Oinkari Basque Dancers

In the 1860s, after the gold strikes in California, records of Idaho Territory show the names of a few Basque pioneers. To an extent, this surge of immigration was the result of a restricted economy and military conscription in the Spanish and French Basque provinces. The first Basque communities in the Americas consisted primarily of single men who found opportunities to enter the workforce by herding sheep. The advent of the Basque boarding houses or ostatuak, traditionally run by a couple, provided much needed hospitality for the herding off season, an opportunity for socialization, and job information. In time and with the arrival of young wives, the new families started the first dinners, community picnics, and the annual Sheepherder’s Ball at the end of the year. Mutual Societies to assist sheepherders in distress and the Basque Center where people played games of mus, held dances and dinners, completed the community social infrastructure.

Early Basques were attracted by Idaho’s mining, logging, and sheep industries. In the late 1800s, they arrived in large numbers from California and from the provinces of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, and settled where there was work in Boise, Mountain Home, Nampa, Caldwell, and in the Wood River Valley. Learning English and starting a family were important to establishing roots in the United States. Their Bizkaian and Gipuzkoan dialects are still spoken by many in Boise and other Idaho communities. Then and now, food, music, and dance are important elements of Basque identity.

Two generations later, their Amerikanuak children looked back to Euskal Herria and the culture of their extended families to find out what it really meant to be Basque, to live and speak like the Basques, says Patty Miller, the executive director of the Basque Museum and Cultural Center of Boise. In the summer of 1960, the desire to learn Basque dances, music, and their language, Euskara, took a group of young Amerikanuak to Donosti, in Gipuzkoa, where they learned Basque dances in the context they were preserved and practiced for centuries.

Four decades later, the Oinkari Basque Dancers of Boise retain a traditional repertory of social, performance, and ritual dances from Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and other provinces. Since the Oinkari’s first community presentation, National Heritage Fellow Jim Jausoro has accompanied them on the accordion with Domingo Ansotegui, followed by Juan Zulaika or Sean Aucutt on the pandereta, and Edu Sarria on the txistu. With sixty plus dancers, they are mentors for younger dancers with the Boise’ko Gasteak, ages four to fourteen, and for other groups in Idaho and neighboring states. Many of today’s Oinkari have parents who met as dancers or grandparents who were also dancers.

In the 1970s, while studying in Oñati, Gipuzkoa, a few of the Boise Oinkari dancers became acquainted with Korpus dantzak, or the male ritual dances celebrating Corpus Christi. First presented in a secular context, these dances are now restricted to the celebration of the Feast of St. Ignatius at St. John’s Cathedral, as part of the annual Boise Basque Festival.

Today, the Oinkari Basque Dancers will present zinta, makil and other dances from Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, Nafarroa, and Lapurdi. They will also present the Ikurrinia dance honoring the Basque flag.

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7/14/04: The Oinkari Basque Dancers

The Oinkari Basque Dancers, of Boise, Idaho, perform the traditional dances of the Basque region in France and Spain.

The Oinkari Basque Dancers

The Oinkari Basque Dancers, of Boise, Idaho, perform the traditional dances of the Basque region in France and Spain.

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Oinkari Basque Dancers

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