Olentzero and Tió de Nadal

First, let me apologise for the three weeks of silence. Apparently, studying two languages, taking classes at the university, and working can be quite time-consuming... who knew?!

Second, I haven't really had much material to blog about anyway seeing as I've been hard at work trying to figure out the concept of nominalizazioa in Euskara. I have been emailing my teacher, Mireya, back and forth trying to figure out the difference between Nongo, Nongoa, and Nongoak. Unfortunately, the first two translate to pretty much the same thing in English and the third is the plural version. This is one of those concepts that I am not 100% sure I've understood it but as I use it more, it starts to become a little bit clearer.

Third, I think I want to expand this blog and take it beyond just Euskara and Català. I want to include the cultural aspect of the Basques and the Catalans. This would include anything from music to football. The only thing I will be keeping out from this blog (or at least, I will try to as there are times when I will not be able to help but speak out) would be POLITICS because although I enjoy it (I did just switch from Theatre Arts to International Relations after all...) I realise how polarising it can be and how it could turn people off.

Now to the good stuff. Christmas is just a day or two away, depending on where you live, and to celebrate I want to explore different things about the Basque and Catalan Christmas.


[an Olentzero from Hendaia, Lapurdi/Hendaye, Labourd]

[Tió de Nadal]

Growing up, I was raised in a mix of Spanish, Filipino, and some American Christmas traditions but two traditions I did not grow up with are: Olentzero and Tió de Nadal.

Olentzero (I've also seen variations such as: Olentzaro, Olentxero, Onentzaro...)

I first read about Olentzero in a brief one paragraph mention in Mark Kurlansky's The Basque History of the World. In that book, he was described as a "pre-Christian evil sort of Santa Claus who slides down chimneys on Christmas Eve to harm people in their sleep. Fireplaces are lit for the holiday to keep him away."

There are many descriptions and stories of Olentzero and they differ from village to village. Some have him as belonging to the race of the jentilak (giants) who looked up to the clouds and saw in it a sign that Jesus would be born. The other jentilak threw themselves off the cliff, leaving Olentzero behind. There is also another version wherein Olentzero is an orphan who is bestowed gifts by a fairy (an English translation of this tale can be found in Buber's Basque Page).

It was in around the 1950's when Olentzero received a bit of a makeover and the more gruesome aspects of his personality as well as some of the pagan elements were removed. In his modern aspect, Olentzero is slowly starting to look like the Santa Clause of the west (i.e. the one Coca-Cola has seared into our brains for all eternity) rotund, jolly-faced and sometimes with a beard!

On Christmas Eve, an effigy of Olentzero sitting on a chair is carried around the streets as children and adults sing Olentzero carols and ask for food, sweets or sometimes money to be given to a humanitarian cause. At the end of the night, it is sometimes customary to burn the effigy of Olentzero.

Some Basques only celebrate Christmas with Olentzero whereas some do both: Olentzero and the Spanish Reyes Magos (Feast of the Three Kings, celebrated on 6 January).

To wrap up, here's a fantastic Youtube video of an Olentzero kantak. It's set up karaoke-style so you can sing-along! It's a version called Olentzero and performed in the children's program, Txirri, Mirri eta Txiribiton. I was unable to find translations for the entire song but it seems to be a mix of the two carols found in this Wikipedia article.

Also, there is a website dedicated to Olentzero. It comes in four languages (Euskara, English, Spanish, and French) and it is loaded with pictures of Olentzero, people dressed up as Olentzero, celebrations, recipes, and more. It's very interesting although actual articles in English are minimal.

BONUS: Here are some funny Olentzero-related sketches featured in my favourite Spanish-language comedy sketch show, Vaya Semanita (if you can understand Spanish, this is also a funny way to learn a bit about Basque culture and politics). All are in Spanish.

- Olentzero secuestrado
- Olentzero Gandalf
- Olentzero Begins
- Olentzero vs Reyes Magos
- He matado a Olentzero

Tió de Nadal

This is one of those lovely Catalan traditions that I became aware of through the comedy sketch show called Crackòvia. Unfortunately, I cannot find a clip of this sketch on Youtube or on Crackòvia's website. In the sketch, Carles Puyol invites Andrés Iniesta and Samuel Eto'o to his home to make the Tió poop by beating it with a stick. The laughter comes in when a large log, which Eto'o thinks is the Tió turns out to be just the stick that will be used to whack the gigantic Tió outside the house.

The Tió de Nadal roughly translates to Christmas log. In the early days it was quite literally just a rough log which was used to bring heat and light to the home. In a symbolic way it also brought presents of sweets, wafers, and turróns. Now, the image of tió has changed dramatically. It is now a hollowed-out magical log with a painted smiling face, a barretina (red sock hat) on its head and little sticks beneath it for legs.

On 8 December, the tió comes calling on a family's doorstep and the member who goes out to answer the door must care for him by giving him something to eat (dry bread, carob, orange peels or other fruit) and drink (water) each night as well as a warm blanket to keep him from getting cold. It is through the gentle care that the tió is later on able to poop presents.

On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (depending on the household), the family come around and beat the tió with a stick and sing caga, tió (literally an order to: "poop, log!"). After the order is given, the tió has pooped out a treat that can be found underneath his blanket. The tió never brings large gifts as these are brought by the Reyes Magos. The tió tends to bring sweets such as turrón, wafers, dry figs, and chocolates. When the tió is finished pooping treats, it drops a salt herring, garlic, onion or it simply pees. The beating of the tió with a stick is relatively modern as in the old days they used to stick part of the tió in the fireplace to make it poop treats out.

Here are two different version of songs that one can sing to make the tió poop:

caga tió,
caga torró,
avellanes i mató,
si no cagues bé
et daré un cop de bastó.
caga tió!

poop log,
poop turrón,
hazelnuts and cottage cheese,
if you don't poop well,
I'll hit you with a stick,
poop log!

caga tió
tió de Nadal,
no caguis arengades,
que són massa salades
caga torrons
que son més bons!

poop log,
log of Christmas
don't poop herrings,
which are too salty,
poop turrón
which is much better!

I've also found a cute video one Youtube of two little kids giving the tió a whack with their Mum and also singing a version of the Caga, tió.

BONUS: Anna, who runs the blog: This curious thing called Catalonia, has written an entry talking about the tió, along with personal pictures and a song. Fantastic stuff!

If anyone knows of any other Basque or Catalan traditions, please feel free to share. Also, if you've grown up with Olentzero or the Tió de Nadal, please feel free to share any personal stories of memorable events and the like. I'll be back later tonight to officially wish you all a Happy Christmas.

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Euskara and Català: Disparities in Language Promotion

These past few days, I have been going through my online resources for Euskara and Català as I previously mentioned doing a master list so anyone reading this blog can look through and select what can be of use. As I was doing this, I realized that resources in Català dominate in quantity, quality and availability. I then started to wonder, "What can the Basque Country learn from Catalunya when it comes to promoting their language?"

Before I go on, I would first like to make it clear that my goal in all this is to share my observations and maybe inspire people (as well as myself) to help make a change. The last thing I would want is for anyone involved in creating the resources in Euskara to feel that I am in any way putting them down or belittling the hard work that they put into it. Far from it! I have made use of and benefited from a lot of resources but I feel that there is still room for improvement especially when it comes to making these resources available for the use of people who would can only learn it through English and not Spanish or French.

In order try and find solutions to the language promotion problems in Euskara we must first find out what is not quite working or what needs to be improved upon. As I was forming my list, I kept in mind that I needed to look at it from the perspective of my target audience: English-speaking language-learners who do not live in the Basque Country.

1. There are not enough resources in English - When I first started looking for materials I could use to learn a bit more about Euskara, I wanted something light, something that would give me a bit of an idea about how the language works without doing my head in with all the complex grammar rules (i.e. textbooks). I was only able to find one book that met those requirements: Beginner's Basque by Wim Jansen.
   
   
2. There are few quality online courses/programs - One of the reasons I ended up using the BOGA program is because it was the only choice that would meet my requirements: good quality and low cost. The other program I was looking into, UNR's Basque Studies course, failed on the low cost department. I think that there are a lot of other study guides for Euskara online but only a few actual structured programs that will take a person through all necessary levels.
   
   
3. Books in Euskara are hard to come by - I remember early on I wanted to get a children's book in Euskara so I could at least read something basic along with the help of my dictionary. I did find a couple of online bookstores with great books at reasonable prices, except shipping to the US was something to the tune of 27€.
   
   
4. There is a stigma attached to Euskara - There is a website I sometimes visit that has a chat where language learners can meet up for language-exchanges. When I joined the chatroom in Spanish, I met more than a couple of people living in Spain who tried to talk me out of learning Euskara and I got reasons such as: "It is the language that the terrorists use", "It is the language of the radicals", "It's too difficult- you will never be able to learn it", "It's a language of the rural folk" and so on. Now, I personally found some of those reasons to be ignorant and offensive however, that sort of mindset is unfortunately quite common.
   

Now that the problems have been identified it is time to answer (or at least try to) the question: "What can the Basque Country learn from Catalunya when it comes to promoting their language?"

In truth, I don't really know what can be done to improve the quantity and quality of resources for learning Euskara. I would like to say that more funding is necessary however I am not completely sure that lack of funding is indeed the reason behind it. I sometimes think that maybe it's also because the resources created are targeted mainly for a certain audience (the Spanish or French-speaking audience) and because of this, there is a disparity in quantity of resources available. When it comes to finding resources for learning Català on the other hand, I have been able to find a lot of books in English as well as a lot of good quality and low cost online programs and each and every one of those programs is can be accessed in at least three languages (Parla.cat can be accessed in five).

As for finding books written in Euskara, I would really love to find out one day that there is a US-based online bookstore that would meet those needs. One of my main sources for finding books in languages other than English is Bookmooch and it is far easier to find books there in Català (in fact there are a lot of members from Catalunya) than in Euskara. I think that if those books are readily available then the learning process would be much easier.

The last part is the most difficult one of them all. How does one go about changing other people's negative perceptions of their language? How can we go about convincing people that Euskara is a language for everyone and not just for a certain set of people or a certain set of political beliefs? I believe that this is particularly a cause for concern because it could turn off people who want to learn Euskara, people who were searching for support and found nothing but negativity instead.
I believe that more needs to be done to present Euskara (and Basque culture, as a whole) in a more positive light. I think that it would be unrealistic to try and occult the negative aspects but if the positive aspects can be brought to the forefront, then the negative will not be so overwhelming.

When I first thought of writing about this topic in my blog, I didn't want to set out to try and find concrete answers but I felt that if I saw something that needed to change, I should at least try to find a solution. I may not have figured it all out, but I hope I at least got some wheels turning. Maybe this could be the start of great things to come. Leer más...