Basque Proverb of the Week

Basque Proverb of the Week: Proverb #22

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Ardiak beeka egonik, ez du jaten belarrik.

A bleating sheep eats no grass.

Image generated by Buber using ChatGPT.

These proverbs were collected by Jon Aske. For the full list, along with the origin and interpretation of each proverb, click this link.

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskadi

Basque Fact of the Week: The Industrial Town of Ermua

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The three Basque cities I’ve spent the most time in are Donostia, Munitibar, and Ermua. My dad’s sister and her family settled in Ermua as that is where the job was – her husband worked for the knife company Aitor until he retired. Ermua maybe doesn’t have the charm of the coastal cities, but it has its own unique marcha and, like so many Basque towns, a vibrant street life. The Basque tradition of the txikiteo is strong there, leading to the creation of some unique and spectacular pintxos. Not every city can be a tourist trap. Ermua is a town where the people just live their lives.

Enjoying pintxos in Ermua with my dad’s sister Begoña, her husband Javier, and my cousin Gorka.
  • Ermua is a town of about 16,000 people situated on the Bizkaian side of the Bizkaia-Gipuzkoa border. It lies very close to Mallabia and, on the other side of the Bizkaia-Gipuzkoa border, Eibar. It is situated at the foot of some mountains which aren’t very tall in the end, but because they rise immediately from the edge of town, they give the city a dramatic feel.
  • The precise date of Ermua’s founding is unknown. It is first mentioned by the Lord of Bizkaia on January 20, 1372. The context suggests to some historians that Ermua was thus founded in 1279. However, there is evidence of prehistoric human activity in the area. At both the Kobagorri cave and the Gentilkoba natural shelter, there is evidence of Bronze Age burials. There are also dolmens nearby. Both point to a much earlier human presence.
  • Neither do we know precisely what the name Ermua means. It could come from the Basque word muga, meaning border and referring to the border with Gipuzkoa. Or it could come from the Latin eremua, meaning wasteland.
  • Since its earliest history, Ermua has been associated with industry. In 1462, Ermua was known to have a forge and by 1516, it had a factory dedicated to the manufacture of muskets and shotguns. In the 1900s, as industry grew in neighboring Eibar, Ermua felt the aftershock. In the 1960s alone, the population grew from 3,000 people to nearly 15,000, much of it driven by both new industry as well as being a bedroom community for the newly arrived immigrants to Eibar. In the 1970s, Ermua had a higher population density than either Bilbao or Barcelona, a consequence of the need to build up because of those mountains. Today, the economy of Ermua is centered around metal processing, including for automotive parts, machine tools, and bicycles.
  • in 1794, Ermua fell to the French and was almost completely burned to the ground.
  • Ermua played a role in the War of the Bands. In particular, in 1468, men gathered in Ermua on the side of Lope García Salazar in his fight against the town of Elorrio. In that same year, people from the neighboring town of Zaldibar fled to Ermua.
  • Ermua gained some infamy in 1997 when their town councillor, Miguel Ángel Blanco, was kidnapped and executed by ETA. In response, a peace movement, the so-called Foro de Ermua, was created with the goals of promoting political and civil liberty.
  • More recently, Ermua was celebrated for having the best pintxo of Bizkaia. Named the nigicreta and made from almadraba tuna, it was created by Jesús González of the bar Sagarra.
  • Despite its industrial nature, Ermua boasts a number of attractions, including the Valdespina Palace, a magnificent Baroque-style residential building built in 1738; the Lobiano Palace, built in the 16th century and is one of the greatest Renaissance buildings in Bizkaia; and the Church of Santiago Apóstol another beautiful Renaissance building dating to 1600.

A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.

Primary sources: Ermua, Wikipedia; Ermua, Wikipedia; Castaño García, Manu. ERMUA. Auñamendi Encyclopedia. Available at: https://aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/en/ermua/ar-40057/

Fighting Basques

Martin Aguirre y Otegui, Basque “Righteous Among the Nations,” Celebrates His 100th Birthday

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This article was written by Pedro Oiarzabal.

Martin, born on July 4, 1925, in Las Arenas, Getxo (Bizkaia), was one of the thousands of children evacuated by the Basque government in June 1937 to escape the aerial bombardments perpetrated by General Francisco Franco’s Italian and German allies against the civilian population. Martin and two younger brothers were sent to Belgium. At just 12 years of age, he became the head of his family during their exile and through the harsh times of World War II. In May 1940, Germany invaded Belgium. The Aguirres once again found themselves in the middle of a war.

During that last world conflict, Martin became an active member of a clandestine network in Belgium aiding and rescuing Jews from the Nazi regime. Despite being in his late teens, he saved the lives of a considerable number of children and teenage Jews. On January 11, 2011, Yad Vashem—The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority—recognized Martin as one of “The Righteous Among the Nations.” He is one of the very few Basques recognized in this way. 

Martin Aguirre, aged 88, in 2014, being interviewed by Dr. Oiarzabal.

Aguirre’s biographer, Dr. Pedro J. Oiarzabal, describes him “as a humble man of great integrity and honesty.” “I am proud to call him my friend,” the Basque diaspora specialist said. “As an oral historian, I began a series of interviews with Martin back in 2014 and we have stayed connected as much as possible through the years. I am still thanking him for agreeing to be interviewed and for narrating his life, which included some very painful moments and memories, which I will always treasure and protect.” Dr. Oiarzabal concludes, “we owe him so much for making this world a freer and better place under the very difficult circumstances that were World War II. We will forever be in his debt.”

Happy birthday, Zorionak, Martin!

Basque Proverb of the Week

Basque Proverb of the Week: Proverb #21

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Ardi txikia, beti bildots.

The small sheep, always a lamb.

Image generated by Buber using ChatGPT.

These proverbs were collected by Jon Aske. For the full list, along with the origin and interpretation of each proverb, click this link.

Basque Fact of the Week, History, People

Basque Fact of the Week: Pierre de Lancre, Basque Hunter of Basque Witches

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It is seemingly part of human nature that we most vehemently attack that which is somehow a part of us. Pierre de Lancre was no different. One of the most infamous persecutors of Basque witches, he himself had Basque ancestry, an ancestry that his family seemed to deny. De Lancre felt that all aspects of the Basque culture reflected the inherent tendency of Basques toward evil.

An image from one of de Lancre’s books depicting witches flying on brooms, as drawn by Jan Ziarnko. Image from Cornell University Library.
  • Pierre de Lancre was born in 1553. His grandfather, Bernard de Rosteguy, was a wealthy wine grower and was from Joxue, a town in Nafarroa Beherea in Iparralde. Thus, de Lancre had Basque ancestry – Rosteguy is a respelling of Aroztegi, which means ‘home of the smith.’ His father became Lord of Lancre by purchasing a position under the king. This led to a new name for the family, foregoing their Basque name.
  • de Lancre attended the Jesuit college, receiving a law degree in 1576. In 1582 he was named a councillor or judge of the parliament of Bordeaux. It was in this roll that he oversaw the witch-hunt of Lapurdi, for which he became infamous.
  • In 1609, the King of France, Henry IV, sent him to investigate allegations of local witchcraft. His investigations uncovered rampant witchcraft – he ultimately suspected 10% of the population – nearly 3000 people – of being witches. As a result of his trials, he executed some 70 people, maybe even as many as 300. Many were women who were accused of adultery and debauchery with the devil, though many children and a few priests were also executed.
  • During the trials, many of the local men were away fishing in the waters of Newfoundland. When they returned, they were incensed by what had happened to their families and threatened rebellion. To quell their anger, the authorities in Bordeaux recalled de Lancre, ending the hunt.
  • After the trials were concluded and de Lancre was recalled, he published his Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons où il est ample traité des sorciers et de la sorcellerie, describing his investigations. In it, he railed against the evil inclinations of the people of Lapurdi, the intrinsic perversity of women, the preparation of the Sabbath, poisons, the crowing of the cock, demonological pacts, marks and feasts, dances, intercourse with the devil, lycanthropy, healing practices, apparitions, witch-priests, and the black mass, amongst other topics.
  • His most famous work was republished in 1982. In it, Nicole Jacques Chaquin writes in her forward that “Lancre stresses the disorders caused by a love of freedom detrimental to the proper functioning of central power” and that “Lancre will show evidence of a lack of understanding of the social and economic habits of the rural Laburdi, which will be presented to him with an effect of foreignness that he will ‘naturally’ attribute to the diabolical.”
  • There is speculation that this denial of his Basque heritage led de Lancre to hate all things Basque. He considered “Basques to be ignorant, superstitious, proud and irreligious. Basque women were in his eyes libertines and Basque priests were for him just womanizers with no religious zeal. He believed that the root of the natural Basque tendency towards evil was love of dance.”

A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.

Primary sources: Arozamena Ayala, Ainhoa; Elia Itzultzaile automatikoa. Lancre, Pierre de. Auñamendi Encyclopedia, 2025. Available at: https://aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/en/lancre-pierre-de/ar-84793/; Pierre de Lancre, Wikipedia; Pierre de Lancre, Wikipedia

Basque Proverb of the Week

Basque Proverb of the Week: Proverb #20

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Ardi galdua atzeman daiteke, aldi galdua berriz ez.

One may recover a lost sheep, but not lost time.

Image generated by Buber using ChatGPT.

These proverbs were collected by Jon Aske. For the full list, along with the origin and interpretation of each proverb, click this link.

Basque Fact of the Week, People

Basque Fact of the Week: Basque Sculptor Eduardo Chillida

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One of the aspects of Basque culture that has always fascinated me is the mix of tradition with the most cutting edge ideas. Growing up in the Basque communities of the American West, I was exposed more to the traditional aspects of the culture – the dancing, the singing – and less to the avant garde that seems to define much of modern Basque culture, such as the radical rock. Basque art is no different, with some of the most important artists working in abstract spaces that, while feeling counter to the ancient traditions, are still rooted in them. Perhaps the most famous Basque sculptor, Eduardo Chillida epitomized this dichotomy.

Chillida with one of his stone sculptures. Photo from the Museo Chillida Leku.
  • Eduardo Chillida Juantegui was born in Donostia on January 10, 1924. His parents were Pedro Chillida and Carmen Juantegui, who was a soprano. Chillida was a goalkeeper for Real Sociedad until a devastating knee injury ended his career, after which he studied architecture in Madrid before switching to art and studying in Paris.
  • From a young age, his parents encouraged a sensitivity for art in him and his siblings. They would lock them in a room and ask them to observe the objects, to hone an awareness of everything around them, and then ask them to describe those objects after.
  • It was only after returning from Paris in 1951, a bit despondent, that he both truly connected with his Basque identity and began working in iron. In Hernani, he created his first abstract sculpture, called Ilarik, that was inspired by Basque funerary steles. By 1954, he was being commissioned to create the doors to the Sanctuary of Arantzazu. In 1961, he began sculpting in wood and, in 1963, after a trip to Greece, in alabaster. Later, he also worked in concrete and clay.
  • In 1975, he created the logo for the University of the Basque Country, which is still used today along with the motto Eman ta zabalzazu – give and spread – taken from Jose Mari Iparragirre‘s Gernikako Arbola. A few years later, he began work on one of his most famous pieces, the Haizeen orrazia in La Concha Bay of Donostia.
  • Chillida has been highly recognized for his work across the globe. Accolades include the Grand International Prize for Sculpture at the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958, the Kandinsky Prize, the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize, the German Kaissering Prize, the Prince of Asturias Prize, and the Imperial Japanese Prize. In 1993, he was named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Correspondingly, his work appears all over the world.
  • In 2000, the Chillida-Leku museum opened in Hernani on the grounds of a sixteenth century baserri he and his wife purchased in the 1980s. It showcases many of Chillida’s works in a natural setting, harmonizing his art with nature. He died a couple of years later in 2002 in Donostia.
  • Chillida is quoted describing his work: “My whole Work is a journey of discovery in Space. Space is the liveliest of all, the one that surrounds us. …I do not believe so much in experience. I think it is conservative. I believe in perception, which is something else. It is riskier and more progressive. There is something that still wants to progress and grow. Also, this is what I think makes you perceive, and perceiving directly acts upon the present, but with one foot firmly planted in the future. Experience, on the other hand, does the contrary: you are in the present, but with one foot in the past. In other words, I prefer the position of perception. All of my work is the progeny of the question. I am a specialist in asking questions, some without answers.”

A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.

Primary sources: Zabalaga-Leku. Hernani; Elia Itzultzaile automatikoa. Chillida Juantegui, Eduardo. Auñamendi Encyclopedia. Available at: https://aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/en/chillida-juantegui-eduardo/ar-36023/; Eduardo Chillida, Wikipedia

Basque Proverb of the Week

Basque Proverb of the Week: Proverb #19

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Apaizaren eltzea, txikia baina betea.

The priest’s pot is small, but always full.

Image generated by Buber using ChatGPT.

These proverbs were collected by Jon Aske. For the full list, along with the origin and interpretation of each proverb, click this link.

Basque Fact of the Week, Euskadi, History

Basque Fact of the Week: Oldest Known Tools Made of Whale Bone Found in the Bay of Biscay

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Basques have long been associated with whaling. Records as far back as 670 highlight the importance that whale hunting was to the Basque economy and their way of life. However, the people that inhabited the region we now know as the Basque Country used resources from whales even earlier, many millennia earlier. New research has revealed that people on the coast of Bizkaia and the surrounding regions made tools from whale bones some 20,000 years ago.

Summary of the types of artifacts analyzed in this study and the animals of their origin.
  • A large collection of researchers spanning universities and research centers in Barcelona, Paris, Austria, Santander, Salamanca, Toulouse, Donostia, Switzerland, Oviedo, Denmark, and Canada, amongst others, examined a collection of whale bones found along the Bay of Biscay (Bizkaiko Golkoa in Basque). Using a number of techniques, they dated these bones to 16,000 to 22,000 years ago.
  • The most remarkable thing about this find is that some of these bones, a majority even, had been made into tools. That humans made various tools out of whale bone is nothing new, but this is now the oldest evidence of humans doing this, pushing back our understanding of when humans used whale bones in this way by at least 1,000 years.
  • Most of these objects are related to weapons, often being projectile points or foreshafts, similar to points made from antlers from a similar time period. Some of them are fragmented, suggesting they were crushed, and leading the researchers to speculate that maybe these bones were brought back to habitats for their fat and oil, which was extracted by crushing the bones.
  • In addition, the researchers were able to determine what kinds of whales these were – they use carbon versus nitrogen isotope ratios to identify the different species (you’ll have to dig into the paper for more details). Five different species were identified. Some are expected – sperm, blue, fin whales are still found in the Bay of Biscay today. However, gray and bowhead/right whales are only found in the Arctic, which means that the Bay of Biscay of some 20,000 years ago hosted an even richer biodiversity than it does now. This makes some sense as the waters were colder back then, more akin to today’s Arctic waters. Of course, some of these whales, particularly right whales, were extensively hunted off of the shores of the Basque Country, also contributing to their current absence. However, these whales were likely not hunted, but acquired “opportunistically” as they washed ashore, for example. The humans of the time simply didn’t have the capabilities to actually hunt whales.
  • Several of these fragments were found in the modern Basque Country, including in Iruroin, Ermittia, Urtiaga, and Isturitz. However, the generality of these discoveries along the Bay of Biscay suggest that the same types of peoples were responsible for all of these artifacts.
  • These types of studies not only shed light on human prehistory, but they provide a broader view of the past world. The researchers were able to also examine the diet of these whales via isotope analysis, finding that their diet and habitat was similar, for the most part, to what whales exhibit today. That said, there are differences that may be partially attributed to changing climate over the last 20+ millennia.

A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.

Primary source: McGrath, K., van der Sluis, L.G., Lefebvre, A. et al. Late Paleolithic whale bone tools reveal human and whale ecology in the Bay of Biscay. Nat Commun 16, 4646 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59486-8