Basque ethnography at a glance

Source: Felipe Manterola Collection. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

The term quarantine, also known as puerperium, refers to the period between six and eight weeks after childbirth, that is, approximately forty days after birth, hence its name. This period of rest and recovery of the body, present in many cultures and worldviews, is associated with numerous practices and customs of isolation, care and traditional beliefs.

Thanks to the collection of oral histories from many people over the years, several witnesses describe what it was like and how people lived until the middle of the last century, when women gave birth at home, accompanied by a midwife, a role that in some places was already replaced by a practitioner.

It is known that the length of this period of rest varied over time in each place. Thus, we find testimonies that tell us about forty days in Orozko (B) or eight to ten days in Goizueta (N).

Source: Felipe Manterola Collection. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

In many cases, the quarantine was experienced as a forced confinement, more or less strict depending on the context. It consisted on prohibiting postpartum women from leaving their homes until the first departure to church for ritual cleansing, and thus ending a period in which they did not even attend the baptism of their babies, which usually took place a few days after birth. However, the real rest those mothers could have during quarantine also varied in practice according to their economic and family situation. In Goizueta and Sunbilla (N), in order to be able to carry out errands while respecting the quarantine, women would put a tile on their heads.

Although some testimonies describe mortality caused by lack of hygiene and treatment, such as the procedure of “plugging” the usual postpartum hemorrhage, which carried the risk of contracting infections (testimony collected in Zuia [A]), there were many precepts and customs that sought care and recovery. Staying away from airflows or working with cold water are some examples included in the Ethnographic Atlas of Vasconia. Chicken broth was an omnipresent food for women in labor; it was the only food some of them had during the days where they stayed bedridden in Larraga (N), accompanied by quinine wine in Sunbilla or egg yolks in Zudaire (N). There are numerous references to the support and food provided to the mother (martopilak, ermakariak, ikusgarriak), as these visits were made as a snack or special meal, and were sometimes attended only by female relatives, neighbors or friends. These collective celebrations were known as atso-berenduak (Sunbilla), andra-ikustie (Bizkaia) or atsolorrak (Gipuzkoa, Chartered Community of Navarre).

The medicalization process of childbirth in the 1960s and 1970s, which moved labors from houses to hospitals, also implied the gradual disappearance of many community practices and knowledge related not only to natural childbirth but also to postpartum care and support. Nowadays, people who want to live this experience in a more respectful and natural way in our environment find treatments and rituals related to folk knowledge in alternative spaces. Paradoxically, ceremonies such as La Cerrada, Blessingway or Suò yuè zi are exoticized, as they come from other contexts, while the practices and knowledge that were present in the popular memory of our people less than a century ago remain hidden.

Ane Etxarri Tapia — Anthropologist. Labrit Heritage