These are some excerts from a discussion on Basque-L about the matriarchal society of the ancient Basques.

A month ago I was discussing the issue of matriarchalism with a friend. Since I am not an expertise in the social sciences, I had to accept most of my partenaire comments, because of her knowledge in the area.

She supported the hypothesis (lack of matriarchal societies) basically by exploring the holder of the power in each society. At some point I claimed that the basques were matriarchalists, so she raised the question .. who had the power? well, since basque culture has the characteristic of the semmitic cultures, (the parabola, the myth, the tale as the way of communicate) we have to explore those myths, as the oldest source of the ancient culture. Txema hornilla wrote a couple of books about the subject. The first interesting reference in "la ginecocracia vasca" ( book without index.. ) is the data that reflects the men exchange, instead of women, denoting who held the property (she..) . the sons were supoused to emigrate, whereas the daughters inherited the baserri. (data gathered by caro baroja). It seems that was not rare that the female inherit the property. It is found as a legal rule. Strictly speaking, primogeniture was the rule. It can be found in the fueros of Soul, Labourd, and Benafarroa. Txema made an exhaustive analysis of various basque myths, specially that about "Bennardo". It is remarkable the predominant role of the woman. the amona, who has extra-natural powers, the mother, that kills the son to give the milk cup ( the house, the legacy ) to her daughter, and the daughter who conducts the whole ceremomy.. I will probably transcribe the myth in other post.. The last and more important female that appears in the tale is mother earth, who gives again life to the killed son.

As adriana told us, the woman has to give the legacy to the next woman in line, and if that is not possible, to other 'close' woman. In fact she managed the 'yarleku' and the domestic cult. this role was untransferible to the male.

later txema made some points about the "ba" sufix. the female line is clearly (and thru the languaje) stated by the mentioned "ba". brother of a brother is anaia, whereas brother of sister is neba, and sister of brother arreba..sister of sister ahizpa that could come from ahizba (badaezpada..)

but there are missing elements for me. txema claimed that EH was never a feudal system, and used that ( wrong ) assumption to demosntrate further opinions. also what bothers me, is the fact that was the jauna (man) who decided the law, or the court sentences. At some point the woman lost her complete predominancy, or was her competence restricted to that related with the etxe?

later,

nko

Date: Mon, 19 Jun 1995 01:49:59 -0400
From: "Inigo San Gil (nko)" (sangil@CS.YALE.EDU)

A month ago I was discussing the issue of matriarchalism with a friend. Since I am not an expertise in the social sciences, I had to accept most of my partenaire comments, because of her knowledge in the area.

At last we have an interesting sociological discussion (as distinct from politikaz). I have heard a great deal about the matriachal basque society from an American woman I lived with for 7 months. I have always wanted to verify many of the things she said to me and now perhaps is my chance. Below are a number of things I remember from our conversations.

• the basseri was handed down the matriachal line (as confirmed by eneko)
• a man had to prove he was a good shepherd over a number of years to earn a right to marry the woman of the house. If the flock had any losses while under his custody he had to make good the losses from his own resources.
• the women of the village chose the priest from one of the local young men
• the woman controlled the finances of the village and held the keys to the money safe which was in the church
• only woman were allowed in the knave of the church, the men had to stay up in the balconies.

She told me also more contemporary stories about how women felt men were weak and they had to be forgiven their peccadillos because this weakness was inherent, e.g womanising, etc. That women for most part controlled family finances. She also said that the Inquisition and witch hunts had as one of its goals the destruction of the distinctive role of women in basque society to turn it into a patriacal society.

jon wrote:

At last we have an interesting sociological discussion (as distinct from politikaz). I have heard a great deal about the matriachal basque society from an American woman I lived with for 7 months. I have always wanted to verify many of the things she said to me and now perhaps is my chance. Below are a number of things I remember from our conversations.

• the basseri was handed down the matriachal line (as confirmed by eneko)
• a man had to prove he was a good shepherd over a number of years to earn a right to marry the woman of the house. If the flock had any losses while under his custody he had to make good the losses from his own resources.

we may clarify the concepts.. but jon, it is pretty logical that before marrying somebody you make sure is a good deal, or compatible at least (nowadays) . in the ancient society it was important the value of the other family party.. but that does not demonstrate a matriarchy. remember the dote..

• the women of the village chose the priest from one of the local young men

• the woman controlled the finances of the village and held the keys to the money safe which was in the church

• only woman were allowed in the knave of the church, the men had to stay up in the balconies.

Now my memory has failed me. I do remember seeing a 16-17th century painting in the Deputacion in Donostia which showed the king making his annual vows surrounded by noblemen and in the background woman with keys hanging from their waists and wearing hats representing their village. that seemed to confirm the money custodian role.

ejem. the king, the noblemen, the woman in the background. everything admits different readings..

She told me also more contemporary stories about how women felt men were weak and they had to be forgiven their peccadillos because this weakness was inherent, e.g womanising, etc. That women for most part controlled family finances.

She also said that the Inquisition and witch hunts had as one of its goals the destruction of the distinctive role of women in basque society to turn it into a patriacal society.

as far as i know the holy inquisition was not very concerned about that. i want to talk about this later..

now more cold water.

the nation concept and nationalism currents are ideas of the beginning of this century. the nation concept was redefined. those ideas spread over the world quickly and successfully. african countrys got their independence, latin american nation arouse, boundaries, maps.. in this framework, the new nations searched its own nation identity. tell a guy from normandia that is the same as a breton.. french country is an invention of its famous revolution. the frenchness is something new.. they collected what was understood by a 'french'. french as in contrast with surrounding nations. basque country is not a exception, I am afraid. they had to find a basque identity. some characteristic that denote a difference with the rest. matriarchalism was a possibility, so the anthropologists (oxemiel barandiaran, j.caro baroja) other important members and the government (term that was born after the french revolution) worked hard to build the basque identity. Of course, there is the euskera, and a lot of cultural things that shows a common trunk among basque provinces, but the habitants of labourd did not know the ones from gernika, and viceversa. there was no such a union. remember the dialects..

so matriarchalism is a magic idea to build a different identity. but I doubt that this was the case. I will come to the history in further posts.. a myth does not demonstrate who held the power in a society. and even the bennardo myth has different lectures. I would like to expose this later.. (too many things)

and, the last thing, jon. you said in the very beginning, "an american woman told me..." i want to know what was the interest of this woman. why? in the sixties, there was a strong pacifistic and feministic movement here in the US. they (feminists) looked for matriarchalistic societies around the world, as a hope, a goal, or a confirmation of their will. they did many mistakes, or they found matriarchalism in societies were the women were clearly subordinates to men.. perhaps your friend was involved with this movement :)

I am not saying that basque country was always patriarchalist, I want to find out the true, if any exists..

This is a continuation of the discussion raised by Jon Patrick and Eneko San Gil reletad to the supposed Basque Matriarchalism

I will start it with a long quoting from the book by Marija Gimbutas The Civilisation of the Goddess. The World of Old Europe. Harper and Collins 1991.

Quote Begin:

The earliest civilisations were in all probability matristic; since agriculture was developed by women in the Neolithic period, it created optimal conditions for the survival of matrilineal systems. During the early agricultural period women reached the apex of their influence in farming, arts and crafts and social influence. The matrilineal clan with collectivist principles continued.

There is not evidence in Old Europe of a patriarchal chieftainate of the Indo-European type. There are no male royal tombs and no residences in megarons on hill forts. The burial rites and settlements patterns reflect a matrilineal structure whereas the distribution of wealth in graves speaks for an economic egalitarianism. The difficulty with the term matriarchy in 20th century anthropological scholarship is that it is assumed to represent a mirror image of the patriarchy Qthat is to say a hierarchical structure with women ruling in the place of men. This is far from the reality of Old Europe. Indeed we do not find on Old Europe, nor in all of the Old World a system of autocratic rule by women. Rather we found a structure with the sexes more or less on equal footing.

Quote ends

This could explain some of the objections that Inigo San Gil makes to Jon Patrick. Eneko says

although the matrilineal structure of property inheritance is a signal of women control, is not enough to demonstrate the hypothetical dominance of women. If we are to understand that the matriarchalism represent women power over men.

He is right, matriarchalism representing women power over men did not existed in the Basque country because. It has never existed: nor in Euskadi, neither in any other place on Earth. It could be argued that institutionalised social oppression by men by women is impossible. Perhaps it has to do with the level of testosterone. We have a number of radical ladies in this list also Golda Meier, Margaret Thatcher and Indira Ghandi lead their countries to successful wars, but on average women appear less prone to oppression than men.

Nevertheless Old Europe had a social structure clearly different from the Indo-European cheiftandoms and kingdoms that would come latter. The typical tomb of old Europe is the megalithic one, were a lot of people was buried together. Male tombs included items like arrow heads but very few weapons. Older women were honoured with symbolic items often with richly decorated vases or jewels. Not a single male grave included insignia of rank as one would expect from a ruling aristocracy. Evidence suggest that elder women, the mothers of the clan received the highest social respect.

The consensus is that Kurgan was the first Indo-European culture. Nothing could contrast more with respect to the situation above than a typical Kurgan tomb. There you could find the male buried in the middle of a very rich set of items with weapons, horses, war chariots and young women slaughtered for the occasion.

The social structure of several historical European, but not Indo-European cultures, appears strange to the Indo-Europeans Romans or Greeks. According to Greeks and Roman historian peoples like Carians, Etruscan Cantabrian, Basques gave a lot of social power to the women, Often Cantabrians dedicated monuments to their mother and the brother of their mother but not to their father. The reading of Los Pueblos del Norte by Caro Baroja is a good reference on the issue. Remember that Caro Baroja, or me for that purpose, are not abertzale. We cannot be accused of trying to build a Basque identity. It is just true that the Basque country, and also some other areas around the Pirinees, have been much more sexually equalitarians that the areas around.

It appears a fact that the social structure of the whole of Old Europe was equalitarian or matrilineal. It appears also that this situation, more or less changed, survived the roman conquest and somehow survived till now.

To claim that the inquisition was used to destroy the Basque Matriarchy is a mistake. To say so, is to project our XX-th century ideologies and fights to the XVI-th century; but ..... this note is already too long and I will leave the discussion over this topic for the future.

This page is part of Buber's Basque Page and is maintained by Blas Uberuaga. Please report any problems or suggestions to Blas. Eskerrik asko!