Basque History of the World Read online

  The

  BASQUE

  HISTORY of

  the WORLD

  Mark Kurlansky

  * * *

  Contents

  * * *

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction: The Island and the World

  Part One

  THE SURVIVAL OF EUSKAL HERRIA

  The Basque Cake

  1: The Basque Myth

  2: The Basque Problem

  3: The Basque Whale

  4: The Basque Saint

  5: The Basque Billy Goat

  6: The Wealth of Non-Nations

  Part Two

  THE DAWN OF EUSKADI

  The Basque Onomatopoeia

  7: The Basque Beret

  8: The Basque Ear

  9: Gernika

  10: The Potato Time

  11: Speaking Christian

  12: Eventually Night Falls

  Part Three

  EUSKADI ASKATUTA

  Slippery Maketos

  13: The Great Opportunity

  14: Checks and Balances

  15: Surviving Democracy

  16: The Nation

  Postscript: The Death of a Basque Pig

  The Basque Thank You

  Maps

  Bibliography

  Imprint

  To Marian,

  who makes life sparkle

  * * *

  Introduction: The Island and the World

  The Basques are one of the unique people-islands to be found on the face of the earth, completely different in every sense from the peoples around them, and their language, surrounded by Aryan languages, forms an island somehow comparable to those peaks which still surface above the water in a flood zone.

  —Lewy D’Abartiague, ON THE ORIGIN OF BASQUES, 1896

  (A study made at the request of the

  London Geographic Congress of 1895)

  “These Basques are swell people,” Bill said.

  —Ernest Hemingway, THE SUN ALSO RISES, 1926

  * * *

  THE FIRST TIME I heard the secret tongue, the ancient and forbidden language of the Basques, was in the Hotel Eskualduna in St.-Jean-de-Luz. It was the early 1970s, and Franco still ruled Spain like a 1930s dictator. I was interested in the Basques because I was a journalist and they were the only story, the only Spaniards visibly resisting Franco. But if they still spoke their language, they didn’t do it in front of me in Spanish Basqueland, where a few phrases of Basque could lead to an arrest. In the French part of Basqueland, in St.-Jean-de-Luz, people spoke Basque only in private, or whispered it, as though, only a few miles from the border, they feared it would be heard on the other side.

  Much of St.-Jean-de-Luz, but especially the Hotel Eskualduna, seemed to function as a safe house for Basques from the other side. Spanish was almost as commonly heard as French. But at the little café on the ground floor of my hotel, the elderly hotel owner and her aging daughter whispered in Basque. When I walked into the room, they would smile pleasantly, offer me a suggestion for a restaurant or a scenic walk, and then resume talking in full voice in Spanish or French. As I opened the big glass-and-iron door to the street, I could hear them once again whispering in Basque.

  The first time I went to St.-Jean-de-Luz, I arrived by train and was carrying heavy bags. I chose the Eskualduna because it was close to the train station. It was also inexpensive and housed in a fine, historic, stone building with a Basque flag over the doorway and antique wooden Basque furniture inside. I kept returning there because it seemed that something interesting was going on, though I never found out what. For that matter, it was years before I realized that the hotel had been a center for the Resistance during World War II and that my helpful, smiling hosts were decorated heroes who had been the bravest of people at one of mankind’s worst moments.

  Everything seemed a little exciting and mysterious in Basqueland. With so much painful and dramatic history surrounding these people, I could never be sure who anyone was, and many Basques told astonishing stories about their experiences during the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Franco dictatorship. The silhouette of a long high mountain crest rises up behind St.-Jean-de-Luz where the sun sets, and this mountain, looking too rough to be French, is in Spain. I wrote in my notebook that the mountain, this Spanish border, looked like a “vaguely dangerous mystery.”

  I don’t feel that way about Spain anymore. I now know that mountain as a benign nature preserve in Navarra near the border. And I have come to realize that the Basque survival in France is, in its way, as impressive an accomplishment as Basque survival in Spain.

  In 1975, I stood in the Plaza de Oriente to hear Franco’s last speech. I witnessed “the transition” after his death when freedom and democracy and Western ideals were supposed to be established, and Basque violence was supposed to disappear, because it would be unnecessary and irrelevant. But with Franco’s men still in powerful positions and no one daring to remove them, the new Spain fell far short of the open democracy so many had hoped for, though it turned out considerably better than the enduring Francoism many had feared.

  But the Basques were a surprise. Had I known more about Basque history, I would have expected this, but I had no idea that their language and literature and music and traditions would burst out like a flower after rain. Nor did I realize that neither Spanish democracy nor European integration would pacify the Basque longing.

  FEW PEOPLE KNOW the Basques. What they do know is that Basques are tenacious. In Cervantes’s sixteenth-century Don Quixote de la Mancha, the Basque, the “Vizcayan,” can barely speak Spanish, has a large sword, and tiresomely insists on fighting. “Me kill you or me no Vizcayan,” he says.

  Four hundred years later, Anaïs Nin, in her erotic short story cycle, Delta of Venus, created a character simply called “the Basque.” She wrote, “The Basque suddenly opened the door. He bowed and said, ‘You wanted a man and here I am.’ He threw off his clothes.”

  Derogatory like Cervantes, laudatory like Hemingway, or a little of each like Nin, in most of literature and films “the Basque” has always been the same character—persevering and rugged and not even intimating the rare and complex culture, nor the sophisticated and evolved calculations behind this seemingly primitive determination to preserve the tribe.

  The singular remarkable fact about the Basques is that they still exist. In 1896, Lewy D’Abartiague observed in his study of their origins:

  This people is perhaps the only one in the world, at the least the only one in Europe, whose origin remains absolutely unknown. It is strange to think at the end of the 19th century, which has been so fertile on the subject of origins, that these few people still remain a mystery.

  If it was strange a century ago, after Darwin, it seems even more unlikely today with our knowledge of DNA and genetic testing. But the Basques remain a mystery. Even more improbable—something few except Basques would have predicted—is that the mysterious Basques enter the twenty-first century as strong as, in some ways stronger than, they entered the twentieth century. This has been accomplished with more than simple tenacity and unshakable courage, though it has required that as well.

  ACCORDING TO A popular Bilbao joke, a Bilbaino walks into a store and asks for “a world map of Bilbao.” The shop owner unflinchingly answers, “Left bank or right?”

  This is The Basque History of the World because Basques at times think they are the world. They feel inexplicably secure about their place among nations. But more important, Basques, while they are protecting their unique and separate identity, always endeavor to be in the world. No word less describes Basques than the term separatist, a term they refuse to
use. If they are an island, it is an island where bridges are constantly being built to the mainland. Considering how small a group the Basques are, they have made remarkable contributions to world history. In the Age of Exploration they were the explorers who connected Europe to North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. At the dawn of capitalism they were among the first capitalists, experimenting with tariff-free international trade and the use of competitive pricing to break monopolies. Early in the industrial revolution they became leading industrialists: shipbuilders, steelmakers, and manufacturers. Today, in the global age, even while clinging to their ancient tribal identity, they are ready for a borderless world.

  WHEN CAPITALISM was new and New England traders were beginning to change the world, Boston enjoyed a flourishing trade with Bilbao. John Adams ascribed the prosperity of the Basques to their love of freedom. In 1794, he wrote of the Basques, “While their neighbors have long since resigned all their pretensions into the hands of Kings and priests, this extraordinary people have preserved their ancient language, genius, laws, government and manners, without innovation, longer than any other nation of Europe.”

  This is a people who have stubbornly fought for their unique concept of a nation without ever having a country of their own. To observe the Basques is to ask the question: What is a nation? The entire history of the world and especially of Europe has been one of redefining the nation. From pre-Indo-European tribes—all of whom have disappeared, except the Basques—Europe shifted to kingdoms, empires, republics, nation-states. Now there is to be a united Europe, touted as a new kind of entity, a new relationship between nations—though the sad appearance of a European flag and a European national anthem suggests that this new Europe could turn out to be just a larger nineteenth-century nationstate.

  Europeans learned in the twentieth century to fear themselves and their passions. They distrust nationalism and religious belief because pride in nationality leads to dictatorship, war, disaster, and religion leads to fanaticism. Europe has become the most secular continent.

  An anomaly in Europe, the Basques remain deeply religious and unabashedly nationalistic. But they are ready to join this united Europe, to seize its opportunities and work within it, just as they saw advantages to the Roman Empire, Ferdinand’s consolidation of Spain, and the French Revolution.

  We live in an age of vanishing cultures, perhaps even vanishing nations. To be a Frenchman, to be an American, is a limited notion. Educated people do not practice local customs or eat local food. Products are flown around the world. We are losing diversity but gaining harmony. Those who resist this will be left behind by history, we are told.

  But the Basques are determined to lose nothing that is theirs, while still embracing the times, cyberspace included. They have never been a quaint people and have managed to be neither backward nor assimilated. Their food, that great window into cultures, shows this. With an acknowledged genius for cooking, they pioneered the use of products from other parts of the world. But they always adapted them, made them Basque.

  A central concept in Basque identity is belonging, not only to the Basque people but to a house, known in the Basque language as etxea. Etxea or echea is one of the most common roots of Basque surnames. Etxaberria means “new house,” Etxazarra means “old house,” Etxaguren is “the far side of the house,” Etxarren means “stone house.” There are dozens of these last names referring to ancestral rural houses. The name Javier comes from Xavier or Xabier, short for Etxaberria.

  A house stands for a clan. Though most societies at some phase had clans, the Basques have preserved this notion because the Basques preserve almost everything. Each house has a tomb for the members of the house and an etxekandere, a spiritual head of the house, a woman who looks after blessings and prayers for all house members wherever they are, living or dead.

  These houses, often facing east to greet the rising sun, with Basque symbols and the name of the house’s founder carved over the doorway, always have names, because the Basques believe that naming something proves its existence. Izena duen guzia omen da. That which has a name exists.

  Etxea—a typical Basque farmhouse.

  Even today, some Basques recall their origins by introducing themselves to a compatriot from the same region not by their family name, but by the name of their house, a building which may have vanished centuries ago. The founders may have vanished, the family name may disappear, but the name of the house endures. “But the house of my father will endure,” wrote the twentieth-century poet Gabriel Aresti.

  And this contradiction—preserving the house while pursuing the world—may ensure their survival long after France and Spain have faded.

  Historian Simon Schama wrote that when Chinese premier Zhou En-lai was asked to assess the importance of the French Revolution, he answered, “It’s too soon to tell.” Like Chinese history, the Basque history of the world is far older than the history of France. The few hundred years of European nation-states are only a small part of the Basque story. There may not be a France or a Spain in 1,000 years or even 500 years, but there will still be Basques.

  THE ISLAND AND THE WORLD

  Nire aitaren etxea,

  I shall defend

  defendituko dut,

  the house of my father,

  Otsoen kontra,

  againtst wolves,

  sikatearen kontra,

  against draught,

  lukurreriaren kontra,

  against usury,

  justiziaren kontra,

  against the law,

  defenditu

  I shall defend

  eginen dut

  the house of my father.

  nire aitaren etxea.

  I shall lose

  Galduko ditut

  cattle,

  Aziendak,

  orchards,

  soloak,

  pine groves;

  pinudiak;

  I shall lose

  galduko ditut

  interest

  korrituak

  income

  errentak

  dividends

  interesak

  but I shall defend the

  baina nire aitaren etxea defendituko dut.

  house of my father.

  Harmak kenduko dizkidate,

  They will take my weapons,

  eta eskuarekin defendituko dut

  and with my hands I shall defend

  nire aitaren etxea;

  the house of my father;

  eskuak ebakiko dizkidate

  they will cut off my hands,

  eta besoarekin defendituko dut

  and with my arms I will defend

  nire aitaren etxea;

  the house of my father;

  besorik gabe

  They will leave me armless,

  sorbaldik gabe,

  without shoulders,

  bularrik gabe

  without chest,

  utziko naute,

  and with my soul I shall defend

  eta arimarekin defendituko dut

  the house of my father.

  nire aitaren etxea.

  I shall die,

  Ni hilen naiz,

  my soul will be lost,

  nire arima galduko da,

  my descendants will be lost;

  nire askazia galduko da,

  but the house of my father

  baina nire aitaren etxeak

  will endure

  iraunen du

  on its feet.

  Zutik.

  —Gabriel Aresti

  Part One

  THE SURVIVAL OF

  EUSKAL HERRIA

  * * *

  Nomansland, the territory of the Basques, is in a region called Cornucopia, where the vines are tied up with sausages. And in those parts there was a mountain made entirely of grated Parmesan cheese on whose slopes there were people who spent their whole time making macaroni and ravioli, which they cooked in chicken broth and then cast it to the four winds, and th
e faster you could pick it up, the more you got of it.

  —Giovanni Boccaccio, THE DECAMERON, 1352

  * * *

  * * *

  The Basque Cake

  The truth is that the Basque distrusts a stranger much too much to invite someone into his home who doesn’t speak his language.

  —LES GUIDES BLEUS PAYS BASQUE FRANÇAIS ET

  ESPAGNOL, 1954

  * * *

  THE GAME THE rest of the world knows as jai alai was invented in the French Basque town of St.-Pée-sur-Nivelle. St. Pée, like most of the towns in the area, holds little more than one curving street against a steep-pastured slope. The houses are whitewashed, with either red or green shutters and trim. Originally the whitewash was made of chalk. The traditional dark red color, known in French as rouge Basque, Basque red, was originally made from cattle blood. Espelette, Ascain, and other towns in the valley look almost identical. A fronton court—a single wall with bleachers to the left—is always in the center of town.

  While the French were developing tennis, the Basques, as they often did, went in a completely different direction. The French ball was called a pelote, a French word derived from a verb for winding string. These pelotes were made of wool or cotton string wrapped into a ball and covered with leather. The Basques were the first Europeans to use a rubber ball, a discovery from the Americas, and the added bounce of wrapping rubber rather than string—the pelote Basque, as it was originally called—led them to play the ball off walls, a game which became known also as pelote or, in Spanish and English, pelota. A number of configurations of walls as well as a range of racquets, paddles, and barehanded variations began to develop. Jai alai, an Euskera phrase meaning “happy game,” originally referred to a pelota game with an additional long left-hand wall. Then in 1857, a young farm worker in St. Pée named Gantxiki Harotcha, scooping up potatoes into a basket, got the idea of propelling the ball even faster with a long, scoop-shaped basket strapped to one hand. The idea quickly spread throughout the Nivelle Valley and in the twentieth century, throughout the Americas, back to where the rubber ball had begun.