People have always searched for answers and have often turned to the world around them to help explain seemingly random events. Why did she die? Why did he get sick? The animal world often provided answers, or at least foretold coming misfortune. The Basques had a strong relationship with the animals around them and found, […]
In early December, I was in Boston for the annual Materials Research Society meeting. Always the week after Thanksgiving, this conference brings together materials scientists from all over the world to share their most recent results and ideas. It’s also a great opportunity to catch up with friends. That includes non-scientist friends. We have some […]
We fear the night. Monsters, bad guys, and evil can hide in the dark. We avoid that darkened street corner, not sure what might be hiding in the shadows. The ancient Basques had those same fears, though perhaps their monsters were a bit different. They appealed to their goddesses for relief. And the eguzkilore was […]
It’s somewhat amazing to realize that we can get a reasonable forecast of the weather by simply looking at our phones. Granted, they aren’t perfect – forecasting the weather is extremely hard – but overall, when meteorologists say there is a 50% chance of snow, half the time it snows on those days. It wasn’t […]
Merry Christmas! Egu Berri On! I hope everyone has a great holiday break however you celebrate. Today, I wanted to fill your virtual stocking with a bevy of Basque Facts about Christmas. May these little nuggets inspire you or at least give you some new perspective on the Basque culture, history, and people and whet […]
Lisa Van De Graaff (my wife), in her studies of the textile arts, ran across an embroidery stitch called the Basque stitch. She asked me about it, suggesting I do a Basque Fact of the Week about it. It turns out, there is little information about it in English beyond the fact that it is […]
For much of its history, the Basque Country has been split by borders that aren’t theirs, putting it into a kind of no-man’s land. Families were separated by this imaginary line, but the laws on either side were real. This led to a whole underground of trade perpetuated by men and women known as mugalariak. […]
In many cultures, before there were humans, giants roamed the earth. These giants created the spectacular structures dotting the landscape that surely no human could ever have made. In Euskal Herria, there are a couple of these beings that roam the Basque imagination. They come from a time before Christianity and are often defined by […]
Dad died nine years ago this Thanksgiving. I miss you, dad. Dad came to the United States when he was 18. He had three uncles over here, already working in the hills as sheepherders, and he hoped to make some money like they did. There just wasn’t so much opportunity in the Basque Country at […]
At at time when Spain was colonizing the Americas, there were many moral questions that came with exploiting the Native populations and their lands. One prominent voice against Spain’s actions was Francisco de Vitoria. Sometimes called a father of international law (though modern scholars would argue it wasn’t truly international law as we think about […]
