Tag Archives: death

Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country

I just stumbled on to the Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country, which intends “to provide an overview of popular culture and lifestyles of the Basques throughout the 20th century up to the present day.” It covers a range of every day activities and aspects of every day life, from “House and Family” to “Diet” […]

Basque Fact of the Week: Basque Funerary Customs

During one of my visits to the Basque Country, we visited the hilerria, or cemetery, in Munitibar. I wasn’t clear what was going on, until they started digging up one of the graves. It seems that it was time to move my dad’s grandmother’s body. They dug up her grave — her son, my great-uncle, […]

Basque Fact of the Week: In Basque Mythology, Before Humans, There Was a Race of Giants

Basques are known for the strong Catholic devotion. However, the Basques are also known to have converted to Christianity relatively late. Before, they had a mythology that was based on various supernatural beings. One of those was the Jentilak, or race of giants. These beings, immense in size, existed before humans, though maybe co-existed with […]