Bat bi hiru lau Watch your back, watch your back Ertzaintza's gonna get you Watch your back, watch your back Ertzaintza's gonna get you Watch your back, watch your back Oh, there's a crime here It's a coming from the Euskal Herria Gotta wash those red hands It's the crimes of the Basquelands It's the crimes of the basquelands So our podcast is about It's about usually crimes Crimes that take place either in the Basque Country And or anywhere in the world where
Any Basque person has been involved in a crime somehow Whether they're the victim, perpetrator, whatever Exactly, and we also have a drink with ourselves every week Yes, we do. As we do this week I have a beer, you have a wine, what are we gonna start with? You mean which one are we gonna mention first?
Yes. Let's talk about the wine It's cold outside, it's really cold right now And so red wine always suits me in cold weather I have to get off the white wine in the winter Yeah, it's lovely, it's warming I'm just looking for the name Alcorta Yes, it's quite a well-known one Yeah, it's very common It is pretty common It's Crianza, Tempranillo 2013 From what is it called?
Fuen Mayor is the name of the town where it's from And that's in the Rioja So it's not really the Basque Country but it's close enough Yeah, so Rioja I think we already talked about that, right?
Rioja is a wine region that has both Basque and Spanish Like both sides And actually today we're gonna talk about the Middle Ages When this region was kind of going back and forth between Spain And the Basque Country so it will be slightly relevant I'm drinking a beer which is from Gipuzkoa And it's very nice It's called Olaneta Yes, Olaneta, and it's from Herenteria Which is also kind of the region we're thinking about It's closer to the region we're thinking about Okay
Which is the end, the last part of the Pyrenees As they go into the Atlantic Ocean And well, this is where the story happened Yeah, and today's special because Douglas is gonna give us a story today It is, my... I can't wait to be the bystander and just listen and comment Let's see how it goes It's mostly around 1609 and 1610 And it's about witches Nice Witch trials and persecution Yes So the Basque Country has become associated with witchcraft as well as Galicia Within the Spanish context
If we go back about 80-90 years, that's when the Basque Country was incorporated into Spain And plus, during that first incorporation, we're talking 1520s 1520s to 30s During that time was also when there was a lot of Protestantism and Catholics fighting in France To see who was gonna win So, and Navarre, which is the area we're gonna talk about today Which used to be the old kingdom, the Basque Kingdom with its capital in Pamplona
Religiously, we're looking at a place that had a lot of influence from the North, from Protestants And there's a lot of suspicion, not only of Protestants but also of just kind of folk religion Whatever they're doing, anything that the Church doesn't recognize, it doesn't like Okay And so, well, there's a lot of suspicion, you know, they don't necessarily speak Castilian It's people that speak Basque So there's all those kinds of tensions and things happening Okay
So in this context, now, you know, we're talking about It's about a hundred years after Navarre was incorporated into, well, the Spanish crown There are two main characters in the story Okay And let me just get their names here So, Maria de Chimildegui And, well, she was born, Maria de Chimildegui was born in 1588 So, you know, not a lot of stuff written about her Yeah And she was born in a very famous place for witchcraft in the Basque Country
It's kind of known as the capital of witchcraft, which is Sugaramurdi I've been there I haven't, actually I have, I've been to the caves and everything where supposedly they've done the deeds Yeah And so, Maria de Chimildegui So she was, well, born in Sugaramurdi, she moved away at 16 and went to France I can't specify here, but somewhere else I was reading suggested it would be in Bayonne She went to work for a family for a couple of years And then she came back in 1609, during 1609, 1608, 1609
There was this guy in France who was also hunting witches A witch hunter He's a witch hunter and he's killing people, you know Yikes He's not just making them confess He's a real jerk He's a real jerk So this guy was Pierre de Lancre It's a name he chose Although his surname is Arostegui Basque He is Basque, he's from lower Navarre, which is actually a province in French Basque Country Because it's not as mountainous as Navarre, so it's lower, even though it's on the top Yeah, that's weird
Indeed, and he's a bit of a bad boy He had a lot of traumas So he moved up to Bordeaux, chose a very French-sounding name He comes back and he thinks now that everything that's wrong with the world is anything Basque So the Basques are the worst It's horrible language He's rejecting all of his ancestry He starts this hunt across the whole of the northern Basque Country And of course, his problem isn't with women, it's with Basque women Yeah, of course He's specific Yeah, and this is going on
He's killing people and hunting people and it's horrible And I guess you were asking if it's during the Inquisition and yes, it is I was wondering if it was something that coincided with the Inquisition So this Pierre guy, you know, he's making a mess up north You mean like in France?
Yeah So he first started making a mess up in France Well, it's the French Basque Country Yeah, so he was up there making waves He was, he was And so around about that time, Maria de Chimedegui moves back to Navarre So she's bringing all those stories that kind of the stress and you know, but also Also the stories, you know, the confessions So the idea was if you confess that you're a witch, I can absolve you I don't need to kill you Okay
But if you don't confess to being a witch, then I have no choice but kill you It's kind of funny how all the cases that I read were either in Galicia Or the Basque Country Catalan countries Yeah, the troublesome areas Which are the areas where they have their own language Exactly Yeah And weren't as incorporated into the state Yes, yeah Perfect sense, makes perfect sense These authorities get very nervous about the stories of witchcraft in their neighboring northern regions
And let's keep in mind it's less than a hundred years that they have taken over Navarre Okay And so actually the witch trials took place in Logroño in La Rioja Which is I did read about that, yeah It's part of Spain proper And even there you can see that they're doing it outside of Navarre Because, you know, why would we trust these people?
Right, exactly You can't hold a trial there, you can't trust anything they say Or their judicial system, yeah Yeah, so they sent these two guys into the valley, into the mountains And they start interviewing people And trying to collect stories They get hundreds, over 1,800 confessions they get Over a thousand of those are children Oh my god, kids just saying shit That's for one That was Salem witch trials too It was just kids going, talking about people I'm sure And then, so it was mostly kids
And in another case where the authorities went into the Basque mountains looking for people They had a secret weapon that I have to mention because it's so ridiculous Should I hang on to my chapella?
Hold on to your chapella They came in with twin little girls who could spot the witches Oh my god No way That was their technique to uncover the witches They went around with these two little girls who could apparently sense These two little liars is what they were They were just two little kids that were like pleasing adults They were just trying to please adults And be like, oh yeah sure we can do that We got this, yeah She must be a witch Oh my god
You're also allowed to be tortured whilst you're being questioned Of course, that's how you get confessions, right? It's a really good way to get a confession Yeah, so you wonder why people confess Because if you do confess, then I can finally absolve you But if you don't confess, you're probably a witch Really, who instigated the beginning of this witch trial was Maria Shimildegui She instigated the trial?
Well, because she came over and then she started saying that certain people were Oh, so she's a bad girl Here I was thinking all this time that she was some poor persecuted woman Exactly She ended up getting things started The story thickens Yikes, this is good Well, let's take a little mini break and we'll be back Okay, alright, we'll be back And we're back Yes So I'm going to read a little bit from the witch trials in Navarre article in Wikipedia And it gives us a little bit more context
So the investigation began when Maria de Shimildegui of Sugerarmurgi claimed that she had attended a witch's Sabbath Which would be a nocturnal gathering And named other members of the village being present She confronted one of the women Snitch Well, I mean, she's clearly making it up She confronted one of the women she accused, Maria de Horeteguia In front of the woman's family And recounted the details so vividly That the listeners became convinced and pressured the woman to confess
She admitted it was true And said she had been a witch since she was a small child After her priest urged her to make a public confession during the next few days Various others who had been denounced came forward and made public confessions Some of those under suspicion were dragged to the local priest by force And threatened with torture if they did not confess I love how it's just the vividness that convinced them it must be true Yeah, they're like, wow, she had a really good story
It was very full of details It can't be not true Yeah It's terrible So in January 1609, four self-denounced witches were taken to Logronio for initial hearing before the inquisition And in this case, it's not like it's the civil authorities It's the government that is questioning them It's not Because later we discover Which was run by Catholics, right?
It was run by Catholics Yeah, nobody's good here But the government was Catholic It was, but it wasn't a church that was doing this It was the government The state, yeah It was the state Yeah Although clearly, you know Which is run by Catholics Priests involved and all of that Yeah, like come on So not until the preliminary inquiries were completed did the inquirers inform the Inquisitor General of the Supreme Council in Madrid Which is that that's where I was getting at So they didn't, you know
Now they told the church They have the preliminary hearing And then they're like, oh, we need to notify Madrid So these two inquisitors in Logroño assumed the existence of a witch sect was a fact And largely because the witches descriptions were in such close agreement Everybody agreed, they heard the same story Because their descriptions of the devil, nocturnal assemblies and admissions, admission ceremonies tallied with very few discrepancies between the accounts
According to these two men who were leading the questioning Well, I mean, that's how like judicial systems work today, too Like if you have so many witnesses recounting the same thing, you tend to take it as truth, right?
It sounds good, but it's not because Right, right, of course Like that's this is the flaws Because in March 1609, the Supreme Council of the Inquisition sent a questionnaire to Logroño To be administered to the imprisoned witches and witches still at liberty Okay And certain witnesses Okay However, these two beautiful men didn't do that They just administered it to the four witches that were in prison Okay Well, the few witches
So they didn't question the ones that were in, that were still out of prison Because the questionnaire that the Madrid sent them actually was trying to catch people out with contradictions Later on, this guy here, Alonso de Salazar Frias comes into the story He kind of steered the direction away from assuming first there were witches Okay Because that's what these two guys assumed They just were like, okay, who are the witches? They didn't go, are witches a thing?
Whereas Alonso de Salazar did was he was more like, I'm not sure about this witch thing Let's try and he was an actual investigator Okay And he so through him, we see that actually that questionnaire wasn't administered to anybody else The guys already assumed the witches were a thing Okay And the thing that Salazar brought to the table was that he was like, no, try to catch them out
What did Salazar have? He had Basque, he could talk to people Oh And he would actually converse He was in a church and they sent him out to the same valley to do lots of interviews He took people to the caves and nobody could say where the devil was sitting, for example They kept changing the minds Wait, maybe he was over there by that rock Yeah, like the basis for him to find problem with the confessions is as hilarious as that
Like this woman said he was sitting over there and this girl said he was sitting over there But then later she said he was sitting over here And he looked like this or that So actually he kind of brought some sense Of justice Well, at least of logic I'm not sure justice Well, I mean, justice is based on logic, right? You can reasonably believe something or not, right? That's the whole basis of it, right? Yeah You can have to reasonably believe something happened or did not happen, right?
Mm-hmm That's kind of the interesting thing, these two guys, the first two guys You know, they were making so many assumptions Yes, they're witches, of course Naturally Let's just find who they are And then they were just, there were these classic questions Which were like sometimes, you know, hundreds of years old that you were supposed to ask the witch And then, you know, there were these silly questions that were no way out, you know?
Yeah So of course they would catch them Uh-huh And they would feel very happy about themselves So this guy, Salazar is the first guy who's like, let's think about that And people do say he managed to calm down witch trials The mob mentality Even for the rest of Europe after he brought in these kinds of...
Because he was just like an investigator Indeed However, he was a bit late He's not a good guy Too late to the show He's not a good guy because he is part of the three people who eventually decide to kill These events occurred simultaneously with the witch hunt conducted by the French judge Pierre L'Ancre in the northern Basque Country, north of the Pyrenees His investigation led to mass burning of accused witches He numbered about 80, over 80 people that he burned
There's little doubt that the news of L'Ancre's activities fueled the panic on the southern side of the border And that's what led to this burning of these six people in 1610 It happened in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja 30,000 people attended this burning and the stake The bishop of Pamplona was actually not happy with this He wrote to the Inquisition because these guys, you know, apparently didn't even know Basque, the first two guys Came to interview people
Who had all these people killed and so in March 1611, the Inquisitor General instructed Salazar to make new visitations, this time alone Unaccompanied by the other Inquisitors He was not to use pressure or force confessions nor to question witches about supposed accomplices But he was to interrogate witches who allegedly attended the same gathering to see if their statements tallied You see, this is very much what Salazar was always about Well, I mean, he was like a detective or something
It comes out that although he was part of the three people who decided to kill these six people in the end His doubts about the process weren't made public until many, many years later So we know about it, but he kept quiet He kept quiet for a long time, yeah And so that was when he went up and then interviewed everybody by himself And he's a Basque speaker and there's a very moving part of the story when he calls this little boy like an angel, like a very pure soul
So somebody accused him, little boy I think he was 11, his little other little boys accused him of being a witch and he denied And his father didn't believe him His father thought he was a witch, his own son Yeah, he said you have to confess because that's the only way to get out of it And he didn't, he was lashed on a bed naked until he was unconscious He was taken away and then after this he was interviewed by Salazar Salazar decided to take him into a room by himself
No people pressuring him or looking And he asked him to tell the story He said, I'm not guilty And he was like, do you know, you have to confess if it's true And then eventually this little boy goes, yeah, but if I confess and it's not true Then that kind of, he didn't say it with his words, but he's implying that defeats the purpose And that's when Salazar kind of really hits home to him He realizes these are very poor villages
They're very, you know, very basic, they get basically cruel to eat children They don't get very nice food And when you're coming to be interviewed by Mr. Priest, you get nice food And it's a nice warm place So the longer your stories You tell them what you want to hear, they want to hear and you're going to get rewarded for that And that's the kind of one plus one that Salazar put together and was like, well The whole system is broken because they're just confessing the cause
And later he talks to a woman and we see that I read this interview as well and she's, she's, you know, she's a grown woman And he's like, so why did you lie to me when he gets to the bottom of it? And she's like, you guys came for stories So I gave you a story I gave you a story, I mean, I went with it That's what you wanted, right?
Yeah, just pleasing people It's a people pleasing thing Yeah, it was a very hard story to go through And I have a little less mention about Inessa Gashen Who is a poor woman living in France and accused by Lankre of being a witch Wait, who's Lankre? Lankre is the guy in the North The guy that was in, okay In Northern Basque Country And she was accused of being a witch Out of the 80 people he killed, thankfully she escaped How?
Well, she confessed and she wasn't killed Okay And then she came to the Southern Basque Country and was accused again, the poor woman Oh no, twice? Yeah, thankfully she was not among the people What was it about her that people wanted to make her, take her down?
One of the articles, but it wasn't confirmed by another one, but another one said she had some condition Either her eye was not right or she was Oh no, so some things you can't even help, oh my god So clearly everybody was just body shaming her for some issue she had And so I guess we should, at least I know five of the women's names that were burned at the stake And I think we should at least read those For sure Maria de Cimeldegui actually did
She burned at the stake, the one that was like snitching on everybody No, because she confessed But then she snitched on everybody too She created all the problems Yeah She got off So Maria de Cimeldegui was not one of them, but Maria Bastan de Borda was one And Maria de Sosaia Graciana Chara And Maria de Arburo Yeah, this is Maria de Chachuta, yes These are the five women that I found out And the one guy And that's the thing, I'm not sure if the last one was a guy
Well, tell us about one of them if you have some information So Maria de Sosaia, for example, from Olleregui I can't tell you where that is, but I'm assuming around Navarre as well Oh, it says here in Navarre She was resident in the town of Renteria in Gipusqua And she was purportedly a witch of the same town as Aquilarri Aquilarri is how they call the night Sabbath Which is how they call a witch meeting Okay So here Aquilarri would be in a witch meeting
So she was accused of being in the Renteria witch meeting She was 79 I know A 79 year old Back in those days She lived to 79 and then got killed as a witch She died in prison But of course, since you had to burn a witch, her bones were burned with the other six live people Oh, because she died in prison and then they just burnt her bones Five people had died in prison during this whole prologue Oh, so they didn't get burned at the stake Five women were burned alive She had thankfully died before
She died before being held in prison As a condemned witch Oh my god Little pause So yeah, this I can't believe that Yeah, it's really sad An 80, almost 80 year old woman She was 80 by the time she was 79, she gets imprisoned, dies in prison You have to make a spectacle of her by burning her bones The picture I saw of this very famous Sugara Mordi cave I wouldn't have classified as a cave because it looks like just a big rock That was like a massive rock that was formed a hole with a river
Is this what you saw? Like a little river going through a tunnel sort of thing? Because it wasn't bigger than 20 meters It's been years, so I don't know exactly I don't remember exactly that cave because I've been to a lot of places since then I know we have a photo, Ramona and I have a photo of us at that cave But we should all go, we have to go But was it more like a... Well, it was a cave, there was definitely caves So like black insides It was like a big opening in the rock, right?
You can imagine there was like seances happening there or something, whatever That's how they play it out when you do the tour or whatever And the reason why I say, which I love the idea, is because it's become part of Basque culture Being proud of our witches, of the Sorghineas And you can find lots of little trinkets, you know, as tourists Oh yeah, yeah, little witch memorabilia So now we actually have official commemorations every year And they dance... To these witches?
No, it's not witches, but women That were sacrificed for just being, I don't know, pagan? I mean, now there's just pagan commemorations to kind of affirm... Or just being women, or just being different? You're bringing things to the table I'm just saying what happens in Sugodomurdi now is they have festivals Yes They might, probably they will be thinking about women I mean, we know the Basque Country, they're always...
Pro-women Pro-women, so I'm sure there's an element of remembering Yeah, because we were saying that in the Basque Country There was a lot of times when women were running the show Because men were away doing other labor They were out fishing, or whaling, or coal mining So women had to maintain everything else And the finances even, like doing everything So it's a very strong culture of that And so it's a very strong matriarchal culture Because they like to say that it's matriarchal, but...
They don't I can test that a lot of times because... It's different, I consider it, you know, it's true that it is I believe that women have like a say, and that it's respected But it's still under a patriarchal... It's under like a Catholic Church, or it's under a government That's not matriarchal, you know what I mean? Like, these are all functioning within a structure or a system That's not matriarchal, you know what I mean? Yes and no, because you assume...
But the culture is... I think you assume that the Church won And that's the thing that I'm... My reading is different I'm not saying they win Wait a minute, wait a minute Okay Because what I see in this story is The Church and the state, unsure of how much control they have over the Basque Country And because they have a certain amount of independence and separateness Yep That's what... Yeah, and that's why they have...
They need to have that control over them, yeah But that's what I mean, like, whereas I think when we go to that village The women are actually in control and the Church has a certain amount of control Or not even in control, they're just more participants of the culture You know, like they're taking part in the culture Yeah And then have real power within that culture You know, like they're either doing the family finances Or their husband's out fishing and they're the ones selling the fish
They're the ones making sure that everything gets sold and how much money we're going to take in for the family And feed the family and everything So it is threatening, you know It's threatening to other powers that be that want control Yeah But that's the thing, you know, like in more traditional Western European countries You see women's rights aren't even allowed to have property Where I think here it's more...
Well Generally there was more acceptance Under Franco Yeah, but what I was... yeah Yeah, I just think women's position was more flexible in the Basque Country I think there's more spaces for them to inhabit it over history And I think that's definitely still something I feel No, sure, for sure And people say it Yeah, the word matriarchal People that live here say it The word matriarchal implies a lot of legality, a lot of...
It implies power Power, yeah It implies power over everybody else or like imposing some sort of... It implies recognized power And I think that's where we depart in the Basque Country Where the power of the women is here But it's not legally recognized It's just a fact in society Yeah It's kind of, you know, I don't want to say... It's very much a part of the culture and the society I don't want to say behind closed doors or at home Because that's kind of...
It's recognized among everybody It is, but in those moments like Franco When in public you couldn't do anything at all No, you couldn't have a bank account You couldn't have a credit card You couldn't have a mortgage or anything Well, I'm not sure, but I suppose No, no, for sure Absolutely, for sure You couldn't do anything without your husband's permission Or your father's permission Exactly, which is, I guess... Yeah, I mean, it is a big reason why...
Yeah, I mean, you know, the language almost died So it's a bit of a trauma for Basque society And an impetus towards wanting to be independent And trying to sort of run your own laws Separate yourself from... Because, yeah From this other culture, yeah You know, if you look at the 1610 occurrence That is a way of the Spanish state trying to impose its rules on the Basque Country, you know?
Everything is about, you know, opposing rule and power And... I want to mention this I think it's very appropriate here Although it's slightly changing the topic Because I was doing a course on Ukrainian statehood And the history of Ukrainian statehood And one of the interesting points they made was
Ukraine was just... Ukrainians were just being Ukrainians But it was because of the countries around it That it had to become a country to protect itself against being eaten up by the empires around it And that's very much, I think, how I see here the Basque Country between France and Spain You know, trying to survive And, you know, whether... Having a say in their own...
Destiny and culture and everything, yeah So in a way that nationalism, that identity comes out of other states being next to it Trying to impose their version of life Trying to impose it, yeah Because, you know... For sure I mean, Basque people have been... Makes perfect sense They've been happy in the French state and in the Spanish state for many centuries And then not happy for many other centuries But in a way... When somebody tries to tell you what to do, it's like...
Wait a minute I just love that attrition of the idea of the fact that it's the attrition between two states that creates another state You know, where people don't... You know, there's always this idea that we are one thing And then everybody else that doesn't fit in Yeah Suddenly... Becomes another Has to decide what to do What do I do? Do I change myself a little bit? Yeah Right? Or do I... That's the tricky Do I go, well...
Actually, no, that's too much I'm really not that And then you have to... you find yourself... Kind of forced to... yeah Form another something, state identity or whoever you are, I know But anyway See you guys next time, do we say? Yeah So, yes, if you want to send us any stories Because we're always looking for anything in the Basque...
Wait, you told me how to pronounce this word Diaspora Diaspora See, I've only ever read it So I never heard it pronounced Diaspora So anything in the Basque, diaspora So write to us at CrimesoftheBasqueLands at gmail.com Yeah Or on Instagram, you can follow us On CrimesoftheBasqueLands Yeah We bid you... Agur! Agur!