A house stands for a clan. Though most societies at some stage had clans, the Basques have preserved this notion because the Basques preserve almost everything. Each house has a tomb for the members of the house and an etxekandere, a spiritual head, a woman who looks after blessings and prayers for all house members wherever they are, living or dead.
These houses, often facing east to greet the rising sun, with Basque symbols and the name of the house’s founder carved over the doorway, always have names, because the Basques believe that naming something proves its existence. Izena duen guzia omen da (that which has a name exists).
The most important word in Euskera is gure. It means “our” – our people, our home, our village. Cookbooks talk of our soups, our sauces. “Reptiles are not typically included in our meals,” wrote the great Guipuzcoan chef, Jose Maria Busca Isusi. That four-letter word, gure, is at the centre of Basqueness – the feeling of belonging inalienably to a group. It is what the Basques mean by a nation, why they have remained a nation without a country, even stripped of their laws.
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