Basque Country: keeping up the tradition

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Bakio's dancing group

A profound respect for traditional values is an essential feature of life in the Basque Country. The Basques have maintained strong links with their immediate environment, the sea and the soil. The two elements have played an important role in shaping the Basque way of life, their distinctive culture and their sports and games.

Some of their traditional sports have travelled beyond the borders of the Basque Country and become major sporting events in their own right in Europe, Asia, the United States and South America. One sport in particular, Pelota, (played either with wicker basket, a heavy wooden bat or with the hand) keeps fans happy in the frontones or Jai-Alai (as pelota courts are sometimes known) the world over.Other sports and games have remained firmly within the boundaries of the Basque Country. These include stone-lifting, stone-dragging (with oxen), log-cutting and fixed-seat longboat regattas.

Together with this kind of tradition-as-sport, the Basques have long been addicted to listening to and making music. Like the Welshman, the Basque is famed for his enjoyment of unaccompanied song, usually in massed choirs. Dance, too, is still very much a central part of Basque life. Basque dance is inspired by a sense of ritual that evokes daily tasks, religion, courtesy or love; this sense of ritual still goes a long way to defining the Basque character.