Basque ethnography at a glance

Author: Felix Mugurutza

Ascension Day was a significant reference in the calendar of our ancestors.

According to Christianity, it is celebrated forty days after Easter Sunday and commemorates the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven in the presence of his disciples.

Transferred to the profane environment, the Ascension marks the end of a specific period, which begins with the equinox and the beginning of spring and shows us the moment in which meadows, forests and crop fields show the moment of greatest prosperity. Furthermore, it was planting time.

Therefore, a series of rituals are activated. Rituals of great intensity and popular participation, in order to avoid misfortunes and droughts that would destroy crops and endanger subsistence. And since the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven is commemorated, it makes the perfect occasion to pray to the heavens, hoping to bless and fill the fields with life and rain that will be received “like May water” [“Como agua de mayo” is a Spanish expression. It alludes to the convenience of rain in May, since the fields and, especially cereals, benefit from the rain in that month. So, it describes something, someone, or an incident, that provides a positive contrast and change during difficult moments. There are similar expressions in English: like a breath of fresh air, or godsend].

Ascension Day is always celebrated on a Thursday and normally in May, like this year, 2024, which will be celebrated on the 9th.

But on this occasion, what interests us most are the rogation days, the rituals that were celebrated in all the towns the previous three days and which this year would be on May 6, 7 and 8.

People went in procession to various spots of the town, along specific paths “to ask God for the preservation of the goods of the earth and the grace of being free from scourges and misfortunes.” Or what is the same, to protect the fertility of the fields and life itself.

Unfortunately, all those details, routes, agapes… typical and exclusive of each town, are being forgotten. That is why the collection of oral testimonies is urgent.

In Laudio, even older people remember it well. But we owe the most precise reference to the information that Abilio Benito sent to Barandiaran in 1936: [original in Spanish]: «During the three previous days, prayers are usually organized to almost all the hermitages. On Monday they leave for Saint Lucy; on Tuesday to the hermitages of Saint Agatha and Saint John and on Wednesday to those of Saint Bartholomew (first parish of the town) and the Holy Cross hermitage.

It was customary during these prayers to have a representative of the City Council: And this (the City Council) was the one in charge of the expenses incurred by the breakfast of the priest and some others who attended.

[…] At least the path they follow to go to the hermitage of Saint Agathe is not usually the common one, but rather they take a special one, according to tradition; sometimes though, it is the same.

We know thanks to local documentation that, in May and perhaps coinciding with the rogation days given the times referred to, it was ordered in 1784 that: “…every year, when the corn is already planted, we climb Mount Arraño as up to now here, to the general blessing of the fields”.

Back again to the rogations, as the older laudioarras (people from Laudio) remember, at the exit of the hermitage, the attendees were given a snack that, in the Saint Lucy for instance (the most important of them) consisted of some slices of battered cod and cheese with quince. Of course, accompanied with a little wine. In smaller and more humble ones, like that of Saint Joan, some cookies and a little “Saint Roch” sweet wine were offered.

Furthermore, there was a popular superstition, still remembered, that during that week of prayers one could not sow beans because they would not germinate.

Things from a near past but that, inevitably, will be devoured by insatiable oblivion. Unfortunately …

Felix Mugurutza – Researcher