Hashy birthday to me,
Hashy birthday to me,
I look like a hasher,
And I smell like one too.
Drink it down, down, down . . .

Basque

"What is, then, this ancient people whose traditions celebrate unflagging valour and which, even in our times, has given so often proof of its heroism? Where do they come from? What is their relation to the other inhabitants of Europe and the rest of the world? These are impossible questions to answer.

The Basques are the mysterious race par excellence. They are alone among the multitude of the rest of mankind. They have no known family."

Elisée RECLUS
French writer and geographer (183O- 19O5)


Introduction to Basque History

Although the Basques were probably inhabiting the area they now do since the stone age, our oldest historical records come from the time of the Romans. Around 75 B.C., the Romans established the city of Pamplona as a regional centre. The Basques seem to have come down from the hills to trade with the Romans, but the Romans seem never to have extended actual control of the Basques living in the hills. The Basques living on the plain around Pamplona probably adapted to the Roman presence, but we don't know to what extent.

Around A.D. 830 century A.D., toward the end of the tumultuous period that followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque), centred in Pamplona, came into being. Originally this kingdom covered all of modern Navarre, plus the three Vascongadas (Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, Araba), the modern French Basque country, and into neighbouring areas in modern Spain. Navarre was not conquered by the moors. Navarre was probably not a "Kingdom of the Basques", but it was a kingdom whose dominant ethnic group were the Basques.

Through the high and late middle ages Navarre gradually lost bits of its territory through various dynastic marriages and inheritances. Between 1200 and 1332, the three Vascongadas placed themselves in allegiance to the crown of Castille. By 1500 the Basques lived in three kingdoms: Navarre, Spain, and France. In 1515 Navarre was divided and absorbed into Spain and France along the current border (more or less).

In Spain, the Basques, especially those of the Vascongadas, retained special "fueros", privileges of self-governance and local assemblies for that purpose. The Basques were not individually subjects of the crown, but rather as a group subject to the crown (as long as they resided in the Vascongadas). In the 1800's a series of civil wars were fought in Spain (the "Carlist Wars") between factions who either sought to retain the medieval legal structure of Spain, or to reform it using the principles of the French Revolution. Rural Basques sided with the more conservative faction of King Carlos V in order to preserve the fueros. They lost. Many Basques fled Spain after these conflicts.

The loss of the fueros became more critical under Francisco Franco because he sought to take the integration of the different liguistic minorities in Spain one step further. He wanted total Castillianization. Catalan, Galician, and Basque were to be eradicated. After the death of Franco, King Juan Carlos and the Spanish Parliament established a system of autonomous regions that restored the fueros in spirit, if not in every detail.

During the time of the Carlist Wars, a "bertsolari" (wandering minstral) named Jose Mari Iparraguirre wrote a song about the famous oak tree that stands in Gernika. It is the traditional site of the gathering of the councils that goverened the Basques under the old system. That song, "Gernikako Arbola" has become the national anthem of the Basques. It is quite a long song, but here is the first verse with a rough translation:


Gernikako arbola
da bedeinkatua,
euskaldunen artean
guztiz maitatua.
Eman da zabal zazu
munduan frutua;
adoratzen zaitugu,
arbola santua.

The tree of Gernika
is a blessed symbol
loved by all the Basque people
with deep love.
Give to all the world
your fruit;
we adore you
sacred tree.

The rest of the song tells the story of the tree.