Basque ethnography at a glance
Cover of the work Agriculture, only recently published (2017) eighth volume of the Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country.
Intensive, industrial crop and livestock farming provide food for an elite part of the population today. They are a minority who have allowed themselves to turn their backs on the rural world, except to engage in sports and leisure activities or build a second house, and more, they have decided to eat the inedible. Both sectors have become entrepreneurial undertakings that do not produce food but raw materials from which processed products still called food by tradition or as a mere euphemism are manufactured through complex industrial processes and offered in vast visual displays on supermarket shelves. Such farming methods require large energy inputs and are major contributors to climate change for their high greenhouse-gas emissions. (more…)
Hermitage of Our Lady of Kizkitza. José Zufiaurre.
The hermitage of Our Lady of Kizkitza stands on a promontory between the village of Itsaso (Gipuzkoa) and the mountain pass of Mandubia. The image of the Virgin is placed on a fishing vessel at the main altar. It seems odd at first glance, but she is there for a reason. (more…)
Ruins of a snow pit in Astikurutz (Otxandio), 1993. José Ignacio García Muñoz. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
Underground pits in the mountains called edur-zuloak in Bizkaia Basque, neveras in Spanish, were used in days gone by for the storage and preservation of snow. They fell into disuse by the start of the 20th century, the original constructions being thus severely deteriorated and the facts about the role they played nearly forgotten. (more…)
Field gate in the neighbourhood of Bernales (Carranza), 2008. Miguel Sabino Díaz.
Enclosure of open fields in the Valley of Carranza (Bizkaia) was accomplished by the use of either dry-stone walls or living hedges, as stated in the Regulation for the clearing and legitimacy of land formerly subject to common rights in the Valley, approved by the Council at the sitting on 27 May 1910: “Land cleared in accordance with the provisions of this Regulation will necessarily be enclosed with a wall 1.50 metres in height or a ditch and living hedge of 1.75 metres…”. (more…)
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