Basque ethnography at a glance

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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.

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Ganixak. Heraitze, Uztaritze; 2024. Source: Lorentxa Saragueta.

Innovation could be said to have come tradition at the Hartzaro festival in Uztaritze. The local residents have chosen carnival time to hold the annual festival for the last 28 years. Even though the Pyrenean bear did not hibernate last winter, the festival has celebrated its awakening in fine style.

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Hawthorn crosses. Ezkio (Gipuzkoa). Author: Felix Mugurutza

Our ancestors believed that thunderstorms were the most common, known and feared expression of atmospheric violence: the home, livestock, harvest or life of people hung by a thread during the storm.

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Santa Clara Convent in Tolosa, 2023. Author: Fernando Hualde.

At the end of November 2023, the doors of Santa Clara Convent in Tolosa (Gipuzkoa) closed for the last time, after over four centuries of being home to the religious order and the remaining four nuns were moved to another convent. Before they left – and with their cooperation –, I had the opportunity to make an extensive inventory of all the artefacts within the walls of the convent that had been home to the cloistered religious community, the Order of Saint Claire (the Poor Clares). A heritage intervention thus took place from May to October of that year with the goal of preserving the memory of that convent; the outcomes were four different books being produced and published, the recording of the oral memory of the last four nuns, the making of a documentary and the organisation of an exhibition.

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