One of my first exposures to the broader history of the Basque Country and the unique role Basques played in the history of the Americas was through National Geographic magazine. Before that, what little I knew was through osmosis from dancing and festivals. I didn’t really know much about Basques beyond having Basque parents. That article on the history of Basque whaling in America was a revelation and maybe, in some ways, sparked the flame that ultimately led to this page.
The cover of the July 1985 issue of National Geographic, highlighting the discovery and excavation of the San Juan. Image from CBC.
The Basques arrived in Labrador by at least the early 1500s, though some claims by various historians place Basque activities in the area even earlier, perhaps as early as 1372. The earliest documented records we have with any certainty, as described by Selma Barkham, put the Basques in the waters of what is now Canada by 1511.
They establishing a post where they processed the whales they hunted in the area. These Basque whalers gave the region its name, Terranova, or New Land in Latin. One whaling station, called Butus, used red tiles brought from Europe in the building construction, giving the bay, now called Red Bay, its name (though some sources say the bay is named after the nearby red cliffs). Before that, it had been called Balea Baya, or Whale Bay, by the Basques. Because of this historical significance, Red Bay was named a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 2014.
The first ships were after cod and whale meat, not oil. In 1530, the French-Basque ship La Catherine d’Urtubie returned to France with some 4500 cod and 12 barrels of whale meat. However, it wasn’t long after that that whale oil became the prized commodity.
In 1565, one Basque ship, the San Juan, sunk in the waters off of Labrador, more specifically off of Saddle Island in Red Bay. Working on a tip by Selma Barkham, Robert Grenier (who died on January 3, 2026) and his team raised the wreck in 1978 and that is what is pictured on that cover of National Geographic. This led to a reevaluation of the role of Basque mariners in the history of North America.
At least 16 different whale processing stations have been found in Red Bay, along with a cemetery that contained more than 140 people. At its peak, the area hosted about 1000 workers and saw 11 ships in its harbor, ready to bring cargo back to Europe. From Red Bay and surrounding areas, 15,000 barrels of oil were produced and sent back, worth more than the plunders from the Caribbean. However, we don’t really know much about all of this activity because the Basques never wrote things down, perhaps to keep their economic activity a secret.
Basque whaling in the area declined in the 1600s and ended formally in 1697 when Spanish Basques were banned from the region and later in 1713 when the Treaty of Utrecht banned all Basques from the Gulf of Saint Lawerence.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
Thanks to Terryl Asla for sending a link that inspired this post.
To me, one of the fascinating aspects of Basque history relates to witches. The Basque witch trials are infamous for how indiscriminate they were but also because they reveal how mob mentality can easily turn neighbors into enemies and outcasts into villains. Witches in the Basque Country represent this interesting transition between the autochthonous religion of the Basques and its supplantation by Christianity. Witches were a vestige of the old ways.
A celebration of Sorginaren Eguna, or the Day of the Witches, in Zugarramurdi, the town of the witches. Photo from ViajeroS.
The sorginak have two roles in Basque mythology. Originally, the attendants and assistants of Mari, the Basque mother goddess, were called sorginak.
The other sense of sorgin is witch. Sorginak were men and women who practiced various activities that had their origins in pre-Christian times. These activities ranged from gathering and preparing medicinal herbs to casting spells to protect or damage crops. In this sense, they often performed white magic – making potions and casting spells that were meant to benefit people. As the Church and Christianity grew, these types of practices were fined but not punished more severely.
Sorginak would gather together to worship Basque deities such as Mari and Akerbeltz, a black he-goat that was associated with fertility. These gatherings were called akelarreak.
It wasn’t until later – sometime in the 13th or 14th centuries – that witchcraft was associated with black magic and demonology. Now, those same practices were punished much more severely, including death, often by burning at the stake. Thus, in 1329, Joan the Leper was accused of being a herbalist and necromancer and, with four other women, burned at the stake.
Thus, practices that were maybe frowned upon but tolerated became associated with evil and the devil. Religious authorities, such as Pierre de Lancre, cast the gods that the sorginak might have worshipped as demons and agents of Satan. The resulting persecution of witches was devastating for the region. However, the acts they were charged with, as discussed by Emma Wilby in her book Invoking the Akelarre, grew out of the practices of healing and herbalism that were common in the Basque Country.
Despite this, ancient practices in herbalism didn’t disappear. Martija de Jauregui was practicing what we would call traditional medicine in the late 1500s. In the 1700 and 1800s, healers and herbalists still practiced and in some cases were given contracts from the town councils to care for the neighborhood, animals, and fields of the town. Indeed, Basque military leader Tomas Zumalakarregi was being attended by such a healer when he died in 1835.
We don’t fully know what the word sorgin means. -gin is a common Basque suffix meaning “one who does,” coming from the Basque verb egin, to do. Most scholars agree on this. Where there is less certainty is what sor- means. It may come from the Latin sorte, or luck, or from the Basque sortu, which means to create. So, alternatively, sorgin might mean fortuneteller or creator.
In Zuberoa, other names for sorginak include belagile and sorsain. Belagile literally means herbalist, from the Basque words belar, meaning “herb,” and gile, meaning “one who works with.” In contrast, a sorsain, literally “protector of childbirth,” has supernatural powers. These two words highlight the origins of sorginak and witches in traditional health care.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
Happy New Year! Urte Berri On! Around the world, the new year is ushered in with various customs. In the Basque Country, there has been a tradition associating the new year with water, particularly “new water,” water that represents a fresh start, a new beginning. While this tradition has disappeared from much of Euskal Herria, there are still a few places where it continues.
During his studies, José Antonio de San Sebastián, otherwise known as Father Donostia, recorded several Christmas carols from the local towns during his breaks. He found a belief in Lekaroz, a small town in Nafarroa, that on the day of Urtezar (New Year’s Eve, December 31st), at midnight, the waters of the river Urandia turned into wine. The local girls would go to fetch the water. As they then made their rounds of the village, if they found the doors of any house open, they would throw the water on those who were in bed, on members of their family, and on the young people.
While traditions associated with water and the new year have largely been lost in the Basque Country, there are still places where it remains. In Urdiain, at midnight of New Year’s Eve, the young men of the town, carry a jug of water, ur berria, and sing a traditional song of offering. The town authorities taste the water and thus the new year officially begins in Urdiáin.
One of those ritual songs is “Urtararats” or “New Water.” These songs typically request “osasuna eta pakea” – health and peace. In Elizondo, as they collect the first waters that flow from the fountains after midnight, they sing: “Urte berri, berri / Zer dakarrazu berri / Uraren gana / Bakia ta osasuna / Urtes, Urtes!” – “New year, new year / What do you bring new year / Peace and health / New year, new year!” This new water of the new year was thought to have curative virtues.
At least one researcher speculated that the idea of “new water” originates from the ice age. The hypothesis is that it was about that time of year that ice began to melt and water began to flow again. This marked the beginning of the new year, with the new source of water.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
Even as recently as the early 1990s, when I lived in Donostia for a year, Bilbao seemed this dirty place that wasn’t really worth a visit. I think in that whole year, I only visited a couple of times at most. However, the city transformed itself from a relic of industry to a modern and vibrant destination. Now, I can’t imagine a visit to the Basque Country without a stop in Bilbao. Though there are many factors that, together, led to this transformation, the symbolic heart of it all has to be Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum.
Frank Owen Gehry was born in Toronto, Canada, on February 28, 1929. His mother, Sadie Thelma, had immigrated from Poland while his father, Irving Goldberg who was born in New York City, was the son of an immigrant from Russia. Both of his parents were Jewish. Gehry’s grandfather owned a hardware store and he often played with scraps of materials, building cities with his grandmother. In 1954, urged by his wife and fears of rising antisemitism, Frank changed his surname from Goldberg to Gehry.
The family moved to California in 1947 and after some aborted attempts at various pursuits including chemical engineering, Gehry settled on architecture, graduating from the University of Southern California in 1954. After a stint in the Army, he attended Harvard on the GI Bill, but became disillusioned and dropped out, returning to California. In 1957, he designed his first building – a private home. From there, his career took off.
In 1997, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao opened. At the time, it faced significant criticism, particularly as an example of architectural imperialism. However, the building itself was hailed as a masterpiece of architecture, called “the greatest building of our time.” The curves of the building were intentionally designed to capture the light and the central atrium was designed with views of the estuary and the surrounding hills.
The museum has been credited with helping revitalize the city. Other cities have tried to replicate the “Bilbao effect” with unique architecture. However, Gehry himself downplayed the role of the museum, instead saying it was a collective effort and crediting the overall urban plan of the city and Basque government that his building was only one part of.
The Guggenheim isn’t the only building in the Basque Country that Gehry designed. He also designed the Marqués de Riscal Hotel, situated in the wine country of Araba, in the town of Elciego. Built between 2003-2006, the hotel’s design employs similar methods and elements that Gehry used in the Guggenheim. In both buildings, Gehry used flowing structures of titanium to capture the light and to give the buildings their unique flowing forms.
Gehry fell in love with the Basque Country. In 2014, the city of Bilbao built a bridge connecting Deusto and Zorrotzaurre which they named after Gehry. He was in the city for laying the cornerstone and during his visit he said “I fell in love with patxaran, txakoli, hake, and pil-pil. I love you all, I love Bilbao, and I will be back.” He felt that the Basques he worked with were particularly trustworthy, saying “When the Basques say something, you don’t have to get it in writing. They keep their word in a way that I’d never seen before.”
Gehry died on December 5, 2025, at his home in Santa Monica, California. He was 96.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
Singing is such a part of Basque culture. More than once, I’ve been in a restaurant where everyone broke into song. Christmas is a time when singing abounds. Leave it to the Basques to then create unique traditions around songs and Christmas. The Marijesiak is a group of singers that roam the streets of primarily but not exclusively Gernika in the early mornings of the days leading up to Christmas.
The Marijesiak in the streets of Gernika, with a couple watching from their balcony. Photo from Marijesiak.eus, taken by Maika Salguero.
The Marijesiak is a Christmas tradition that takes place over the nine days before Christmas. Early each morning, starting at 4am, a group of men and women kneel in front of the main church of Gernika, the Church of Andra Mari. They begin singing their verses, with a lead soloist leading the procession through town while the rest of the singers accompanying the lead. There are some 28 verses that the soloist must recite from memory, of course in Basque. The group walks through the streets of Gernika, hitting as many parts as they can. They stop in front of every church, the houses of former members, and even shelters where people hid from the 1936 bombing. In all, the route takes about one-and-a-half hours to complete.
Each of the nine days, a different part of the Christmas story is told, from the Creation to the birth of Jesus. However, in recent times, some secular verses have also been added, including some that recognize the 1936 bombing of the town and the political reality of the Basque Country:
Hor goiko landetan eperrak dabiltz kantetan Errigoitiko alkatiari Kaka eintziela praketan. Hor goian Juaniko hemen behean Periko eta bien bitartean dago Martzelino Polanko. Hor goian Frantzia Hor behean España eta bien bitartean dago Gora Euskadi Askatuta.
In the high lands the partridges are singing to the mayor of Errigoiti that he has poop in his pants. Up there is Juaniko here below is Periko and between the two is Marzelino Polanko. Up there is France Down there is Spain and in between is Long Live a free Basque Country.
The Marijesiak is part of a larger tradition of Christmas carolers. In many parts of the Basque Country, it is common to see carolers on Christmas Eve. In some places they are known as the Joenikuek, “those of Saint Joseph,” or Abenduko umiek, “the Children of the Advent.” However, the Marijesiak, which are most prevalent in Gernika, have maintained the strongest tradition, one that was revived in the 1970s.
The name Marijesiak comes from the repeated verse of “Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Mary” which over time was combined and shortened into Marijesiak.
The origin of the Marijesiak tradition is not completely clear. Some theories postulate it arose from medieval religious theater while others state that it came from the local convents, perhaps the Franciscan monastery of Bermeo. The earliest mention we have of this tradition comes from the 17th century.
In 2018, Ane Miren Arejita became the first woman to be the lead soloist for the Marijesiak.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
We don’t know much about the early history of the Basques. While discoveries such as the Hand of Irulegi reveal more than ever, there is still a lot that is shadowed in the mists of time. The Basques have never recorded their own history – what we know is typically from the pens of neighbors or other observers. This includes the Romans. The Romans certainly conquered much of the Iberian peninsula, including parts of the modern day Basque Country. Indeed, Pamplona is named after the Roman general Pompey. Much of what was written back then is through the lens of the conqueror and, even worse, by people who had only heard of the Basques but never visited the region.
Roman roads around and through parts of the modern day Basque Country, highlighting Roman settlements. From Itiner-e.
The website Itiner-e has put together a map of all of the roads of the Roman Empire. Nature calls it a “Google Maps” for Ancient Rome. It is quite interesting. If you zoom in on what is today the Basque Country, you can see a few roads around the periphery, but the interior is completely devoid of any Roman roads. This highlights how the Romans had very little activity in the region.
A lot of what we know about the Basques during the time of the Romans comes from Roman historians. Strabo, in particular, wrote about the Basques in his Geographica, an atlas of the world known to the Romans. Though, many of the places he wrote about he never visited, he was just repeating what others had said.
To Strabo and the Greek and Roman worlds, people in the far regions, particularly those in the mountains, were barbarous: “All the mountain dwellers are austere, they usually drink water, sleep on the ground and let their hair reach very low, like women, but they fight by girding their foreheads with a band. They eat mainly goats, and they sacrifice a goat to Ares. They also make hecatombs of every kind in the Greek way, as Pindar says: they sacrifice a hundred of everything.”
He goes on: “They also have gymnastic, hoplite and equestrian competitions, with boxing, running, skirmishing and combat in formation. The mountaineers, for two thirds of the year, feed on oak acorns, letting them dry, grinding them and making bread with them that keeps for a while. They also know beer. They drink wine on rare occasions, but what they have is quickly consumed at feasts with relatives. They use butter instead of oil. They eat sitting on benches built against the wall and they sit in order of age and rank. The food is passed around in a circle, and at the time of drinking they dance in a circle to the sound of flute and trumpet, but also jumping and crouching, and… women also dance together with men holding hands.”
“…those who live far inland use the barter of goods, or cut off a silver flake and give it. Those condemned to death are thrown off a cliff and parricides are stoned beyond the mountains or rivers. They marry just like the Greeks. The sick, like the Egyptians of old, are exposed on the roads so that those who have suffered from it can give them advice about their illness…..”
“This, as I have explained, is the way of life of the mountaineers, and I am referring to those who mark the northern flank of Iberia: Calaic, Asturians and Cantabrians up to the Basques and the Pyrenees; because the way of life of all of them is similar.”
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
Nearly none of the young men and women who immigrated to the United States from the Basque County to herd sheep in the American West had any knowledge of English. This wasn’t much of a problem as they typically worked with other Basques. However, encounters with the dominant language of their new home were unavoidable and sometimes represented concepts that they didn’t have a Basque word for, so they simply transliterated the English word into Basque spelling. This leads to an interesting collection of “Basqlish” words.
Updated: I’ve added new words as they’ve been suggested. Those from Joxe are in bold, others are in regular text. I’ve also removed the hidden text.
Joxe and me with his daughter and my family at Jaialdi.
Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe, who has done extensive research on Basque arboglyphs, has uncovered a number of transliterations of English words to Basque. Some of these will be familiar to those who had a Basque parent – you can almost hear their accent coming through. He shared these with me after I wished him Happy Thanksgiving.
Here are a few of Joxe’s favorites, with a few others from visitors.
aizkrime
anburgesa
arrantxu
bakola
escrewdrivera
esprinkola
estorra
foki
friueia
grinjouse
hammera
karrue
kauboi
kukia/kukije
laddera
morojona
mubije/mubia
paia/paije
pikapa/pickopa
pikinikixe
sanabitxe
saniskibi
sizpaka
taia/taije
troka
txip
uintxila
whiskia/whiskixe
xata
zereala
ice cream
hamburger
ranch
backhoe
screwdriver
sprinkler
store
the f-word
freeway
greenhouse
hammer
car
cowboy
cookie
ladder
motorhome
movie
pie
pickup
picnic
son of a bitch
Thanksgiving
six pack
tire
truck
sheep
windshield
whiskey
shot
cereal
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
Primary sources: Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe, private communication
I spent the 1991-92 school year in the Basque Country, trying to learn Basque and learning a bit more Spanish. It was my first time to the Basque Country and it really opened my eyes as to what life was like in the Basque Country. I had learned something about the traditional culture, primarily dance, when I was a kid, but I hadn’t realized that the Basque Country, like everywhere, was a modern, vibrant place that was continuously evolving. All that to say that the exchange program that I participated in was, literally, life-changing. Ateak Ireki is a new cultural exchange program with the goal of exposing young Basques in the diaspora to the life and culture of the Basque Country today. If you are interested, registration for summer 2026 ends soon.
Ateak Ireki means “Open Doors” in Basque and the program has the primary goal of giving young Basques in the diaspora the chance to experience life in the Basque Country first hand. For three weeks, these youngsters spend time with families in the Goierri region in southern Gipuzkoa (where incidentally Mutiloa, the town my great grandfather Blas Telleria was from, is).
The program hopes to strengthen ties between the Basque Country and the Basque diaspora. Participants learn about traditional aspects of Basque culture including language, dance and literature but also network with local and business leaders to help establish new professional connections.
Participants live with a local family that speaks primarily Basque at home (though knowledge of Basque beforehand is not a requirement). Each family also has someone at home of a similar age to each participant and each also has an English speaker at home. All this to make each participant feel as welcome as possible while they also get an immersive experience.
Registration for the summer 2026 program is open until December 7. Participants must be between 18 and 25 years old, become a member of the North American Basque Organization after being accepted, and participate in all activities. There is also opportunity for chaperones.
The program is inspired by the cultural exchange program between Boise and Oñati that occurred in the 1970s. That program, spearheaded by Pat Bieter and Jon Bilbao, was instrumental in giving the Basque diaspora of Idaho and by extension the American West a huge boost. Many of the leading figures of the Basque diaspora of the United States participated in that program.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
It is always cool to see Basque names on the big screen. Whenever we sit through the credits of a movie, I tend to scan the names to see if any Basque names pop out to me. So, it’s even cooler when the Basque name is also the star of the movie. Jacob Elordi has been getting a lot of buzz and his career has really taken off in the last couple of years. The son of a Basque immigrant, Elordi grew up in Australia before making his way to Hollywood. His most recent film is Frankenstein, directed by Guillermo del Toro, in which Elordi plays the creature.
Incidentally, I just saw Frankenstein and really enjoyed it.
Jacob Elordi after his transformation into Frankenstein’s monster. Photo from Elle.
Jacob Nathaniel Elordi was born on June 26, 1997, in Brisbane, Australia. He comes from a working class family. His father John is a house painter and his mother Melissa is a stay-at-home mom and waitress. John was born in the Bizkaian province of Marikina-Xeimen while John’s father, Joaquin, was born in Ondarroa. Jacob has three older sisters.
Joaquin had immigrated to Australia to escape Franco’s dictatorship. He originally worked in the sugar cane fields until he saved enough money to bring his mother and his son, John, to Australia. John was eight years old at the time.
Elordi says that he was inspired to become an actor by Heath Ledger. He started acting in musicals at his school at the age of 12. He was interested in rugby until he hurt his back when he was 14, which pushed him from athletics to acting. It was when he was 15 and reading Waiting for Godot in drama class that he really decided acting was his passion. His father initially discouraged Jacob’s acting ambitions, saying that “acting is a one-in-a-million kind of situation.” Jacob replied by saying “Well, why can’t that one be me? Why can’t I be that one in a million?”
Elordi’s first Hollywood role was as an extra in 2017’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. He started gaining fame in 2018 as part of Netflix’s The Kissing Booth. He was about to give up on his Hollywood dream – he had been sleeping in his car and on friends’ couches – when he was cast in HBO’s Euphoria.
After that, his career began to take off. In 2023, he played Elvis Presley in Priscilla and starred in Saltburn, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for best supporting actor. Most recently, he starred as the titular monster in Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein. His performance in this and other recent films has earned him praise. For Frankenstein, he spent 10 hours a day in make-up to complete his transformation.
Elordi has made his pride in his Basque ancestry very clear. When a Wikipedia article about him listed his ancestry as Spanish, he said he wasn’t of Spanish but Basque descent, and his grandfather would strangle him if he heard that.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
The Basque Country has a long association with bears. Indeed, research by people like Roslyn Frank indicates that the Basques may have worshipped bears at one time and that Basques believed that humans were descended from bears. The importance of bears to Basque culture is reflected in their role in carnivals in various towns. However, despite this importance, real bears have all but disappeared from the Basque landscape, with the last bear sited more than 15 years ago.
At one time, at least three different species of bears lived in the Pyrenees and the Basque Country, the oldest remains dating over 240,000 years ago. The last native Basque bear, named Camille, had lived in the Roncal Valley but died some time around 2010.
Hartza, the bear, is the protagonist of more than than one festival in the Basque Country. For example, in Ituren, Nafarroa, the arrival of Hartza and his handler, hartzazain, during their fiesta announces that spring has come.
There are tales highlighting the relationship between bears and humans, with some telling how Basques are descended from bears. Indeed, in 1983, Petiri Prébende, the last Basque bear hunter, said, “Lehenagoko eüskaldünek gizona hartzetik jiten zela sinhesten zizien. […] Hartzak eginak gara” (“Basques used to believe that humans descended from bears. […] We were created by the bear.”) Bears were said, once shorn, to look like humans and that humans were bears without fur.
The close relationship meant that bears and humans could interchange souls: “The primitive belief in the possibility of such an exchange of souls comes clearly out in a story of a Basque hunter who affirmed that he had been killed by a bear, but that the bear had, after killing him, breathed its own soul into him, so that the bear’s body was now dead, but he himself was a bear, being animated by the bear’s soul.” (The Golden Bough by JG Frazer)
One story describes Joan Hartza or Bear’s Son or Little Bear or Hamalau or Hartz-ume (there are many names for this story). This hero was half human, half bear, with a human mother and bear father. He represents the transition from bears to humans and bear ancestry. The story relates his adventures, including his encounter with a group of animals that he helps and is rewarded with talismans of their power. Roslyn Frank suggests that this story, though appearing throughout Europe, originated in the Basque Country.
There is also some evidence of belief in a Celestial Bear, a bear that helps guard the gates of heaven with St Peter. An English folklorist, Thomas Hollingsworth, was interviewing two Basques from Nafarroa who told him in 1891 that bears could understand human speech, including Euskara, and that bears were smart enough to learn from people and take that knowledge back to other bears, and that this would allow bears to come back and rule over humans as they had once done. They referred to the bear as the “dog of God” and the “dog of St Peter.”
Though bears have now essentially disappeared from the Basque Country, the last bear hunter was still alive in 1983. He and his son discussed how killing a bear would bring bad luck. However, a bear’s paw has also been seen as a powerful magical item, protecting people from the evil eye and other illnesses.
One final curious note is worth expanding on. One of the names for the Little Bear is Hamalau, which literally means 14. Frank alludes to the special role that 7 has in Basque culture, and maybe the name 14 is related to this. Hamalau is also a name for the boogeyman, who scares people at night. It is also a large number, representing infinity. Maybe a future post will go into 14 in more detail.
A full list of all of Buber’s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the Archive.
