Basque ethnography at a glance

Frame of the 1983 screen adaptation.

Many years ago, in a trade union meeting of rural women from several regions of the Cantabrian coast, we learned from a group of Mapuche Indians about their work in the fields, and they so happened to mention, among others, their valuable role as carers. Cultural differences between our guests and us became evident: the Mapuche women could not understand why our young children spend much of the day in nurseries, and why our elderly end their lives in geriatric homes. Someone attempted to shed some light on the growing complexities of modern European society, where in order to maintain a certain standard of living both partners in a household need to work outside the home, being thus left with little time for caregiving (apart from other obvious considerations, such as the right to employment).

Homes for the elderly have over recent decades become widespread as a result of the multiple social and demographic changes we are experiencing. Years ago only those lacking in economic resources and the necessary family support would finish their days in so-called ‘nursing homes’.

Caring for the elderly might not always have been possible, not even in traditional cultures. There comes to mind a film inspired by the legend whereby elderly parents were carried to a mountain and left there to die of starvation, for the sake of the family. We are referring to the The ballad of Narayama, and more particularly, the compelling image of the son carrying his mother to the mountain where he would abandon her. In times of hardship, and living under conditions of extreme poverty, the weakest could be dispensable.

My ethnographic fieldwork in the Valley of Carranza (Bizkaia) has involved multiple interviews with aged men. And deep within their hearts a rest home must have been close to the desolate mountain where 69-year-old Orin is carried to and abandoned in Shohei Imamura’s film.

Several respondents told me the following story: There was once a man who set off for the nearest nursing home carrying his father on his shoulders. On his way there, and burdened by the weight, he sat down on a rock to rest. The old man then revealed that long time ago, when he was carrying his own father, he sat down on that same rock to catch his breath. On hearing that, the son stood up, and carrying his father, made his way back home. The father spoke again to ask his son whether he was going to be taken to the nursing home. “No father, because if I take you there, my own children might one day take me there too” replied the son with a heavy heart.

Luis Manuel Peña – Ethnography Department – Labayru Fundazioa

Translated by Jaione Bilbao – Ethnography Department – Labayru Fundazioa