Basque ethnography at a glance
Itziar Rotaetxe. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
Ubixeta, one of the main refuge areas in Gorbeia, has been home for at least five herds and herders until only a few years ago. Five shepherds spread over four sheds, still standing at present.
Of them all, Jose Ereño, native of Orozko (Bizkaia), is very much alive and kicking. He keeps climbing the mountain with his flock and would, until recently, make cheese using traditional methods, like his father, his father’s father… (more…)
Parhelion. Josu Larrinaga Zugadi.
The eve and the feast day of St John (24 June) are well known to encompass a large amalgam of symbolic rituals associated to earth (people, animals, harvests and protective vegetables), water (beliefs about cleansing, regeneration and healing), air (magic moment for purging from nocturnal and malignant beings) or fire (purifying or renewing element). As regards the latter, we are familiar with the custom of climbing certain highlands in the early hours of St John’s Day to observe the dance performed by the king star or dancing sun (optical effect of the scientifically so-called sun dog, parhelion or fake sun). (more…)
Akaitze Kamiruaga. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
The present post accounts for some of the vocabulary connected with oestrus and pregnancy cycles in several domestic animals, gathered in Gernika-Lumo (Bizkaia) and applicable to a region which extends as far as the coastal city of Lekeitio (Bizkaia).
Cattle (behiak): We use the term susera to indicate that a cow is on heat —behia susera dago or behia suseratu egin da—. We could likewise use the more generic term umeske, literally ‘desiring to breed’, and therefore attributable to other female animals which are receptive to mating, such as mares, jennets and ewes. (more…)
Fernando Hualde.
This is a magic time of the year in mountains, mountaintops…, both from a natural and an ethnographic perspective. Departing from our usual focus on ethnography, let us look at a very specific item.
Thousands and thousands of sheep have already moved from lower, snow-free winter pastures to summer pastures in mountains, mountaintops and higher altitudes along the Navarrese Pyrenees and Urbasa and Aralar Mountain Ranges. Our mountains are filled with the sound of bells worn around the neck of free-roaming sheep, goats, kids, wethers, cattle, mares… The tinkling of livestock bells is in fact the most perfect musical accompaniment to the highland dweller or rambler. (more…)
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