Most Basque people have grown up as tenants and laborers of the land and therefore are no stranger to hard work. They are born working and most die working. Although most Basques are farmers (laborariak) and live tilling the soil on their small farms from birth to death, there are some who enter into other areas of work. As discussed earlier many became fishermen (arraintzaleak) while others chose to be fishers of men, entered the church and chose a spiritual vocation such as priest (apezak) or nuns (serorak) or monks (fraileak). Also in the high country many became sheepherders (artzainak) for which they are famous in the americas. There were a few also who learned a trade such as the zapataina (shoemaker) pictured here. Others became arrotzak (blacksmiths), harginak (masons), or maistriak (carpenters). Regardless of which profession they held, because of the way of the Basques, that work became their lives, many of them being known and spoken about on the streets for their trade and not their names.

To the sea...