Who were the Basque witches?
The Basque witches of the 17th century were women who had inherited a cultural corpus that had its roots in the Neolithic era. At that time, the societies that populated prehistoric Atlantic Europe were matriarchal in architecture. Basque witches were considered wise and had a leading role in the social and family rituals of those primitive communities.
Doctors and priestesses
The Basque witches were women who had developed a deep knowledge of life and death. Due to the ancestral division of labor, Basque witches had acquired specialized knowledge in areas such as midwifery, remeiera, wrapping the dead and the custody and transmission of the traditional cosmogonic story. This made them doctors and priestesses of those primitive communities.
Christian crosses and discoid stelae
At the beginning of the 17th century, when the French Bourbon regime ordered the extermination of Basque witchcraft, Christianity had touched the rural oligarchies, but the bulk of society continued to practice the traditional religion. This confessional duality was evident in the cemeteries of Iparralde, where graves with Christian crosses and pagan discoid stelae coexisted.
The reason of state
The new French Bourbon regime interpreted confessional dissent as a threat that “vitally affected the pillars of society”. Henry IV imposed a model of society based on the framing of the population and considered the traditional Basque religion as an extreme threat.
Sealing and Satan
To eliminate the traditional Basque religion, the French Bourbon regime implemented a multifaceted intervention. It was proclaimed that Basque was the language of Satan and side galleries were ordered to be built in the temples to accommodate the mass conversation. In addition, the murder of hundreds of women accused of being the priestesses of the old religion and the healers of the old tradition was carried out.
