Blas Antonio Telleria Goya, my great-grandfather and my namesake, was from Mutiloa, Gipuzkoa. His story is a bit shrouded in mystery – family lore says he was a merchant marine that jumped ship in Argentina and made his way north, but he also appears in the manifests on Ellis Island. In any case, we really have no connection to his past. I’ve been through Mutiloa a few times, trying to get some sense of the place that he came from. It is even smaller than my dad’s home town of Munitibar.
The heart of Mutiloa, photo by Blas Uberuaga.
The most widespread theory about the origin of the name of Mutiloa indicates it comes from mutil-ola, meaning “boy’s cabin.” While the Gipuzkoan village is never referred to as Mutilola historically, there is a town Mutiloa in Nafarroa that was in its past.
The history of Mutiloa dates back to 1144 when Pedro, the abbot of the monastery of Iratxe in Nafarroa, essentially swapped the estate that the monastery had in Mutiloa with what Pedro Semenones de Góngora had in Azagra. In 1384, Mutiloa became part of Segura, though it separated again in 1615 when the town obtained the title of villa from King Felipe III.
Like Munitibar, and maybe a lot of small towns not only in the Basque Country but perhaps around the world, the population of Mutiloa has declined over the last century. In 1900, the town had 517 inhabitants; in 2000, that had dropped to 165 people. In 1970, there were some 290 people living in Mutiloa, all but 2 families of which spoke Euskara.
The local economy is primarily agrarian, though the region is also rich in iron and copper. In the 17th and 18th centuries, there was significant mining activity to tap these veins and, in 1986, La Troya mine received a large loan to extract iron and zinc ores, though the mine is now flooded and closed.
That said, the area is recognizing and transforming its mining past by creating the Mutiloa Mining Preserve. While trying to recognize the importance of mining to the history of Mutiloa, they are transforming it into a flora and fauna preserve, with wetlands. They are restoring some of the key mining sites, with multiple routes for hiking through the preserve to explore both that history and nature.
Mutiloa has two primary local festivals: they celebrate San Pedro on June 29 and the pilgrimage to the hermitage of Liernia on September 8. The Virgin of Lierni is considered a patron of fertility, prompting many to make the pilgrimage, asking for her intercession.
In addition to the hermitage, another local attraction is the Errotatxo mill. Designated a Qualified Cultural Heritage Site, the mill dates back to at least 1890, when it was owned by Jose Blas Telleria of Mujika. The last owner was Jose Antonio Alustiza.
Much of what the ancient Basques believed about the world around them has been lost to time. Without a written record, we don’t know what beings or deities they worshipped, certainly not to the same extent as the Greek or Norse pantheons. While it seems the Basques believed in a Mother-Earth goddess – Mari – there was a time when she had a companion, an equal, who accompanied her: Sugaar. With the advent of Christianity, he became ever more associated with evil, a being that parents would invoke to scare their misbehaving children.
Sugaar, sometimes called Maju, flies across the sky in the shape of a sickle or a crescent of fire and is usually the harbinger of storms. In some places, he is said to be made of pure fire, with no head or tail. In others, he takes the form of lightning. He lives underground, and comes to the surface through the myriad caverns and chasms that are sprinkled across the Basque landscape.
However, his name — Sugaar — means male snake. Thus, though he often takes the form of fire or lightning, his true form is of a serpent or dragon. At least one of his homes is the Aralar mountains, the same place where Teodosio de Goñi fought a dragon, possibly suggesting a common origin to the myths.
He is considered the consort of Mari. In some places, they say that Sugaar/Maju and Mari meet every Friday, in some places so he can do her hair. In others, they say that, when the two meet, they erupt into a storm.
Basque isn’t the only culture with a Mother-Earth like goddess and a Serpent god paired up. In Italy, on Monte Vettore, there is a cave dedicated to the goddess Sibyl that is guarded by a half-man, half-serpent named Macco. The Pelasgians worshipped a godly couple, the Serpent God Ophion and the Earth Mother figure Eurynome. In Near East cultures, there are the Sumerian couples Enki and Damkina and the Hurrian-Hittite Hedammu and Ishtar. This doesn’t prove any connection between the Basque gods and these other deities, but it does highlight the frequency that snake-gods and earth-goddesses have been coupled in the human imagination. It also suggests how old this pairing might be.
Sugaar’s visits with Mari typically have a sexual backdrop, suggesting that he is fertilizing Mother Earth. He is the water — the rain or the rivers — that fertilize the ground. Similarly, the union of Ofion and Eurynome gave rise to creation.
Today, Mari is seen as the head of the Basque pantheon, but Sugaar may have been her equal in ancient times. Mari’s association with the Virgin Mary and the connection of snakes with evil could have simultaneously elevated Mari and demoted Sugaar. Sugaar’s past importance is also evident in the story of Jaun Zuria, the first lord of Bizkaia, whose lineage reached back to the serpent-god.
Kepa shrugged, as he looked back up at the woman floating above them. “Ez dakit! I don’t know!”
“Hemen!” They heard a voice whisper from one of the buildings next to them. A door had opened seemingly from nowhere. “Here! Hurry!”
The Adventures of Maite and Kepa is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
Kepa nodded as he and Maite rushed toward the opening. The woman above them fired her weapon, a bolt of energy roaring forth. Kepa smelled the ionized air around him as the blast flew over his head. He and Maite stopped in their tracks.
“That was a warning,” bellowed the woman above them. “The next one won’t be.”
Before Kepa and Maite could respond, another blast of energy came from behind the woman. Cursing, she turned her head to see where it had come from. Maite and Kepa seized the moment and took off for the open door.
“Arraioa!” cried the woman. “Damnit!” She fired again, hitting Kepa in the leg as he stumbled through the doorway. It closed behind them with a small click. They could hear another blast hit the wall where the door should have been.
Kepa and Maite found themselves in a dark room, with barely enough light to see their own shadowy forms.
“She isn’t going to give up,” said a voice in the corner, the one that had called out to them in the street. It was nondescript. Kepa couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or woman. “And she’ll already be calling for backup. Come, before they find a way in.”
The shadowy figure belonging to the voice started scurrying down a long corridor. Kepa tried to stand, but collapsed to the floor.
“My leg…” he began in a panic. “It won’t move.”
The figure came to his side and picked him up, placing its arm around his side. “Don’t worry, it’s just stunned. Your leg will be back to normal shortly. But we have to get out of here.”
The figure half dragged Kepa down the corridor, Maite following right behind. They turned left and then right, passing other forks of the corridor until Maite was completely confused. She knew she wouldn’t be able to find her way back.
They came to a hole in the floor with a ladder leading down.
“He’s hurt, his leg is stunned,” said the figure into the darkness.
“We have him,” replied a gruff male voice. Rough hands grabbed Kepa’s hips as he made his way down the ladder, his left leg dangling uselessly from its socket.
The figure, one hand holding the top of the ladder and the other resting in the small of Maite’s back, gently nudged her forward. “Your turn.”
Maite paused, turning to the figure. “Eskerrik asko,” she said.
The figure stiffened. “Just doing my job,” it replied as she pushed Maite with a little more force down the ladder.
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net if you want to get in touch with me.
While the Basques aren’t the first and only people to play ball games, they have made their own unique imprint on this versatile sport. Pelota a mano, or handball, is the most popular version played today in the Basque Country – when my aunt and uncle ran the Herriko Taberna in Munitibar, it was always on the TV in the bar. On the other hand (no pun intended), Jai alai is probably the most famous version played outside of the Basque Country. However, there are a lot of other variants, using other types of baskets, wooden bats or rackets, and even lacrosse-like nets, that are played across the Basque Country and the world.
Pelota is typically played in a fronton, usually either with one (primarily in Iparralde) or two walls. However, more formal games are played in one of three types of courts. A trinquet essentially has four walls, though the right wall is made of glass and the left wall has a dugout. The “mur a gauche” is open on the right and is 36 meters (118 feet) long. A jai alai court is the same, but is instead 54 meters (177 feet) long.
There are multiple “modalities” of pelota. The most popular, at least today, is pelota a mano or handball. However, the most famous outside of the Basque Country is zesta punta, or jai alai. Characterized by its long woven basket – 110 centimeters (43 inches) along the curve – it was first introduced in the 1860s by Gantchiqui Dithurbide from Saint-Pée, Lapurdi. In zesta punta, the ball is caught and thrown with the basket. Sometimes called the fastest sport in the world, José Ramón Areitio once threw the ball at 302 km/h (188 mph), a world record for any ball sport at the time (a record that has been since broken by a golfer). When played in an open court in Iparralde, this game is called Grand Chistera.
There are other versions of pelota that also use a basket. Joko garbi, or the “clean game,” uses a flatter and shorter basket than jai alai, to help eliminate the ability to catch and hold the ball. Remonte is very similar, though with a slightly larger basket than joko garbi. That is, while the jai alai basket has a well, where the ball can be caught, these baskets do not, preventing the player from holding the ball.
Pasaka is one of the oldest versions, and is closer to tennis, where the teams face each other, passing the ball over a net. It can be played with bare hands or with a glove that has a short basket attached to it, an earlier version of the baskets used in jai alai, joko garbi, and remonte.
More common is pala or paleta, in which a wooden bat is used to hit the ball. There are a number of variants of this version of pelota, from paleta goma, first played in Argentina, to pala corta and larga. These variants of pelota differ in the nature of both the bat (how long and wide it is) and the ball (whether it is made of rubber or another material). You can always find kids playing some type of pala in the frontons of the Basque Country.
Sare uses a type of racket in which the threads are not as tight as, for example, a tennis racket, and so the ball can be caught, similar in spirit to lacrosse (the Basque word sare means net). Of those variants of pelota played at an international level, sare is the least played. This version arose amongst the Basque communities of Argentina and Uruguay before finding its way back to 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” to “Children’s Games.” Lots of games are described, from peek-a-boo games with infants to language games played between older kids.
There are sections on “Medicine” and “Birth.” Did you know that “The most common childhood belief was that children came from Paris and they were brought by a stork, zikoina.“
There are also sections on “Livestock Farming” and “Agriculture,” with a whole section on making cheese.
This looks like a fantastic resource for delving into the every day life of the Basques. It is in Euskara, Spanish, English, and French, so it is easily accessible to everyone.
The Adventures of Maite and Kepa is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
“At least the robots haven’t taken over!” exclaimed Kepa.
“Not yet, anyways,” replied Maite.
Like they had seen others do before them, they walked through the shell of the egg. It dissolved around them, as if they were walking through nothing, and reformed when they were inside.
“Now what?” asked Maite, looking around for some kind of controls. The inside was completely featureless. “There’s nowhere to put it.”
“Maybe just hold it out?” ventured Kepa, though he felt silly for saying it.
Maite shrugged. “Why not? Zergatik ez?”
She held the dodecahedron in her outstretched palm. It immediately lit up, its edges glowing. Beams of light shown out of each face, reaching out in twelve directions until they hit the surface of the egg. Immediately the egg took off into the sky.
Maite had expected a sudden jolt, like a fast elevator, but somehow the launch was smooth and she barely noticed. The shell of the egg was opaque such that she really couldn’t see what was outside beyond vague shapes and shadows, which shifted subtly as they moved. Otherwise, she couldn’t even tell they were moving. There was no noise, no sense of her stomach dropping like she normally felt in elevators. If it weren’t for the shadows on the wall, she wouldn’t have known they were moving at all.
Moments later, the shadows stopped moving and the egg dissolved around them. They were standing in what seemed to be a smaller plaza, almost the size of an intersection between streets back in their time, except there were no cars. Maite looked around. Not only were there no cars, but there seemed to be no doors to the buildings that surrounded them. What she could only guess might have been streets at some time extended in various directions from the plaza, but they were covered in gardens rather than asphalt. Brightly colored flowers and plants that she had never seen before decorated the ground. Walkways snaked through the center of the gardens, immaculately maintained to the point that Maite wondered if they were actually ever used.
Maite was still soaking in the strange sights around her when her reverie was violently interrupted by the piercing sound of sirens. Panicked, she looked around until she noticed Kepa staring at the sky. Above them were two spheres, identical to the ones they had seen in the airport, laser beams scanning back and forth over their bodies. And, just behind the spheres, standing on some kind of floating platform that seemed almost like a flying surfboard, she could see a woman. The woman was dressed very plainly in a dark uniform that oozed authority, its blunt and simple lines a stark contrast to the flamboyant costumes they had seen earlier at the airport.
“Gelditu!” barked the woman as she pointed what Maite could only guess was a weapon of some sort at them. “Stop!”
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net if you want to get in touch with me.
It’s often easy to forget the role that France, and along with them the Basques from Iparralde, had in the history of North America. From Louisiana to Canada, Iparraldetarrak had an enormous hand in shaping the history of the continent. One dramatic example comes from Quebec, in which the grandson of a Basque military officer and shipowner from a small town in Lapurdi ended up saving Canada from assault by US forces and playing a key role in keeping Canada independent from the United States.
Charles-Michel d’Irumberry de Salaberry was born on November 19, 1778 in Beauport, Canada, not far from Quebec. His father, Ignace-Michel-Louis-Antoine d’Irumberry de Salaberry, was the first Salaberry to establish permanent roots in Canada. Like his son, Ignace was a military man and was a friend of Prince Edward Augustus, a relationship which greatly benefited the family.
Charles’s grandfather, Michel de Salaberry, had been the first of the Salaberry’s to go to Canada, though he eventually returned to France. Born in the small village of Ziburu, Lapurdi, he was a shipowner from the d’Irumberry de Salaberry family. He had married once in Quebec but seemingly left his family as he found life on the ground too boring. Michel had a successful military career in the Royal Army of France, capped off in 1758 when he was ordered to sink his frigate, La Fidèle, to block the harbor of the city of Louisbourg from the approaching British fleet.
In contrast to his grandfather, Charles fought for the British, as by his lifetime Canada was controlled by the British throne. He enrolled early, at 14 years old, and his first action took him to the West Indies, where his contingent of 200 men (already reduced dramatically due to yellow fever) attempted a siege of Fort Matilda in St. Domingue (today the Dominican Republic and Haiti). All but three men were killed or wounded. Charles was cited for bravery and put in charge of the evacuation of the survivors.
During a campaign in Jamaica, he engaged in a duel with a fellow soldier from Germany. The German had burst in during breakfast, boasting of how he had just killed another French-Canadian in a duel (there were only two French-Canadians amongst the officers of Charles’s regiment: Charles himself and Lt. Thomas-Hippolyte Trottier DesRivières). After breakfast, Charles and the German dueled by sword. Even after receiving a vicious wound across his forehead that bled profusely, Charles kept fighting, tying a handkerchief around his head and eventually dealing his foe a mortal wound.
Charles was central to Canada’s effort in the War of 1812, pushing back the American advance and, according to some historians, saving Canada. His greatest achievement occurred in October of 1813, where, in the Battle of the Chateauguay, he and his men repelled the advancing America forces of Major General Wade Hampton, who had the ultimate goal of taking Montreal. So confident was Charles of victory, that he didn’t inform his superiors of his plans. On his own, he ordered the placement of defensive obstacles and troop deployments. He had buglers sound from different locations to imply a much larger force than he really had. After the engagement, in which the Americans had no hope of advancing, they ultimately retreated and abandoned their goal of capturing Montreal.
The battle made Charles a legend in Canadian history. He was subsequently made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. In 1968, his house was named a National Historic Site of Canada. In 2013, 200 years after the battle, his face was on a Canadian quarter. Two places – Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and De Salaberry – are named for him in light of his achievements.
The plaza was surrounded by massive buildings that reached up into the sky. Each was covered with plant life, some with green vines, others with flowering plants. Some had terraces that jutted out at odd angles with trees growing out of them while on others the plants cascaded down their sides like a waterfall.
Benches, or better said chairs, were scattered on the plaza seemingly at random, though they were different than anything Kepa had seen before. All were built with a back that was taller than a typical person, shaped almost like an egg shell. And they seemed to float above the stone. Kepa watched as a few people pushed some of the chairs around, rearranging them so that they faced one another in a circle before climbing in and engaging in conversation.
The Adventures of Maite and Kepa is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!
“Over there,” said Kepa pointing to two isolated chairs. “Let’s sit for a minute.”
They walked across the plaza and turned the two floating chairs so that they were facing one another. As Kepa climbed into his, it automatically lowered to make sitting easier, and then rose again once he was nestled inside. He could feel warmth radiating from the surface, which also vibrated ever so slightly. He was about to surrender himself to sleep when Maite broke his meditation.
“Orain zer?” asked Maite, nestled into her own egg. “What now?”
Kepa shrugged, his eyes heavy from all of the excitement. “I guess we need to find Marina?”
Maite held up the dodecahedron that Marina had given her. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
“You know, it’s funny,” said Kepa. “When we time jump, we automatically get these identities and backstories to help us fit in, but we don’t get that much knowledge about the mundane things, like how things like that work.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Maite nodded. “Neither do I. It’s almost like someone or something is making all of this up on the fly.”
There was an awkward pause as Maite and Kepa looked at each other.
Maite shook her head, as if to clear it. She held up the dodecahedron again, twirling it between her fingers, the points digging slightly into her fingertips. “I’ve tried squeezing it, rubbing the sides, looking for a seam, but I can’t find anything. It almost seems like a solid piece of metal.”
“Maybe we have to put it in something? You know, to activate it?”
Maite shrugged. “Maybe. But what?”
“Did you see those people disappearing in those flying eggs?” asked Kepa. “Maybe it tells those eggs where to go?”
Maite looked over at the edge of the plaza where a transparent egg had materialized after another had taken off. She shuddered. “Those things give me the creeps. Hurtling through the air in something that looks fragile as hell doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“They must be safe,” said Kepa. “Or people wouldn’t use them.”
“True, but I can’t even begin to understand how they might work. And that creeps me out.”
“What’s the saying? ‘Advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?’ And, to be fair, we’ve seen real magic too.”
Maite sighed. “I guess. Just so much I don’t understand.”
Kepa laughed. “That’s how I feel most of the time.”
If you get this post via email, the return-to address goes no where, so please write blas@buber.net if you want to get in touch with me.
“Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945” aims to disseminate the stories of those Basques and Navarrese who participated in two of the warfare events that defined the future of much of the 20th century. With this blog, the intention of the Sancho de Beurko Association is to rescue from anonymity the thousands of people who constitute the backbone of the historical memory of the Basque and Navarre communities, on both sides of the Pyrenees, and their diasporas of emigrants and descendants, with a primary emphasis on the United States, during the period from 1936 to 1945.
THE AUTHORS Guillermo Tabernilla is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association, a non-profit organization that studies the history of the Basques and Navarrese from both sides of the Pyrenees in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. He is currently their secretary and community manager. He is also editor of the digital magazine Saibigain. Between 2008 and 2016 he directed the catalog of the “Iron Belt” for the Heritage Directorate of the Basque Government and is, together with Pedro J. Oiarzabal, principal investigator of the Fighting Basques Project, a memory project on the Basques and Navarrese in the Second World War in collaboration with the federation of Basque Organizations of North America.
Pedro J. Oiarzabal is a Doctor in Political Science-Basque Studies, granted by the University of Nevada, Reno (USA). For two decades, his work has focused on research and consulting on public policies (citizenship abroad and return), diasporas and new technologies, and social and historical memory (oral history, migration and exile), with special emphasis on the Basque case. He is the author of more than twenty publications. He has authored the blog “Basque Identity 2.0” by EITB and “Diaspora Bizia” by EuskalKultura.eus. On Twitter @Oiarzabal.
Josu M. Aguirregabiria is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association and is currently its president. A specialist in the Civil War in Álava, he is the author of several publications related to this topic, among which “La batalla de Villarreal de Álava” (2015) y “Seis días de guerra en el frente de Álava. Comienza la ofensiva de Mola” (2018) stand out.
Pete Cenarrusa passed away on September 29, 2013 at the age of 95 in Boise, Idaho. With him we lost possibly one of the last figures of his time to go down in history for his commitment to the Basque Country. The son of Bizkaian emigrants, Pete was a prominent Republican politician in the State of Idaho with an international profile like no other. He fought against both the Franco regime and advocated a peaceful resolution of the Basque conflict, based on the defense of human rights. Due to his involvement in Basque politics, he was demonized and ridiculed, even after his death, by the most extreme block of Spanish nationalism while, on the other hand, he was welcomed within Basque nationalism as one of their own.
Along with the brothers Paul and Robert Laxalt, Pete Cenarrusa was one of the most influential and well-known Basque-Americans in the United States, in the diaspora, and in Euskadi. In 1983 he was inducted into the “Basque Hall of Fame” of the Society for Basque Studies in America. In 2000, he was awarded the “Universal Basque” award by the Sabino Arana Foundation, and, in 2010, the Bizkaia Provincial Council bestowed upon him the “Illustrious Bizkaia” distinction.
Pete Thomas Cenarruza Gardoqui was born on December 16, 1917 in the small town of Carey in Blaine County, Idaho, the son of José María “Joe” Cenarruzabeitia (Cenarruza) Muguira and Ramona Gardoqui Bilbao. At the age of 17, in 1907, José, born in Arbatzegi in 1889, emigrated to the United States aboard the steamer Noordam. Other compatriots sailed along with him, including José Urberuaga, 20 years old and also a native of Arbatzegi; Domingo Arrizabalaga, 17, from Ereño; and Rosa Aldecoa, 24, from Navarniz, and her nephew José Iturri, who was only 4 years old, of Ispaster. Their final destination was Boise. They were all part of a Basque emigration trend that had begun decades earlier. Like the vast majority of Basque immigrants at that time, José began his working life in the sheep industry as a shepherd. In 1909 he was joined by his brother Pedro, born in 1891. Within a few years, with the money saved between the two, they were able to start their own sheep business in Wood River Valley, in the Carey area, settling in the city of Bellevue. José and Pedro were partners until 1935. In the midst of the Great Depression they separated, continuing their successful sheep-raising businesses until their respective retirements.
At the age of 23, Ramona Gardoqui Bilbao arrived in New York in 1914, her destination being the city of Shoshone, Idaho, a town where her cousin, Domingo Soloaga Arrasate, who had arrived in 1901, ran a Basque pension or boarding house. Ramona, born in Gernika in 1890, worked for Domingo as a cook until she met José during a stay at the pension. Shortly after they married, a union that produced five children: Nieves, Pete, Luis, Juanita, and Lucia.
Pete grew up in Bellevue, where he attended elementary and high school. Like many other children of Basque immigrants, Pete only spoke Basque when he first entered school. In 1936 he went to the University of Idaho, in Moscow, graduating in 1940 with a degree in agricultural science. During his time in college he competed with the varsity boxing team, being a member of the school’s first National Collegiate Boxing Champion team. He would continue to compete as a boxer during his service in the Marine Corps during World War II [1]. The possibilities offered by the United States, together with the effort and sacrifice of the emigrant generation, made possible, to a large extent, the educational and socioeconomic advancement of the first generation of Basques born in the country. This was the case with Pete.
Upon graduation, Pete got a job teaching high school (agriculture and chemistry) and coaching football, basketball, and boxing at Cambridge, Idaho during the 1940-1941 school year and then at Carey during the 1941-1942 school year. His family had moved to Carey. Patrick Bieter tells us how “Pete had always wanted to fly, had taken an Army Air Corps test [in 1940], and was reflecting upon the Nazi wildfire now threatening to destroy all of Europe. He wondered if the responsible thing to do was to enlist and be ready when the inevitable war broke out […] Pearl Harbor ended his turmoil. Pete went to the neighboring town of Twin Falls to enlist in the Army Air Corps on a Sunday shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The army office was closed and would reopen on Monday—a teaching day for Pete; he would not be free. He was informed that the navy recruiter was in Twin Falls and that he was available on Sundays. Pete volunteered to be a naval aviator.” [2]
Promoted to first lieutenant, Pete Cenarrusa spent his military career in the Marine Corps throughout WWII, and in the reserves until 1963 (photo courtesy of Freda Coates and the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, Boise).
After entering the Naval Aviation Corps as a cadet in July 1942, Pete received basic and advanced aviation training at Marine Corps barracks in Seattle and Pasco, Washington, and later Corpus Christi, Texas, popularly known as the “University of the Air.” There he received his pilot’s wings and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on April 16, 1943, into the Marine Corps Reserve (Naval Aviation Cadet) with a naval aviator designation. In December 1943, Pete was promoted to first lieutenant. At Air University, Pete was a flight instructor for naval aviation cadets for 18 months until October, 1944, at which time he was transferred first to the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Cuddihy, Florida, and then to Jacksonville to train fighter pilots to fly Corsair fighter jets.
After completing the required carrier landings in an F-4U Corsair, which he performed on the aircraft carrier USS Wolverine on Lake Michigan, Pete was sent to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, near Irvine, California, with maritime service orders, being assigned to the 462nd Fighter Squadron (VMF-462) of the 4th Wing of the Marine Corps.
He was later sent to Cherry Point, North Carolina, to transition to the SB2C Helldiver dive bomber, joining the 932nd Scouting Squadron (VMSB-932) of 9th Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Aircraft Group 34, in preparation for the invasion of Japan. However, the dropping of the atomic bombs brought about the end of the war and he never saw action. In October 1945, Pete was with the 934th Marine Scouting Bombardment Squadron, Marine Aircraft Group 93, at Bogue, Morehead City, North Carolina.
In January 1946 he was back at Cherry Point with the 932nd Squadron. Pete “then went into the inactive reserve [as captain of the Marine Corps reserve in the spring of 1946], where he flew with VMF 216 Squadron [Marine Fighting Squadron 216] in Spokane, Washington until his retirement in July 1963 with the rank of Major. Pete,” continues Bieter, “followed as a private pilot who flew for 59 years without an accident. He logged over 15,000 hours of flight time, most of which were in the operation of his family business.” [3] His passion for and pride of flying, like that of many young people of his generation, kept him going throughout his life.
Pete Cenarrusa proudly displays a model of an F-4U Corsair, the plane that he flew during WWII and which hung from the ceiling of his office (Courtesy Idaho Statesman. April 15, 1997)
After the war, between 1948 and 1950, Pete worked for the Veterans Administration and for Idaho Vocational Education as an itinerant vocational agricultural teacher, teaching, on farms in rural Blaine County, military veterans who had returned from the war and needed classes in agriculture in southeastern Idaho. In his spare time, he gave flying lessons on a PT-26 aircraft, a war surplus plane he purchased after the war. One of his students, young Freda Coates, born in 1928 in Rupert, Idaho, to a sheep family, became his wife of 65 years. They had a son in 1948, whom they named Joe. He tragically passed away in a plane crash in 1997.
Between 1954 and 2000, Pete and Freda successfully ran their own sheep business with operations in Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and California. In 1950 Pete entered politics, being elected a Representative of the Idaho House of Representatives. He served nine terms, three of which he was elected Speaker of the House. Beginning in 1967, he served as Idaho’s Secretary of State, a run that lasted for nearly 36 years. He retired in 2003. Bieter reminds us that, upon his retirement, Pete “was the longest serving State official in the history of the State of Idaho.” [4] He was replaced by his right-hand man, the Basque-American Benito “Ben” T. Ysursa, who held the position until 2015.
52 years ago, Pete began his own international political career by rallying political support in defense of 16 young Basques accused, among other crimes, of the murder of the policeman Melitón Manzanas and the civil guard José Pardines in 1968. The proceedings became known as the War Council of Burgos or the Burgos trials (December 3-9, 1970). His appeals led then-Governor Don Samuelson of Idaho to write Generalissimo Francisco Franco a letter of denunciation as well as a few hundred Boise Basques to send Franco a telegram rejecting the military trial. Shortly after, in 1971, Pete and his family visited the country of their ancestors for the first time. Pete would return shortly, in 1977. According to Bieter, upon his return to Idaho in 1971, Pete joined “Anaiak Danok,” a group dedicated to raising money for “Anai Artean” of Iparralde, whose objective was to help families of ETA members.
Meanwhile, Pete’s father passed away on October 27, 1972 in Hailey, Blaine County. Four months later, his mother also passed away. In 1972, Pete promoted the Idaho Joint Memorial No. 115, condemning Franco’s dictatorship while urging peace and democracy in Euskadi. Thirty years later, Pete was one of the promoters of Idaho Joint Memorial No. 114, which supported the Basque People’s right to self-determination, while calling for an end to ETA’s violence, as well as that carried out by the Spanish government.
Pete became the perfect host for the first delegations of the newly reinstated Basque Government. In 1988, Lehendakari José Antonio Ardanza made his first tour of the Basque communities of the American West, including Idaho, where he was received by Pete and then-Governor of the State, Cecil Andrus. Paul Laxalt, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, arranged a meeting between him and Ardanza at the White House, which Pete also attended. It was possibly one of the greatest milestones in Basque foreign policy to date.
The video shows the meeting between Lehendakari Ardanza and President Reagan accompanied by Gloria Urteaga (Ardanza’s wife), Joseba Arregi, Pete Cenarrusa, Paul Laxalt, and Roy Eiguren, among others. (Reagan Library, March 21-22, 1988).
In 1994, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Basque American Foundation (among other objectives), predecessor of the Delegation of the Basque Government in the USA, Lehendakari Ardanza made a second trip to North America. Pete and Governor Andrus accompanied him to Washington DC where the creation of the foundation became official. On this trip, the Lehendakari had the opportunity to meet with US Vice President Al Gore at the White House.
In 2003, Pete and Freda established the Cenarrusa Center for Basque Studies (today the Cenarrusa Foundation for Basque Culture). In 2009, Pete wrote his memoir with Quane Kenyon, Bizkaia to Boise: The Memoirs of Pete T. Cenarrusa, which he published on his 92nd birthday. Pete was a member of the Euzkaldunak Basque Center in Boise.
The Basque diaspora and the State of Idaho lost an important and irreplaceable advocate with Pete’s death. He was buried with full military honors in Bellevue Cemetery where his parents and son are buried.
[1, 2, 3, 4] Bieter, Patrick J. (1999). “Pete Cenarrusa. Idaho’s Champion of Basque Culture,” in Richard Etulain and Jeronima Echeverria, Portraits of Basques in the New World. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Pp. 172-191.
Collaborate with ‘Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945.’
If you want to collaborate with “Echoes of two wars” send us an original article on any aspect of WWII or the Civil War and Basque or Navarre participation to the following email: sanchobeurko@gmail.com
Who knew the Basque Country had a pioneer in skateboarding? Not me! Sancheski, based in Irun, Gipuzkoa, made the first skateboard in all of Europe in 1966. Like Orbea, the company had to reimagine itself when times got hard and new opportunities arose. Starting off as a ski company back in the 1930s, they shifted to skateboards in the 1960s and became an iconic brand.
Javier Sánchez y José María Sánchez holding one of their new surfskates and one of the original wooden Sancheskis. Photo from Expansión.
Sancheski started out as a company making outdoor sporting equipment, including skis (Sancheski=Sánchez, the founder of the company, + ski) back in 1934. The founder of the company, Francisco Sánchez Espinosa, was inspired by a group of visiting Norwegian engineers who brought the then novel sport of skiing Gipuzkoa, skiing on nearby Mount Aralar and even in the streets. Francisco saw an opportunity and opened his shop to cater to this new sport.
However, French and Austrian companies, subsidized by their governments, flooded the market, and Sancheski looked for a new direction. Taking inspiration from the west coast of the US, where skateboarding was beginning to take off, they adapted their equipment to start making skateboards, the first in 1966. The first commercial skateboards had only been made a few years earlier in 1959…
Skateboards were originally made so that surfers could get that same surfing experience out of the water, even on days when the water was calm. Thus, Sancheski took a slightly different route, going from skis to skateboards. However, as might be no surprise given the popularity of surfing in the Basque Country, they recently released a line of surfskates, skateboards meant to mimic, as much as possible, the feeling and motion of surfing on dry land.
Perhaps their most iconic skateboard is the Top Naranja. First made in the mid-1970s, this skateboard became extremely popular with children – it was the most sold skateboard in Spain in 1976 – and led to Sancheski becoming the official brand of Spanish skateboarding.
To help promote the new sport within Spain, the company set up a team to tour the country in the late 70s. Ricardo Damborenea, Iñaki Beloki, Pedro Aranzábal, Neme Rico, and Fernando Cortázar, among others, would head out in a 1967 Volkswagen bus and put on demonstrations at schools and city plazas to introduce the sport to a wider audience. They were also the testers of new boards produced by the company.
Until recently, the sons of Francisco, Javier Sánchez y José María Sánchez, kept the company going. José María’s daughters, Iciar and Mónica, continue the family tradition with technical and graphic design and now Iciar leads the company into the future.
