Basque ethnography at a glance

I was one of those born at home, in one of those domestic births where everything started in a rush to find a midwife that could help with the labor.

It was she who, after giving birth, ordered the placenta to be cut into pieces and thrown into the fire along with the umbilical cord, since she already recognized it as a fateful organ, devoid of symbolism.

However, just a year ago, when my sister was born, things were very different. Following the custom of his ancestors, my young father set off for Kukullu, on the other side of the stream that we see in front of our house. He dug a large hole and buried the placenta there, well protected so that no animals would eat it. He repeated what he had always done, without giving it too much importance.

However, it is important, because it is an ancient ritual spread throughout the world.

In Basque, we call the placenta “selaun”, originally from “seni”(child) + “lagun”(friend) ‘child’s friend’. The word already gives us some clues about how our ancestors conceived the placenta: as something almost sacred, intimate and linked to the fate of the being that protected it for life.

Since ancient times, many societies have considered the placenta as an extension and continuation of the life of the newborn. For this reason, it had to be taken care of, in general, “… burying it to protect it from animals that could eat it, which would be harmful to the mother and especially the newborn baby” (Consolación González and Pía Timón, 2018).

Other authors such as Gutierre Tibón (1986) have studied this same ritual in depth at a global level.

Already in our country, the ethnographer and Basque priest José Mª Satrustegi summarized this same idea: “…the placenta and the remains of childbirth had to be carefully hidden by covering them with earth, since it was believed that if they were exposed, they would bring curses to the person concerned and that the dogs that ate them would go mad”.

One only has to look at the Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country to find several popular expressions about this ritual.

I am particularly struck by the one from Artziniega (Araba), where in the past the placenta was wrapped in a white cloth, treated as if it were a child.

We documented something similar in Elgoibar (Gipuzkoa). The placenta was buried under the eaves of the house. This brings us to the ancient Basque custom of burying babies who dies without baptism there.

The hole was then covered with a slab and a wooden cross was placed on top, thus giving the placenta similar honors to those that would be given to the burial of a loved one. On rainy days, drops of water fell, since the rain was considered blessed, because it came “from heaven itself.”

Everything seems to indicate that this characteristic of water is important, since in the Iberian Peninsula and large areas of America, care was taken to ensure that the placenta was buried in a humid place, not in a dry one, because otherwise, both the mother and the baby would suffer from thirst for life and their health would be affected.

It makes me very sad that my placenta was the first in my lineage to be separated from the entire cultural heritage of our ancestors. Now that is a true original sin…

Felix Mugurutza – Researcher