Basque ethnography at a glance
Harvesting wheat in Zeanuri (Bizkaia), 1920. Source: Felipe Manterola Collection.
Before the mechanization of the field, manual harvesting consisted of holding the grain that the sickle was harvesting with one hand and placing the cut grain on the ground, so that that hand was free to continue repeating the operation. Another person, usually a woman, was in charge of collecting these sheaves and, using the cereal stalks as ropes, she tied them together to form bundles that would facilitate the movement of the grain from the field to the barn. (more…)
Larraul mill. Source: Nora Urbizu.
Cereal grinding is the crushing or breaking of the grain. Grinding is one of the first intelligent activities of man, the first step in food processing.
In the Late Bronze Age, the inhabitants of our area knew it, and this is what the hand mills found in excavations carried out in the Iron Age villages of Basagain and Intxur (Gipuzkoa) and in the researches carried out in Anoeta and Albiztur have shown. In these latter cases, they are ship-shaped mills that have appeared around the house.
Llanteno. Author: Josu Larrinaga Zugadi.
The season of ‘Aratusteak’ (carnival) is approaching. This is the term used to designate the Carnival of Enkarterri province, in Biscay. From this general name derives one of the most special events of the Enkarterri: the meeting of students on Fat Thursday (later moved to Shrove Tuesday), known as Aratuste. It remained silent or disappeared during the military rebellion, the subsequent war and Franco’s dictatorship. This gathering of children, as in the rest of the country, took place on Thursday (known as Fat Thursday, ‘Egun Zuri’ or ‘Egun ttun ttun’, and began from school, under the direction or supervision of the local teacher; they all wandered around the outskirts of the village, begging. (more…)
Txikiteros Festival in the Old Town of Bilbao (2024-10-11). Author: Zuriñe Goitia.
Bilbainada is a musical genre native to Bizkaia, developed mainly in the city of Bilbao, based on popular songs and whose lyrics talk about social events and incidents that took place in the city and surrounding towns.
These cheerful songs usually talk about news, experiences, customs, traditions and historical events of the city, with a touch of nostalgia and irony. The typical Bilbainada has a unique characteristic: the rhythm changes three or four times in the same song. It can begin as a habanera, for example, continue as a jota and end with a fandango. This is because over the 19th century these songs and coplas have been nourished by the many influences of the folklore of the time. For example, due to the influence of American music on our chansonnier, the rhythm of the habanera was born.
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