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Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 42, 1990
Symbols of a People: Zazpiak
Bat, the Fueros, the Ikurrina, and the Lauburu
by Gorka Aulestia
During the time I lived in Reno, Nevada, I was asked certain questions over
and over again by visitors
to the Basque Studies Program and by patrons who called us with
questions. Americans and
Basque-Americans wanted to know the meaning of the Basque phrases and
symbols: Zazpiak Bat (the seven united Basque provinces), the fueros
(old laws), the ikurrina (the Basque flag), and the lauburu
(the Basque cross). I hope that
this article will clarify these questions for the 10,000 readers of the
Basque Studies Program Newsletter.
The slogan, "Zazpiak Bat," meaning the seven united Basque
provinces, was created at the beginning of this century.
It referred to the idea of reuniting the seven Basque provinces
which are today divided into three different political sectors:
the Autonomous Community of Euskadi (Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa, and
Alava); Navarra; and the three provinces in France (Labourd, Basse
Navarre, and Zuberoa). At the
end of the nineteenth century, the founder of modern Basque
nationalism, Sabino de Arana y Goiri, began talking about the "Bizkaitarrak,"
thinking that his nationalism would take root first in Vizcaya.
Later he gave birth to the famous phrase, "Euzkotarraren
aberria Euzkadi da" (Euskadi is the country of the Basques).
The political unity of the seven Basque provinces in a free and
independent Euskadi has not been seen except for a short period in
spite of their tight linguistic, cultural, and racial bonds.
Nevertheless, the thirst for self-determination has never been
as great as it is now. It is a
task that falls to all Basques, a task to which we must apply
ourselves. Let us begin by
acculturating ourselves, by becoming familiar with our history and our
past.
The Basque homeland is a compact area straddling the western Pyrenees,
including four provinces of Spain (Navarra, Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and
Alava) and three of southwest France (Labourd, Basse Navarre, and
Zuberoa).
Few ethnic origins are as mysterious as that of the Basques.
Theories abound as to where the Basques came from and when they
originated. The Caucasus and
cradles of such ancient Mediterranean civilizations have been proposed
as points of origin.
Nevertheless, there is now a general agreement on two facts:
first, that the area known as the Basque Country has been
inhabited for tens of thousands of years, certainly since the Upper
Paleolithic Age. And secondly,
the persons who lived in the caverns of the Basque Country 40,000 years
ago are probably direct ancestors of present-day Basques.
Based on the evidence of excavations, burial sites, and caves (Altamira,
Santimmamiñe, Lascaux, etc.), the inhabitants of the Basque Country
were mainly engaged in hunting, herding and agriculture.
They knew how to work in metal and ceramics, and they had
weapons that could be used in hunting or for battle.
The Provinces
Navarra and Basse Navarre
Navarra
is one of the seven provinces that constitute the "Basque
Country." Navarra has remained one of the most independent kingdoms in Europe.
Since prehistoric times, Navarra has been part of the homeland
of the Basques. Many invaders
seem to dominate the nation's history. Situated at one of Europe's most
strategic crossroads, Navarra has seen its plains and high valleys
invaded by Roman armies under Pompey (for whom the capital, Pamplona,
was named), Visigoths, Arabs, Charlemagne, Ferdinand and Isabella,
Napoleon, and Franco.
Although Navarra's ethnic base is not as solid as Guipúzcoa's or Vizcaya's
because it has been more subject to racial admixtures of invaders and
passers-through, especially in the southern part, the Navarrese people
still demonstrate "Basqueness."
Indeed, a lively and combative sense of national identity has
prevailed in Navarra for many centuries and still thrives.
When Navarra capitulated to Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1512, after seven
hundred years of independence, Spain was ready to adjust to its new
role in Europe.
The Navarrese heraldic emblem is the same for Navarrese and Basse Navarre,
consisting of chains forming a rectangle with other chains extending
from the center to the corners and sides.
It evokes the chains broken at the battle of Navas de Tolosa
(1212) against the Moors. In the
center of the emblem is an emerald that recalls the ring given to the
King of Navarra by the vanquished emir of Córdoba.
Navarra was divided into six merindades, or counties.
Today's Basse Navarre is Ultrapuertos, or the sixth one in the
region of Cize in France.
Alava
In Basque the name of this province is Araba.
Its coat of arms was in use in the thirteenth century and
contained four elements:
-A high, craggy promontory.
-A fortified tower on top of the promontory.
-An arm wielding an unsheathed sword at the top of the tower.
-A lion raking its claws toward the fortification at the foot of
the tower.
In the thirteenth century the village of Portilla used a stamp with this
coat of arms. This gives rise to
the theory that the coat of arms was born of a defense of the Alavese
people. The tower of this
village was raised on the southwest edge of the Alavese defenses. It served
to defend them against the invasions that came from
the south: Moslem, Leonese, Castilian, etc.
During the invasion of the Castilian king Alfonso the VIII in
the year 1200, Vitoria surrendered, but not the town of Portilla.
The motto emblazoned on the coat of arms, "En aumento de la justicia
contra los malhechores" (To the increase of justice against
wrongdoers), has no direct relationship with the coat of arms and was
added much later.
Guipúzcoa
The most ancient recorded events of this province date from the eleventh
century. Surrounded on all sides
by Basque territories it managed to maintain euskara, the Basque
language, better than the other provinces.
Its coat of arms is divided into two sections:
-In the upper section there is an unknown king seated on a throne
and holding a sword in his right hand.
-In the lower section there are three trees (probably yew trees) which
represent the three large zones which comprise the province. There are also three
streams of water representing its three most
important rivers-the Urumea, the Urola, and the Deva.
In 1513 Queen Juana of Castilla ceded the right to incorporate a trophy of
twelve cannons taken from the Navarrese in the Battle of Velate into
the coat of arms of Guipúzcoa. This
reward was granted because of the collaboration and assistance that the
Guipuzcoans gave her father during that battle in 1512.
Many years ago many Guipuzcoan municipalities removed the image of the king
and the cannons from their coat of arms because they considered them
denigrating and a symbol of the fratricidal war between the Basques.
In 1979 at a meeting celebrated at Oiartzun it was agreed to
definitely remove those symbols from the Guipuzcoan coat of arms
throughout the province.
Labourd
The capital of this tiny province in France is Bayonne.
Labourd, Basse Navarre, and Zuberoa do not comprise an
official Basque administrative division but are included in one of the
ninety-nine departments into which France has been divided since the
Revolution in 1789. The Basque
provinces are located in department sixty-four, called the Pyrénées
Atlantiques.
Labourd's coat of arms is divided in two. On
the left side on a gold field is a red lion holding a harpoon in its
right paw. The lion represents
the ancient viscounts who once governed in Labourd.
On the right side on a blue field is a golden fleur de lis.
Many theories have arisen about the fleur de lis.
It was used for the
first time by King Hugo Capeto (987-993) and commemorates the
annexation of Labourd into France in 1451 by the Treaty of Ayherre.
Vizcaya
The coat of arms of Vizcaya contains the Tree of Gernika and two wolves,
each carrying a lamb in its mouth.
The wolves are eloquent images since Otso (wolf) was the name of
the Lord of Vizcaya. Some
Vizcayan coats of arms appear without the two wolves.
Zuberoa
And finally there is Zuberoa, a very small province with only 18,000
inhabitants. Zuberoans speak a
distinctive dialect which is difficult for other Basques to understand.
The capital of Zuberoa is Mauleon.
This province is famous for its pastorales.
Zuberoa's coat of arms contains only a lion, the symbol of the
viscounts who once governed the province.
The Fueros
The Basque Country as we know it today, that is, the seven Basque
provinces, was never a state. Aside
from the thirty years of the Kingdom of Navarra under Sancho the Great
(1004-1034), the Basques never had political unity.
The great Kingdom of Navarra included regions that belong to
Spain today, such as Castilla (Burgos and Palencia) and Aragon (Zaragoza).
Even so, there was never a political unity of the seven provinces
since Navarra was a kingdom, while Vizcaya was once a seigniory and
Guipúzcoa was an old "País de Comunas" or Country of
Communes. Furthermore, the three
provinces in France have followed different political paths from those
of the south. Each of the seven
provinces has been independent of foreign nations and its sister
provinces. But even while
preserving this individuality, there has existed a common tie among
them, that of the oath sworn beneath the tree of Gernika to unite
against foreign invasion in order to defend the Basque race, culture,
language, customs, and fueros.
The fueros were multi-secular liberties created by and for the Basque
people and demonstrated by means of ancient customs transmitted orally.
These old laws were not privileges granted by the Spanish kings,
but rather rights born among the people.
These fueros or Basque institutions dating from ancient times survived in the
north until the French revolution in 1789 and in the south until the
end of the second Carlist War in 1876 when they were abolished.
Thus in the Middle Ages, when feudalism was rampant in Europe,
there were neither feudal lords nor serfs in the Basque Country.
Another difference worthy of mention is that women held the same
rights of inheritance as men.
The Basque fueros were impregnated with the spirit of liberty even where
kings were concerned. As a
result, the commands of the kings of Castilla were not binding for the
Basques. It was necessary for
those kings to swear an oath to respect the Basque fueros before
commanding the Basque people. Even
the king Fernando the Catholic had to go to Gernika to swear to respect
the fueros beneath the sacred tree. As
I said, the fueros endured until the end of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately, the arrival of the Bourbon kings, absolutists and
strangers to Basque tradition, increased the tension between the
government of Madrid and the Basques. King
Fernando the Seventh promised to respect the fueros but never did so.
This gave rise to the two Carlists Wars in the nineteenth
century which did away with the Basque liberties.
Obedience to the kings, based on their previous respect for ancient Basque
traditions, was the norm for Basques in the north as well as the south.
For example, the Kingdom of Navarra was a federation of small
nations united under one king who freely swore to respect the fueros.
The Juntas Generales, or General Assemblies, of Vizcaya met
beneath the Tree of Gernika. The
representatives of Guipúzcoa met in Tolosa, and those of Alava
met in Armentia. In this manner,
in Vizcaya the kings of Castilla were recognized not as kings but as
lords. The origin of the law was
not the person of the king but the General Assemblies.
It was necessary that the king go along with the dictates of
these assemblies. Otherwise it
was assumed that the people would "obey but not comply" or
"kill him," that is, kill the king who did not obey these
foral laws.
Ikurrina
Generally speaking, the flags of all countries are relatively recent in origin.
In the Basque Country's remote past, there was no single flag
that represented the entire country. The
ikurrina, or Basque flag, dates from the end of the last
century. It was flown for the
first time in Bilbao on July 14, 1894.
The ikurrina is composed of various symbols and colors.
It has a red background with a green St. Andrews cross stretching
from corner to corner, and a white cross superimposed over the green.
The two brothers Luis and Sabino de Arana y Goiri designed the
flag, and they borrowed elements from the escutcheon of Vizcaya in
doing so. Over the red
foundation of the province of Vizcaya went the green of the sacred oak
of Gernika, another symbol that appears on the coat of arms of Vizcaya.
The cross of St. Andrews (whose festival is celebrated on
November 30) recalls the victory of the Basques at the battle of
Arrigorriaga on November 30, in the year 888.
And finally the white cross of Christ is superimposed over the
other elements. The symbolism of
the flag is very simple and was composed by Sabino de Arana
(1865-1903), founder of the Basque Nationalist Party: the province of
Vizcaya is represented, as well as its lagi zarrak, the fueros or old
Basque liberties, and the religious faith is also present.
The hierarchy of these values in the minds of the flag's
creators is also demonstrated: religion, race, and culture where
euskara or the Basque language is most prominent.
At first this flag was intended only as a flag for the Basque Nationalist
Party, Sabino de Arana's group, and it was flown over the batzokiak
or Basque centers of the Party, especially in Vizcaya.
Around 1931, with the arrival of the Second Spanish Republic
(1931-1936), the flag began to lose its exclusive image as
representative of a single political party and a single province (Vizcaya),
and it came to stand for all Basques, even those in Iparralde, the
provinces in France. In 1936 the
Basque government declared the flag its national emblem and it was
carried by the gudariak, the Basque soldiers, in the Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939). It was also used by the Basque brigades (such as the Gernika
batallion) that helped the allies liberate Bordeaux and Paris in the
Second World War.
During the forty years of Franco's dictatorship, the ikurrina began to appear
at cultural and sporting events, but its use was severely reprimanded,
and some young Basques were killed over it.
But the Basques could not wait any longer to display their
sacred symbol and, in opposition to the rigid legality evidenced in the
early days of Spanish
democracy when the ikurrina was still prohibited, they flew the flag
publicly and without permission. A
great opportunity to do so arose when the two best Basque soccer teams,
Real Sociedad of San Sebastián and Athletic of Bilbao, were
scheduled to play one another in the Guipuzcoan capital on December 5,
1976. In the presence of
more than 20,000 spectators, the two teams came out onto the playing
field waving the Basque flag, the symbol of the spiritual unity of all
Basques. Another historical date
for the ikurrina was the day that Guipuzcoan Martín Zabaleta (married
to a Californian) planted the Basque flag on the top of Mt. Everest
during the Basque expedition of 1980.
A flag at first is no more than a symbol, but when defense of that flag
is paid for in human blood, as in the case of the ikurrina, it becomes
the representative of the liberty that Basques have so long awaited.
Lauburu
The so-called Basque swastika is known in the Basque language as the lauburu. It appears to have
originated as a sacred symbol, perhaps as part of the sun worship that
seems so widespread among many civilizations of remote antiquity.
Later this holy character gave way to symbolic value and finally
the lauburu became merely a decorative adornment.
The symbol of the swastika was widespread throughout the world, through all
of Europe, and in Japan, India, and China where it is the sacred symbol
of the Buddhists. In the
twentieth century the swastika gained worldwide notoriety thanks to the
Nazi regime of Hitler who spread it all over Germany.
Swastikas can be rectilinear (like the German variety) and curvilinear (like the
Basque). The former was
scattered throughout the Basque Country during the Roman domination,
but very few examples of that type remain.
The second form, the curvilinear swastika, is much more frequent
in the Basque Country, and large number of them are evident on toms in
cemeteries, over the doorways of houses, and so on.
They are most abundant in Navarra and Labourd.
The use of the curvilinear swastika appears to have begun no earlier than
the sixteenth century among the Basques.
It was used rather frequently during the seventeenth century and
became very common in the eighteenth century.
In any case, although it is not used exclusively by the Basques,
the lauburu may be considered one of the ornamental symbols most
characteristic of Euskal Herria. Even
the Basque Studies Program Newsletter and the books in the Basque Book
Series published by the University of Nevada Press carry this symbol
that is so loved by the Basque people.
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