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The house in the broadest sense

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Posted on 2023-01-13 in

Source: Bilbaopedia. Elvira Goitia Barainca Photographic Archive.

The word ‘house’ has different meanings, including one in the strictest sense and another in the broadest sense of the term and including the concept of home. The house is here considered in its broadest sense as we refer to the family home and other type of dwellings.

Families in charter towns or other urban areas have usually felt a tie to the family homestead, from which their surname or nickname often comes. Even the towns have a founding house according to popular tradition. In the Gernikaldea district, that first house is the Mezeta tower house (Mentzeta as it is known coloquially) in Ajangiz or the Gautegiz one in the neighboruing Gautegiz Arteaga.
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Now that we are back in the house

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Posted on 2020-12-11 in

Antzasti, the Basque traditional house. Esteban Ramos.

The house has been for centuries a fundamental pillar of society and the very foundation of our way of life. Family and home have been essentially synonymous concepts in our culture: in fact, instead of the term familia ‘family’ we use the expression etxekoak, from etxe ‘house, home’, to signify ‘them who belong to the house, household’, a clear exponent of the circumstance we try to illustrate. Traditionally, the members of a household make up the house, and conversely, they owe their name and identity to their birthplace, as Xalbador’s beautiful verses remind us. A close, solid and indivisible bond, if ever there was one. (more…)

Dispersed settlement

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Posted on 2020-02-14 in
Leitzaran (Navarre). Euskal Herria. Collection of slides. SEIE group

Leitzaran (Navarre). Euskal Herria. Collection of slides. SEIE Group.

There are two major types of settlement patterns in the Basque Country: dispersed and concentrated, the former on the Atlantic side of the watershed and the latter in the southern regions. Semi-compact settlements or rural villages consisting of small clusters of houses, and therefore considered a phase of transition from isolated to compact settlements, are also to be found. According to Barandiaran, higher-density forms of settlement are preceded by agro-pastoral developments. (more…)

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