact is implemented, and that might not be the end of it. There will come a day when computing systems will be powered by thought with the same determination that moved the arm, next the hand and finally the fingers and fingertips. The labouring arm gave way to the working hand, and in the transition to a digital way of life, fingers and tips turned into masters of technology. We can only wonder what the not-too-distant future scenario of mind-controlled devices will be called.

Ander Manterola – Etniker Bizkaia – Director of the Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country

Luis Manuel Peña – Ethnography Department – Labayru Fundazioa

Translated by Jaione Bilbao – Language Department – Labayru Fundazioa

Clip from the film Minority Report by Steven Spielberg, 2002.