Lost in translation

I recently visited Northern Spain to walk a small part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I knew
of a few people who had completed the route – backpacking and sleeping in pilgrim’s hostels. Many of the routes are around 460 miles and done the ‘proper’ way they take weeks even months. Some of the early medieval pilgrims spent most of their lifetime on their way.

We were travelling mostly by coach and walking only a few kilometres a day – to get some understanding of the experience. We slept in comfortable beds with meals laid on and Rioja wine tastings included. Not for us the wearing of sackcloth and ashes or walking on hands and knees like some of the original pilgrims were said to do.

The pilgrim passport

We were given a pilgrim’s passport which could be stamped at each town or village on the route. This was only a souvenir, and not accredited. We later picked up a scallop shell - the symbol of the Way of St James. 

     
 

What is the route?

There as many routes as there are starting points, the French Way, the Portuguese Way, even the English Way. In fact the spiritual journey is said to start as soon as the pilgrim leaves home with the destination in mind. Unusually - our final destination was the Atlantic coast around 80 kilometres beyond Santiago de Compostela.

The Basque Country

We flew into Bilbao – the Basque country which is not on the Camino route, but we had time to eat pintxos which are delicious snacks on crisp slices of bread.

Euskara

The word pintxos has the characteristic ‘x’ frequently found in the Basque language Euskara – a language believed to be the oldest in Europe. It predates all the Spanish invasions, Visigoths, Moors, Romans and Christians. No one knows where it originated. It is no wonder that it was banned by the Franco regime from 1939. A private language can enable people of the same mind to keep secrets.

Our trip took us through Puente de la Reina, Laguardia, Burgos, Astorga and Leon. We found out about the legend of the chickens in the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

In Santiago we met travellers
from all over the world. 

The end of the world

The final stage of our journey was beyond Santiago de Compostela to the Atlantic coast – to Finisterre - named by the Romans and literally meaning ‘the end of the world’. 

At the lighthouse at the end of the Finisterre peninsula we spent time looking at the North Atlantic and towards the horizon. The sea was calm and the sky was blue and it was easy to see why even the Romans believed the earth was flat. 

Sail too far and you could drop over the edge.

A fish that could talk

Later, eating Rodaballo (Turbot) at the port of Fisterra I was reminded of the Basques, their language and their prodigious fishing capability. Mark Kurlansky’s book ‘Cod: a Biography of the Fish that Changed the World’ starts with a story which is from Basque folklore.

A medieval fisherman is said to have hauled up a three-foot long cod, which was common enough at the time. And the fact that the cod could talk was not especially surprising. But what was astonishing was that it spoke an unknown language. It spoke Basque.

Kurlansky points out that in spite of the fact that the cod - a cold water fish - does not swim off the coast of Northern Spain the cod fishing industry was dominated by the Basques for centuries. But how and why? As well as being independent and autonomous, the Basques had access to salt (there was enough sun to dry salt from the sea) and the particular biology of the cod makes it suitable for salting and drying to preserve it. This meant the Basque fishermen could cure cod for their own nutrition on vast journeys to find the shoals of cod fish.  

Meanwhile the Vikings, British and the Bretons were fishing for cod in Icelandic waters. Nobody knew where the Basques were getting their fish. They certainly were not saying anything.

Who discovered North America?

Of course we no longer ask ‘Who discovered America?’ because we now would say ‘The people who were living there.’ Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci and Vasco da Gama all led to the discovery of the land and the people who were there already. And as the representatives of imperial powers they needed to claim the land they had found. But there were signs that people had been there before.

Columbus landing at the Island of
Guanahaní, West Indies (1846), by John Vanderlyn

In 1497 Giovanni Caboto a Genovese (renamed John Cabot and working for the British Crown) claimed a ‘New Found Land’ – it had a vast rocky coast line teeming with cod. Thirty seven years later Jacques Cartier ‘discovered’ the mouth of the St Lawrence river claiming it for France. As Mark Kurlansky observes

‘He noted the presence of at least 1,000 Basque fishing vessels. But the Basques, wanting to keep a good secret, had never claimed it for anyone.’

A statue of John Cabot gazing across Bonavista Bay - Eastern Newfoundland 

The implication is that the Basques had found the coast of what is now Quebec a long way back. Not  wishing to alert others to the riches of the sea they saw best to keep it quiet. They had found huge numbers of the Atlantic cod - the largest of the species with the whitest meat. 

Perhaps after all it was the Basques who 'discovered' North America. 

Newfoundland Cod Fishing