Basque ethnography at a glance
Regarding the term kuarta tenpora, most commonly used among us to designate these four sets of three days, and contrary to what it might seem, it does not allude to the fact that such celebrations took place four times a year, but comes from Latin feria quarta. In origin, that is to say, in Roman times, and from a religious point of view, ember days —the mentioned kuarta tenporak in Basque— were quarterly periods prescribed by the Church for fasting and prayer. As for the name feria quarta, it provided a means to designate a certain day of the week in Latin: starting from Sunday, Monday would be the feria secunda; Tuesday the feria tertia, feria quarta thus being the denomination of Wednesday received by the Church in Latin. On Epiphany, 6 January, from the pulpit of the parish church, the proclamation of the most important religious feasts of the liturgical year would be read. And quatuor tempora days were also announced, specifying the initial day, Wednesday, beginning with the opening formula Feria quarta tempora erit…, and subsequently giving the dates for each fasting and prayer day.
Maize husking. Maruri-Jatabe (Bizkaia), 2008. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
There are several proverbs in Basque which remind us that maize is sown in April, according to the agricultural calendar: San Jurgi, artoak ereiteko goizegi; San Markos, artoak ereinda balegoz ‘St George’s Day −23 April− is still early for sowing the maize fields, but for St Mark’s Day −25 April− they should be already sown’; or this other one: San Markos astea, atzekoa baino aurrekoa artoa ereiteko hobea ‘St Mark’s festivities, the week before is better than the week after for maize sowing’.
Despite its deep cultural roots in our land, maize originated in America, and its introduction marked a before and an after. Possibly cultivated as early as the 16th century, its expansion began in the mid-17th century and generalized by the 18th, to the detriment of millet.
Maize imported from America would be known as mijo mayor ‘larger millet’, mijo de las Indias ‘millet from the Indies’ or simply maíz, in Spanish, and arto handia ‘large millet’, in Basque, artatxikia ‘small millet’ designating autochthonous small-grain millet.
Blessing of the sanmarkos-opilak. Irun (Gipuzkoa), 1998. Photo credit: Antxon Aguirre.
We are about to address a custom which encompasses or combines various areas of traditional culture, such as parental relationships (including obligations and interactions), interrelations between age categories, religious beliefs and social protocols, cyclical aspects of our gastronomy, or even elements of customary law. Thus, godmothers and godfathers (aita-amabitxiak or aita-ama pontekoak) acquired a paschal commitment to present their godchildren with a special loaf of bread, year in, year out (sometimes until their wedding or religious consecration), known as karapaixoa (Debagoiena, in Gipuzkoa, and Aramaio, in Araba), garapaua in Elgeta (Gipuzkoa), adar-opila in Bidasoa (Gipuzkoa), aitatxi-amatxi opila in Baztan (Navarre), morrodoa in Garazi (Lower Navarre), morrokotea or mokotsa in Arratia, Durangaldea and Busturialdea (all three in Bizkaia)… And on the feast of St Mark (25 April), the sanmarkos-opila (Bidasoa and Oarsoaldea, both in Gipuzkoa), an almond cake, usual gift from godmothers during this classic festivity of blessing of fields.
Not all languages in the world use exact numbers. The Amazonian cultures Munduruku and Piranhã, for example, are anumeric, that is to say, instead of using words to express exact quantities, they use only general terms to indicate the ideas of ‘a few’ or ‘something’. The basic numbers in many languages are usually 5, 10 and 20, and it does not seem to be a coincidence that this fits with the number of the fingers of one hand, of both, or of the hands and feet.
Most Proto-Indo-European languages use a number system based on 10, called a decimal, such as Spanish. Basque, however, uses a bigesimal system, which has 20 as its base: hogei (20), berrogei (40, twice 20), hirurogei (60, three times 20)… This characteristic is shared, in addition to the French, which uses a mixed system between decimal and vigesimal, with Mayan and Uto-Aztecan languages. It seems that the Celts and Vikings also used a bigesimal system.
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