All posts by buber

Idaho Oregon Nevada Heritage Museum

Sheep were a big business in southwest Idaho/eastern Oregon/northern Nevada.  As a result, a lot of Basques settled in the high desert of the area.  Sheep brought my dad and my mom’s grandparents to America.  My mom’s aitxitxa, Blas Telleria, and amuma, Ines Eiguren, both settled in Jordan Valley, OR, a small town just on […]

Donostia, 2016 Cultural Capital of Europe

This is a nice video promoting Donostia/San Sebastian as the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2016.

Molly Mendiguren’s Tattoo

Molly Mendiguren sent this photo of her lauburu tattoo. She writes “Taken right after I got it. Chose the basque red & green colors over the plain black.” The full size photo can be found in the Tattoo Gallery. Eskerrik asko Molly!

Mikel Laboa: First notes for a march…

One of the pioneers of modern Basque music, Mikel Laboa, recently died (Dec 1, 2008).  Beginning in the 1960s, Laboa was a cornerstone of much that followed, from the rediscovery of traditional Basque instruments such as the alboka and the txalaparta to influencing even some of the hard rock and heavy metal bands that the […]

Link dump

I’ve been meaning to share this set of links for a while and just thought I’d “dump” them on you before I either forget or they get outdated. 🙂 Last.fm, an online music station of sorts, has a channel dedicated to Kortatu and similar artists. I haven’t spent a lot of time with it yet, […]

Euskadi geurea

The tattoo photos keep coming in. The latest tattoo belongs to Mikel Lataburu.  On his arm, he has the phrase “Euskadi geurea,” which translates to “Euskadi is ours.”  He had it done by a Kurdish friend of his in Istanbul, where Mikel currently resides.  He says it is a beautiful Sunday day in Istanbul and […]

Euskara Umearentzat

My Euskara is very poor. I have a basic understanding of the grammar, but my vocabulary is very limited and I don’t have the declensions nor the conjugation of the verbs in my head. Even so, I’d like to pass what little I can on to my daughter, to at least give her an exposure […]

Lauburu + Oak Leaves = Great Tattoo

Kevin Paul shares his tattoo, done by Tattoo 13 in Oakland, CA. It is a stylized lauburu in which each of the heads of the lauburu is an oak leaf. A great idea! Thanks for sharing Kevin. This, and all the tattoos, are in the Tattoo Gallery. If you have a tattoo to share, feel […]

72nd Anniversary of the Bombing of Gernika

Sunday, April 26, marks the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Gernika.  When I posted on a previous anniversary, I wrote that the Wikipedia article on the bombing briefly mentions that, in addition to Gernika and Durango, Gerrikaitz was also bombed.  I was intrigued by this as my dad is from that town and I […]

The Basque Country: Insight into its culture, history, society and institutions

Finding nice overviews of the Basque Country — its history, culture, traditions, and language — is rare in English.  There are, of course, The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky and The Basque Country: A Cultural History by Paddy Woodworth.  But, both of those are rather lengthy and certainly have their authors’ respective […]