Basque ethnography at a glance
St John’s hermitage in Murgoitio, 1995. Berriz (Bizkaia). José Ignacio García Muñoz. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
Between dawn and sunrise on St John’s Day, it is customary to place an oak or ash branch decorated with a bunch of herbs and flowers on front doors of houses and hermitages dedicated to the saint. Ears of wheat would also be added to the arrangement in earlier times, and a peeled splinter inserted in the wood of the branch to make a rustic cross. St John’s oak bouquet (sanjuan-haretxa, in Basque) is in point of fact a traditional symbol of the summer solstice. (more…)
The shirt of Nessus.
Those surprised by the striking parallels between legends of the Basque Country and India should be still more amazed to hear in them echoes of age-old myths such as the shirt of Nessus, Medea’s poisoned dress or Harmonia’s cursed necklace, all of them fabled objects capable of inflicting a most painful death to those who, unconscious of their fatal effect, have the temerity to wear them. A summary of the story of the centaur Nessus by the great French mythographer Pierre Grimal will provide us with a higher basis for comparison: (more…)
Aurangzeb reading the Quran.
Dominica Zalbidegoitia, from Dima, Arratia (Bizkaia), was the woman who (a century ago, give or take a decade) related the following oral legend to Resurrección María de Azkue:
The tail of the snake
There lived two brothers in Bargundia, a farmstead in Dima. One day, once their daily labour in the fields was completed, the two brothers returned to the house each with a stack of wheat on the shoulders, and on resting it down, a snake crawled out. One of the brothers started to beat the snake. The other told him:
─Leave it. It is God’s creature, so leave it in peace. (more…)
By Luis Manuel Peña. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
The large farm basket weaved from chestnut wood strips was primarily used for transportation of harvested grass, but it did serve other purposes. Here are two most remarkable uses for the harvest basket in and around Gernika:
When a hen became broody, it was placed under the harvest basket to stop it from sitting on eggs. The hen was only allowed to leave the isolation basket for food and water. A broody hen would distinctively pluck out its feathers and make it difficult for other hens to lay their eggs by hogging the nest. At the slightest drop of guard, it would try and stubbornly hatch an unfertilized clutch, a futile act that often resulted in eggs being spoiled from overheating or even broken. Discouraging broodiness is not an easy task and might last as long as a fortnight. (more…)
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