Category Archives: History

Zorionak NABO!

This year marks the 40th anniversary of NABO — the North American Basque Organizations. NABO’s goal is to bring together the Basque clubs of North America (NABO has member clubs in Canada and the United States) to help those clubs in their efforts to preserve and promote Basque culture. NABO is thus a collection of […]

Pre-Neolithic Genetics of the Basques

I’m not a geneticist, but I am fascinated by what modern genetics can tell us about the history and prehistory of humans. The Basques are particularly interesting because of the pre-Indo-European origins of the population. As more and more genetic studies are done, I think we will ultimately recreate a detailed map — both spatial […]

The destruction of San Sebastian, recreated via Twitter

Today is July 10, 1813. Donostia has been occupied by Napoleonic troops for 5 years. The Marquess of Wellington, commander of the allied troops, reaches Hernani. The British have already landed troops and weapons and ships have begun the blockage. The siege of Donostia begins. 200 hundred years ago today, the Siege of Donostia began, […]

Big Basque News: Basque World Heritage Site and .eus Basque Internet Domain

Two big news items related to Basques this week. First, long time contributor David Cox, who also happens to be Canadian (we don’t hold that against him), sent this article about the possibility of the Red Bay National Historic Site in Labrador becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Canadian Officials are currently lobbying UNESCO to […]

Marraskiloak: Christmas Snails

My wife sent me this interesting article about the migration of snails to Ireland. The article, which summaries this study in PLOS ONE, concludes that a specific species of snails made its way from the Eastern Pyrenees to Ireland maybe 8000 years ago. Granted, today, the eastern part of the Pyrenees is not Basque — […]

Thoughts on Longmire: Death Came in Like Thunder

On June 10th, A&E broadcast the episode of Longmire that features the crew dealing with a Basque community in Wyoming, Death Came in Like Thunder. For those who missed it but are interested in seeing it, you can catch it on A&E’s website. The plot centers around the murder of a Basque sheepherder, the grandson […]

Baking your own Sheepherder’s Bread

My wife’s grandmother’s cookbook had this clipping from a newspaper, probably from Salmon, Idaho. Anyone know roughly when this would be? There was no date in the saved clipping. Baking your own Sheepherder’s Bread Many Basques still enjoy baking the dome-shaped loaves of sheepherder’s bread at home, like Anita Mitchell. She gave us her recipe […]

The Basque-Icelandic Pidgin

A pidgin, according to Wikipedia, is “a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common.” That is, when two new groups come into contact and they can’t communicate, they begin create a new language that is some hybrid of the two. […]

January 20, La Tamborrada

January 20. The day that the entire populace of the city of Donostia-San Sebastian stop what they are doing and have a massive street party that lasts until dawn. Donostia, the most beautiful city that I’ve had the fortune and pleasure to visit. January 20, the day that the city of Donostia stops and celebrates […]

Sheepherding and Food: Basques in the American West

I’m a little behind, as usual, but I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention two articles that recently appeared about the Basques in the American West. The first, Herding Sheep in Basque Country (Idaho), appeared in the New York Times last month and describes the Basque sheepherding experience via a chat with Henry Etcheverry, a herder […]