I had bought it for some time and read it above, but I have only recently been able to attend with the attention I wanted to the book Joxemari Iriondo Pilota eta Bertsoak. I have found old acquaintances and I have been raised with some of the struggles, lost and winnings that have passed me through reading.

But I don't intend to comment on the book. I just want to put here a few small things, in line with the reading, because the verses of a game played in Irun in 1820 from the Lafitte archive, put online by Euskaltzaindia, have fallen by surprise and I have overcome the psychiatric fear that it gives me to write.

We knew little about that party. At most, said Blazy in La Pelote Basque in 1929: with seven verses received by the mouth of Juana Lafargue, hospitalized in Uztaritze in 1925 by J. Elizalde Zerbitzua.

To my knowledge, the verses received by Zerbitzua have never been published anywhere, but they soon seem like some differences to think. For example, the “Anduraindarra” is now read in Lafitte when, according to Blazy, the Camarero said “andoaindarra”. On this road, however, we can barely make progress for the moment, although we know that there was what Zerbitzua had collected, because we do not really know what he said…

However, two orphaned verses have come to their site, which fortunately were upside down. They were received by Father Donostia as shot in the air in 1912, and it is now clear that they had come from the song of 1820:

At forty-two of the Illa de Burulla

A great ball game in the Irun Valley.

With flags placed, you already have new fashions.

Played in an extraordinary stadium

At forty-two August Illa

Hand ball in the Irun Valley.

With flags in the new fashion.

Or they've been played anyway.

According to Father Donostia, his informants were Juan Miguel María de Berroeta de Berroeta and Andrés Jaime de Erratzu, respectively, in Lekaroz. Therefore, at Baztan we have to think about the survival of the bertsos, nowhere.

The new fashion of the flags placed, I would say that, after the Irrigation pronunce, in March of that year, corresponds to the “new” protocols after obliging Fernando VII to swear the Cadiz Constitution, but… who knows. When Fernando VII.ak soon ate his famous words of his time (“Let us all, and I the first, on the constitutional path”), the position of one of the pelotaris cited here is not flagship, as we will see below.

The song is now shown in the Lafitte file, therefore: two copies, twelve verses and all the same, despite some spelling difference (joko / yoko…).

We have some expressly appointed pelotaris, although it does not leave us unequivocal about the party. His names, surnames, aliases and appointments are Mitxiko, Armendaritz, Patxiku (known as Guardia), son of Pedro Elizondo (known as curial, apparently in the apprentice scribe) and Anduraindarra. I don't know any hint to the identification of the last three. But the first two aren’t very much, but something…

I find the presentation of the verses a little surprising, and I denounce the strange surprise that the Gipuzkoans are heard in “biscayen”, an old usance, as is well known, but that in my knowledge XIX.menderako would seem very old, except in very distant places: Grande partie de pelote entre les Biscayens et les Navarrane, dans la Vilagne.

In contrast, the title “Partie de Pelote” and not “de Paume” smell news. The belief that “pelote” to “Paume” can be seen in French as a local custom of the North in a first approximation, and only from the beginning of the 20th century it disappears strongly in favor of the pelote. Expressions such as Jeux de paume, de pelote et de balle, still common in French, are indisputable to us in Basque or Spanish.

As I said before, we also know something about two of the Pelotaris: Mitxiko and Armendaritz.

In general, it can be said that he has been more lucky the first in the life of fame, Mitxiko, h.d., Indart, of Oiartzun, but the second is not unknown, because, of course, we have Don Bernardo de Armendariz, which Iztueta repudiated from above in the legend of the memorable dances of Gipuzkoa.

In the words of Zaldibia, it was enough for Armendaritz to give the party for the peoples of the area to empty themselves to observe it… At the time of the burning of Armendaritz in 1813 the union of San Sebastian appeared, and from now on we continue to be part of the municipal councils. Among the signatories to the Zubieta Minutes, we have witness 64 of the opposition of the Donostian authorities to the version that the British began to broadcast on the regatta. Then, in a very critical political environment, at the time of the Liberal Triennium, we have in the parallel municipal regent council of San Sebastian, that is, dancing in the rope of the absolutist party.

As far as Mitxelena is concerned, I think that in Iztueta’s letter we also have his reference, even if it is in a covert way. After referring to a ballpark they allegedly built in Madrid, he said that Iztueta had taken three Gipuzkoans and Navarros at the age of three (as in 1821), and that no player was found to oppose them. That comes from Batto (or would I say it's not quite the opposite?) In 1821 the Baptist of Arraioz (Teus) and the tolosarra José Ramón Indart Mitxi played in Madrid before Fernando VII.aren.

Years later, in 1828, Fernando VII passed the Basque Country and played ball games in Bilbao and Vitoria. He was also in San Sebastian and Pamplona, but the proof of the ball is not sure. However, although I do not know the explanatory details of the same hour, there was a precision that came to many years in return: according to Antonio Arzak at the Cemetery of Félix Santo Domingo in the magazine Euskal-Erria, Santo Domingo was one of the players in those matches. Santo Domingo was then 24 years old, founded in 1804 in Los Arcos de la Ribera.

The interesting article “Notes on the ball game” was written long ago by Santo Domingo in 1884, in which he referred to “El Escribano Indart”. From the writing it seems that Indar's time was for Santo Domingo to be mostly, and that they would not have been contemporary to act somewhere...

Everything indicates that one of the few Basque texts that Basque public institutions have left us throughout history is secretary José Ramón Indart, author of a municipal document of 1822: [Oiartzun] Agreement of the Constitutional Plenary of this valley, on December 8, 1822. José Ramón de Yndart.

In 1820 Armendariz and Indart competed in the ball, and in 1822 we see them also in opposite plenaries. Meanwhile, in 1822, on the pretext of war, they demanded political loyalty to the Spanish houses of Aldude. Among them was the former Perkain.

“Perhaps there are more things in heaven, on earth and in the ball, Horace, that even his philosophy could dream…”

Javier Cuadra (Amurrio)