The Goddess Mari of the Basques

This study is on the mythology of the European Basques. The Basques are a very ancient group of people that live in Northern Spain and southern France. They have their own culture, language, and belief systems. But what makes them so amazing is they are considered Pre-Indo-European, meaning they likely were in Europe when Neanderthals were still roaming around the continent and the pontic invaders from Asia had yet moved in.

This means everything about their culture potentially contains primitive relics of ancient culture going back possibly to paleo-lithic times.

Even their folktales and myths feel completely alien. Their main stories involve an Earth Mother type so common in Ancient European agricultural societies. Their main divinity is called “Mari” (like Mother Mary) and she comes from the earth yet has powers over storms and rain like we see in Chinese divinities.

Like Irish and Celtic myth, the female divinity of Mari married the king of the village like a King Arthur figure might do symbolically in story, thereby connecting the tribe and its fate to the marriage to the earth. This then shows that before the Patriarchal Germanic warrior tribes brought sun worship culture in 400 AD that the earlier matriarchal societies ruled Europe for thousands and thousands of years prior.

These primitive forms still echo through modern culture today though we deny them at every turn. Our Patriarchal religions have tried to obliterate them but pieces of them stubbornly remain…..and for the Basques and Welsh and other cultures they still exist in their purest form.

– the Author

Created Jan 9, 2018, 10:57 PM



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

You may use these tags : <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>