Part 4: The Basques, Cont.

The Basque language, we are further informed, evidences unmistakable signs of primitivism. In support of this contention critics cite the Basque’s habit of repeating a word so as to reinforce or intensify its meaning, as someone might say "big-big" to indicate "huge." Only persons who are limited in their ability to express themselves, such as babies or Basque primitives, apparently, resort to such infantile forms. Sophisticated English speakers would not resort to such redundancies. We would say "tiny little" or "great big" or "snow white" or even "pitch black;" but we would never, never resort to word repetition. Yet, despite centuries of pressure from the French speaking North and the Spanish speaking South, the Basque language survives.

No one knows which language the builders of Stonehenge or Carnac spoke. Evidently, it was not an indo-european language. Why could it not have been related to Basque? And why does this possibility threaten people so?

As to Basque culture, that part of which is considered admirable, such as their music, must surely have been imported from some more glamorous and better studied eastern Mediterranean civilization: Roman, Carthaginian, "gypsy" or Arabian... somebody had to bring it to them.

Even the west African-coast scenario mentioned previously is contumeliously rejected by strangely hostile experts who will, on the other hand, give due consideration to the possibility that the Basques are survivors of Plato’s Atlantis or perhaps are crypto-Lemurians. Is anybody home here?

When the Eve hypothesis was first proposed, investigators checked the mitochondrial DNA of Basque women and the result was what any sane person would have expected: Basque women are in the same maternal line as the rest of the world’s women.

Not too long ago, when Basques insisted that their ancestors painted those cave murals, Academia resoundingly denied the claim, saying that in order for living Basques to claim such ancient ancestry they’d have to demonstrate clear and unmistakable signs of genetic drift. So, again, the blood and DNA scientists went into Basque country and to no one but Academia’s surprise found those tell-tale markers, those clear and unmistakable signs of genetic drift. Why is it preferable to continue believing that the Basques are some fertile-crescent refugees when the DNA evidence of long cultural isolation more than suggests that they are, in fact, descended from the cave painters? But who cares about evidence? Prejudiced belief is what’s important, not evidence. If evidence mattered Fred Goldman would sleep better than he does.

And if the Basques can prove that they’ve been there for as long as the cave paintings, how can they qualify as Mediterranean emigres? The cave paintings were there before anybody even noticed that the land between the Tigris and Euphrates was arable.

We are also told that it is clear from the enthusiastic way the Basques embraced Christianity they could have had no religion of their own else they might have offered some opposition to conversion.

Now, if a Mahayana Buddhist doesn’t have any problem with Christianity - and I know of no Zen master who doesn’t revere the Bible - why should the Basques, during those early centuries of Christian proselytizing, resist the Christian message? We all readily acknowledge that enlightened people seek to discern similarities while the unenlightened focus on nothing but differences. A virtually homogeneous mythic character informs all spiritual activity. Liturgy may vary but the underlying truths of all religions, depending not so much upon externally imposed instruction as upon the individual psyche’s ability to intuit and apprehend them, are easily recognized and embraced by anyone who has a modicum of spiritual talent. Could not Christianity have been an improved variation on a theme already known to the Basques as Buddhism once was to the folks around Benares? If truth is eternal and God omnipresent, is not the need for introductions obviated? Form merely follows function, it does not determine it.

Basques are further said to be a gluttonous people, a charge taken so seriously that authors of Basque cookbooks find it necessary to defend against it. One is left with a suspicion that a nation of Sumo wrestlers inhabit the Pyrenees. One author apologetically refers to the need for other Europeans to introduce the fork to the flatware-challenged Basques by lamely asking what men did before the invention of the fork. Well, a billion Chinese still eat without forks. What did they do before the introduction of chopsticks?

But the most curious prejudice against the Basques is the denial of their invention of the bullfight. Aurochs and bison fossils may prove that bovine creatures originally inhabited their lands; but the fighting bull, the toro bravo, is surely, we are told, a migrant from Africa. (Hannibal’s father is occasionally credited with importing it... along with those famous elephants.) The toro bravo is therefore labeled Bos taurus africanus. In support of this taxonomic largesse we are reminded that the exclamation "Ole!" is a verbal corruption of the cry "Allah!." This is, of course, interesting; but what is considerably more relevant is that twenty thousand years before Mohammed founded Islam, a Basque sky-shaman’s ritualistic (and apparently fatal) encounter with a bull is wonderfully recorded on the walls of a Lascaux cave. Consider the picture:

Lascaux Cave Painting depicting dead hero and bull.

Having occurred before the bronze or iron ages, the "espada" is a wooden javelin. Its atalatl (spear throwing device) lies at the feet of the stick-figured, dead matador whose only adornments are a sky/bird mask and a rather noticeably erect penis. A small abdominal bump suggests a cornada (goring). Stuck into the foreground is a staff topped by a totem bird. From an accommodating rectal entrance, the javelin has disemboweled the bull.

Off to the left is a rhinoceros which has six distinct and symmetric "droplets" under its tail. Is this an indication of a date? A lunar phase? We know that in both the Oxherding pictures and the Corrida of Pamplona, the 7th day of the 7th month is a crucial date. July 7th is, naturally, a standardized, Gregorian date. The 7th day of any "moonth" and, of course, the 21st, are the most easily distinguished days of a lunation. It is on these days, and only these days, that a perfectly straight line connects the semi-circular lunar disc.

It would be nice indeed to have access to some disinterested scholarship on the subject of these cave paintings especially as they pertain to bulls. Everybody seems to have his own secret agenda and no one will listen to what the Basques have to say.

Again, it truly does seem that these people have been subjected to some bizarre application of the Napoleonic Code: They’ve been charged with not being who they say they are and until they can prove that they are somebody else they cannot be found innocent.

In our next installment we’ll return to the Oxherding pictures of Zen, specifically to Androgyny the first goal of Spiritual Alchemy.

As an exercise, it is necessary to practice feeling the pulse in any part of the body to which the attention has been directed. Begin by relaxing, perhaps while lying in bed, and concentrate upon your right thumb and index finger. Gently hold them together so that you can feel a pulse beat. Then relax the hand and concentrate only on the thumb. You’ll soon feel your pulse beat in it. Count ten beats and then shift your attention to your index finger and become aware of the pulse beating there. Count ten beats and shift your attention to your middle finger. Continue doing this and when you’ve finished with your right hand, repeat the exercise with the left. Practice this until at any time of day, whenever you are free to perform the exercise, you can do it with ease. (The difficulty, you will find, is in dragging your attention away from the pulse beating. There is something soothing in feeling the inner workings of your own body. You’ll also need this ability when you do the Hara meditations.)

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