Basque ethnography at a glance
Grandmother and grandchildren. Urduliz (Bizkaia), 2011. Akaitze Kamiruaga. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
I was born and bred in a rural environment, as a fully integrated member of an agricultural community, and within a typical three-generational family structure of grandparents, parents and children. Our parents would spend their days farming and tending to livestock around the farmstead, so we were often in the care of our grandparents. They would teach us how to look after the smaller animals on the farm, to carry out simple chores out in the cultivated fields, to create our own toys, to pray, to sing, to play cards, and even more, they would delight us with their stories and wonderful tales, which we listened to in awe. (more…)
Luis Maria Artabe Zearreta feeding the livestock. Aldanagoikoa Farmstead in Amorebieta-Etxano (Bizkaia), 1985. Manuel Ignacio Zubia Artabe.
The internal distribution of spaces in rural houses varied to more adequately meet the needs of households and their way of living. So there where livestock farming was the major activity the whole or most of the ground floor would be originally used for stabling. Should the hearth be on that same floor, hatches in the wall were fairly common for feeding the cows straight from the kitchen or the passageway. Being so very close, domestic animals actually provided a natural means of heating agricultural dwellings. (more…)
Leitzaran (Navarre). Euskal Herria. Collection of slides. SEIE Group.
There are two major types of settlement patterns in the Basque Country: dispersed and concentrated, the former on the Atlantic side of the watershed and the latter in the southern regions. Semi-compact settlements or rural villages consisting of small clusters of houses, and therefore considered a phase of transition from isolated to compact settlements, are also to be found. According to Barandiaran, higher-density forms of settlement are preceded by agro-pastoral developments. (more…)
Fountain of Goiendegi. Neighbourhood of Urigoiti, Orozko (Bizkaia). Javier Perea. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
“It has quite rightly been said that any human settlement is the amalgamation of a little humanity, a little land and a little water.” proves to be a self-evident, though worth recalling observation, made by Barandiaran at the time.
Proximity to rivers or springs of fresh water was a major geographic factor for human settlement, ultimately affecting the location of rural houses. Some households had their own well, cistern or tank; others shared it with neighbouring households. Many neighbourhoods featured a fountain, together with a drinking trough for the livestock, and a communal washing place where clothes were laundered. And in larger population areas urban fountains were a convenient source of good-quality water, not to mention professional vendors who supplied water door to door. (more…)
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