Basque ethnography at a glance

Stack of fern. Arrazola (Bizkaia), c. 1960. Jose Antonio Retolaza.

In the past ferns had a great variety of uses. The common bracken, Pteridium aquilinum, a fern species familiar to us all, has tradionally been used for animal bedding in stables. It was harvested in the autumn, when brown, and stored while it was dry. There were different storage methods, stacks of fern, known as ira-metak in the Basque-speaking area of the territory, among others.

Dry fern made good bedding for domestic animals, and a mix of fern and raw dung piled up indoors to decompose turned into composted farmyard manure, excellent for agricultural purposes. By keeping the manure away from rainwater, nutrient leaching was prevented and germination of weed seeds reduced due to the heat of the pile. Over time, this practice was discarded as unhygienic.

Fern bedding gradually gave way to innovating and costly ways to keep confined livestock dry and confortable. In regions where animal husbandry became more intense, new manure handling procedures have steadily generated huge amounts of liquid manure, a concern that in turn entails substantial investment in efficient management plans and quite a few environmental problems.

Common bracken. Luis Manuel Peña. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

The use of ferns for livestock beds certainly reveals a comprehensive conception of the world. Old-time farmers made the best of fern, an invasive plant viewed from the current perspective, by efficiently transferring the fertility of the woods to farming land. Our ancestors were masters at bringing together the components of the natural environment around them: they would combine a natural resource from the woods with animal waste in order to produce fertile organic matter and grow crops to sustain themselves and their animals and thus make the wheel of life turn.

It was for a fact a holistic approach, forerunner to the modern ecological agricultural movements.

Luis Manuel Peña – Ethnography Department – Labayru Fundazioa

Translated by Jaione Bilbao – Language Department – Labayru Fundazioa

References for further information: Livestock Farming and Shepherding within the Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country collection, and “Usos tradicionales de los helechos en Euskal Herria” in Etniker Bizkaia, 15.