(; 31December 188921December 1991), known as and ("Father Barandiaran"), was a

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

, and

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

Early life

He was born in 1889 as the youngest of nine children to Francisco Antonio Barandiaran and María Antonia Ayerbe in the family

baserri A baserri (; Spanish: ''caserío vasco''; French: ''maison basque'') is a traditional half-timbered or stone-built type of housebarn farmhouse found in the Basque Country in northern Spain and Southwestern France. The baserris, with their gentl ...

Perune-Zarre in

Ataun Ataun is a town located at the foot of the Aralar Range in the Goierri region of the province of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country, in the north of Spain. The town consists of three m ...

. Encouraged by his mother, he entered the priesthood aged 14 in Baliarrain and was ordained as a priest in 1914 in

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

. Ordained a priest in 1914, the following year he obtained a degree in Theology. In 1916, he joined the Faculty of Philosophy of the Vitoria Seminary as a science professor, teaching the subjects of Physics and Chemistry, Geology, Human Paleontology, Prehistory and History of Religions. He lasted for twenty years as a professor, simultaneously exercising managerial positions such as that of vice-rector.

Career as an ethnographer

Soon after being ordained as a priest, he took up ethnographic studies of Basque culture and archeology around 1916 in the Aralar Mountains. He carried out invaluable research into folk traditions and collecting accounts and tales related to

Basque mythology The mythology of the ancient Basques largely did not survive the arrival of Christianity in the Basque Country between the 4th and 12th century AD. Most of what is known about elements of this original belief system is based on the analysis o ...

. His contribution to the paleontological study of the Basque people. Magismo, which presented in Bilbao in 1919, strongly interested the great ethnologist Wilhelm Schmidt, founder of the magazine Anthropos in Vienna. This offered him the position of correspondent for Spain and invited him to participate in the International Week of Religious Ethnology that was going to be celebrated in the Dutch town of Tilburg in 1922. There he delivered his communication . When the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

began, he had to go into exile in September 1936, considered a suspect simply because of his dedication to Basque culture. In 1953, he returned from exile and opened at the

University of Salamanca The University of Salamanca () is a public university, public research university in Salamanca, Spain. Founded in 1218 by Alfonso IX of León, King Alfonso IX, it is the oldest university in the Hispanic world and the fourth oldest in the ...

, at the request of its rector, Don

Antonio Tovar Antonio Tovar Llorente (17 May 1911 – 13 December 1985) was a Spanish philologist, linguist and historian. Biography Born in Valladolid, the son of a notary, he grew up in Elorrio (Vizcaya), Morella (Castellón) and Villena (Alicante) where ...

, the Larramendi Chair with a course on the current state of Basque studies. The following year, within the Aranzadi Science Society, he created the Ethnology Seminar and, after twenty years of interruption, in 1955, published volume XV of the Eusko Folklore Yearbook, with studies on pastoral and agricultural life followed by others dedicated to popular industries and crafts.

Awards

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

, he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Ministry of Education, Spanish Culture and Sports.

Bibliography

Its complete collection consists of 211 numbers and is the most important and irreplaceable corpus of data reflecting the mental universe of traditional Basque populations during the past 20th century. With these data faithfully and rigorously collected, he published his works and articles on Basque mythology. * Basque paleontography (1921) * Basque mythology (1924) * Primitive man in the Basque Country (1934) * Anthropology of the Basque population (1947) * Basque culture (1977) * General history of the Basque Country (1980) * Witchcraft and witches (1984) * Myths of the Basque people (1989) * Mythology of the Basque people (1994)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barandiaran, Jose Miguel 1889 births 1991 deaths Basque-language writers People from Goierri Spanish anthropologists Spanish men centenarians Spanish ethnographers 20th-century Spanish archaeologists Basque academics