While the Basque Country has seemingly punched above its weight in terms of its contributions to history, its contributions to philosophy are perhaps less well known. On July 1, the Basque Country lost one of its heavyweights. Joxe Azurmendi was one of the intellectual leaders of the modern Basque Country. It is impossible to do […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The motto Zazpiak Bat – or the equation 4+3=1 – is a common way to express the unity of the seven historical Basque provinces. The Basque coat-of-arms is called zazpiak bat, but the phrase means more than just the coat-of-arms. It expresses the common cultural and historical legacy of Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Araba, Nafarroa, Zuberoa, Lapurdi, […]
The Basque Country is full of colorful festivals and each city and town has their own special fiesta. Even towns as small as Munitibar – less than 500 people – have a big fiesta on their saint’s day, with the plaza full of people dancing to live music. Vitoria-Gasteiz, the political capital of the Basque […]
Wandering the streets, friends in tow, hopping from bar to bar, getting a bit of a drink and a pintxo – the tradition of the txikiteo. One of my favorite things to do in the Basque Country, txikiteo is the epitome of Basque social life. It’s a perfect way to spend time with your koadrila […]
Gizotso – gizon (man) + otsoa (wolf) – is the Basque wolf man, the Basque werewolf. Though there aren’t many wolves left in the Basque Country, Basques have a long history with wolves, which often terrorized livestock and even people. So, it is no surprise that the Basques, as so many cultures, had stories of […]
When I wrote about the various cities of Durango a while back, that opened a thread of the Basque history of Mexico and the southwest United States that is ripe for further exploration. That history is reflected in so many place names of the region. Not only are cities like Durango named after their Basque […]
