In August 1897 the coastal city of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, within the French Basque nation, hosted the Congress of Basque Custom. The occasion, sponsored by the Society of Nationwide Ethnography and In style Artwork, was an eight-day pageant that celebrated Basque historical past and tradition. It included pelota matches, improvised poetry competitions (bertsolaritza), Basque folkloric dances, Basque theatre performs (pastoralak and maskaradak), lectures on varied elements of Basque historical past, together with the well-known Tree of Gernika, and an exhibition, which displayed Basque arts and crafts and marketed Basque delicacies. The orchestra performed Basque tunes, together with Gernikako Arbola, the unofficial nationwide anthem of the Basque nation, and a Basque flag waved within the city’s principal sq.. The pageant began and ended with plenty, which emphasised the importance of piety to Basque identification. Faith, the official proceedings of the occasion claimed, had allowed the Basques to protect their traditions unaltered over the centuries. ‘Euskaldun Fededun, Basques and devoted, are one and the identical factor’, the doc defined.
