ruta turística de arrigorriaga el secreto de las piedras rojas
- 1
- Euskara
- 2
- Mythology
- 3
- Battle of Padura
- 4
- General Assembly
- 5
- Carlist Wars
- 6
- Economy
- 7
- Emigration
- 8
- Basque Sports
The basque sports
“I’ll bet you two thousand reales and a calf that I can cut down that tree faster than you.”
It must surely have been with a challenge such as this one that Basque rural sports, known as “Herri Kirolak”, were born. These sports bring together two very Basque traits: a spirit of competition and a love of betting.
Basque sports mostly take their origins from everyday tasks carried out while working at sea, in the mountains and especially on farms. Farm work has given rise to the most events. One of the most popular is chopping through tree trunks with an axe. This discipline stems from the cutting down of trees for firewood, for making charcoal and for timber to be used in constructing buildings and ships.
This discipline stems from the cutting down of trees for firewood, for making charcoal and for timber to be used in constructing buildings and ships. Stone weight-lifting harks back to a time when there was no machinery to hoist and carry rocks when building a wall or a house.
Work around the farm
Other events connected with work around the farm include scything races, hay-bale lifting, races carrying weights (the origin of which lies in carrying milk churns), and races to pick up corn cobs: evidence that corn has long been widely grown in the Basque Country.
Farm animals were an integral part of daily life, and as such also feature in some Basque sports. There are trials of strength in which large stones are dragged along by donkeys, horses or, more usually, oxen. There are also sheepdog trials, in which not the strength of the dogs but their character and intelligence are put to the test. In these trials, dogs have to herd a flock of sheep according to instructions from a shepherd.
The tough life of fishermen, known as arrantzales in the Basque Country, has resulted in one of the finest and most spectacular of all Basque sports: rowing races in long boats known as “traineras”. In the times when people rowed for work rather that for sport, fishermen used to row out furiously to reach the richest fishing grounds ahead of their rivals, and then row back equally furiously to deliver the day’s catch. Even the world of mining has produced a sporting event in which drill operators or barrenadores race to bore holes in blocks of stone by driving metal rods into them.
Pelota
But not all Basque sports stem from the world of work. One of the games most deeply rooted among the Basque people – pelota – was played and learned in village church porches. The sport comes in many different versions, played with the hand and a variety of bats on different courts. The version known as jai alai became highly popular beyond the confines of the Basque Country.
Jai alai courts or frontones can be found in many parts of South and Central America, in the USA, Cuba and the Philippines, where spectacularly fast games are disputed and huge sums of money are wagered. Betting is a fundamental part of the appeal, the tradition and the spectacle of all Basque sports. In events such as stone weight-lifting, tree-trunk chopping and scything, bets are often laid by contestants themselves.
Physical strength is clearly one of the chief requirements in Basque rural sports. But it should be noted that there is absolutely no physical contact between contestants. None of the many versions of any Basque sport involves violence or aggression of any kind. All the effort and energy put in are devoted to taking oneself to an ever high level while beating one’s rival, while at the same time showing the utmost respect for both opponents and for referees, whose decisions are always accepted sportingly as final.