Euskaldunak/History

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The Euskaldunak or Basque peoples are thought to constitute the oldest autochthonous race in all of Europe, with a history that spans well over five millenia. Ensconced in the Pyrenees that form the borders between modern-day France and Spain, their ancestors managed to live in relative isolation from the outside world until the Middle Ages when the rise of mediaeval feudalism saw their communities integrated first into the Holy Roman Empire, then as parts of the mediaeval kingdoms of Pamplona, Navarre, and later France and Spain. In spite of the great upheavals of history, the Basques have for millenia managed not only to survive as a single race, but have even preserved their own language (which they call Euskadi), which could well be the oldest language in the European continent and is not related to any other one therein.

The ancestors

For centuries, it was thought that the Basques were a fully autochthonous people who had always settled and lived off the lands of their ancestors for millenia - a belief that until recently was the quotidian belief amongst not just the folk of the Basque regions, but also that of academics. DNA evidence recently discovered in a cave in the Atapuerca Mountains of northern Spain has hinted at a more realistic and richer heritage - being that the Basques were descended from the intermingling of Europe's first hunter-gatherer tribes and migrants from further east who practised agriculture.

Little has survived of the pre-Christian and pre-Islamic mythology and beliefs of the Basque peoples, but various folk tales, popular legends and toponyms remain to hint of the beliefs, cultural practices and political organisation of prehistoric Basque peoples. Clearly, they followed animistic beliefs, and were ranged in various small communities, ruled by a chief or local strongman who may also have been shamans, healing — the work of the shaman — was clearly held in high regard by the Basques. While they were polytheists, the Basques too also believed in a range of spirits (both good and evil alike) and creatures (particularly the jentilak or giants), who were said to reside in the many caves that honeycomb their lands and followed complex and elaborate rituals throughout their lives. Fire, water, the luminaries and the horse (as well as tools and weapons) seemed to have had deep spiritual significance for the Basques, they unlike the other Indo-European cultures of the world saw thunder and lightning as evil (they believed that thistle could protect from lightning storms) and feared it as much as they (and other cultures) feared darkness, diseases, and death. Not unlike many cultures around the world, water held special significance for them, and so springs were considered sacred sites.