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Handmade soap. Author: Seferikalbiye.
The recent Covid pandemic has been a reminder of the importance of good personal and household hygiene to avoid the spread of infectious disease and to care for our health.
The word ‘hygiene’ comes from Hygieia, the goddess of health of the Ancient Greeks, who was the daughter for Asclepius, the god of medicine, and of Epione, the goddess of the soothing of pain. Seven centuries before Christ, the Greeks already associated cleanliness with people’s health.
Dantzaris with masks: Portugalete International Festival, 2021. Photo: E. X. Dueñas.
Even though that we are still not free of the virus (and its many variants) commonly known as COVID-19, the pandemic now just seems a harrowing time in the past. However, even though it lasted a relatively short period of time, it was a total upheaval of our lives… in a society where a large part of people’s lives is outdoors; and great importance is given to people being in close contact.
The start of the pandemic resulted in harsh restrictions being introduced here in March 2020. Right from the start, that meant that weekend and bank holiday leisure activities and celebratory events, including any type of show, celebration and religious ceremony in that regard, were completely or, in certain cases, partially cancelled.
Luis Manuel Peña. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.
Contagious diseases are as much cause for concern now as they were before. Broadly known as gaitz kutsakorrak, in Basque, or kutsuzko gaitzak, they are referred to as gexo iraskorrak, —gaixo eranskorrak, as we would write it today— in the manual of recommendations distributed by the health authorities of the city of Bilbao in 1918 under the heading Gripe izurri-gexoa galazoteko Bilbaoko Osalari-Bazkunak aginduten dauzan egin-beharrak, which we translate as Prophylactic measures recommended by the Academy of Medical Sciences of Bilbao for combating the influenza epidemic. Basque equivalents for ‘infecting’ or ‘being infected’ are kutsatu —perhaps the most widely spread— erantsi, nahastau, pegau, itsatsi or even inkau. (more…)
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