We met on a rainy Friday morning with Maddi Oihant, the day after the performance of Xibero Kantuz Loratu, released at the Loraldia festival with Ihabi Iriart, Beñat Achiary, Julen Achiary, Mixel Etxekopar and Jordi Cassgne. The Synagogue gently sheltered us. “I’m not good with words,” he said before starting, laughing nervously. He is more comfortable listening than talking, and when he is singing, he prefers to be on the mountain or in front of the audience rather than on the stage. It is not easy for him to sing in front of people, but although his body trembles in the days before the concerts, he believes that singing is something bigger than him and it is good for him to get his voice out of his body and share it with people: “We have to push the boundaries.” He feels that nature transforms the songs and that through his voice the voices of his predecessors are made to be heard. Singing brought the Basque language to Maddi Basotho and since he met Xibero through some friends at the age of 17 we have had the opportunity to enjoy his magic in different parts of the Basque Country to this day. He released his album Tierra Plata in 1997 and his last album to date, Doi, in 2015.

Not only in Arriaga, but also in Mount Arraiz, we listened to Oihanart during the performance of Mina de Palestina, together with Juantxo and Miren Zeberio. The following lines are the result of the words received during the conversation in La Sinsorga and the messages exchanged in the days following this second session.

Where did you get the songs from?

I was born in a farmhouse in Barkox. After finishing the hard work outside, we would come home singing in the car. We are 9 children and we all had the pleasure of singing in the car. Now I think with a different perspective: it was like gratitude, joy, gratitude for a job done with kindness. The songs we heard on the radio, not Basque songs at all. It was hardly made in my house. My father and mother did, but they spoke very little.

And the Basque songs?

I met some friends from Xibero when I was 17 years old. We met with them in Atarratz, a hostel. I realized that they were singing hours after hours, all in Basque, and I didn’t understand anything. I began to sing with them and there they aroused me something, I began to learn Basque by learning the songs: I wasn't aware of anything at that time, but it was very important. My mom and dad didn’t talk much, we lived in a quiet world. Then for a few years I would go out very gutti, if in cultivation it is always a job. For a year a singing tournament was organized and someone gave us our names, as a broman and we finally participated with the Batista Soviets of Alciai, we went to the final and we sang the song that I love very much. The friend recognized this song by his amamangadi. The song says that a man carelessly got the woman pregnant, alone. It looks like it was written by a wife, even if it wasn't. There are very few old songs written by their wives where their vision appears.

However, we have heard you say that you do not feel like a singer. For what reason?

I'm from the farming world. I'm not a professional singer. For years, I've had the gift of doing a few little things in the cultural industry. It has opened up the area for me and has helped me to understand our things a little more intimately. I didn’t think it was possible to sing in front of people, that in youth time I couldn’t think, I was very forgetful, shy. I was scared. Even at home they did not see well that I sang in the street, it was not customary for wives. I started with my friends, then I stopped by myself, and some asked me to do a song. I heard this song on the radio, some asked me to sing it later. I was very pessimistic, but little by little I was pushed by one and the other.

What does singing give you?

When I was little, I used to spend time drawing and that was erased aloud. Later the song came to me to overcome it perhaps. What brings me here? It's a cure. A window to the unknown inside of me. I put my body in space. It can also be so for the listener, it awakens some emotions that later can be useful for everyone. The writer’s reflection, belief, needs guide everyone, enlightens the necessary values, and idealizes new paths. At the end of the day, I’ve had a lot of good relationships.

During your performance with Jérémie Garat in the Foyer Hall of the Arriaga Theatre in October 2018, you also sang the songs of the Xibero shepherds. What is this way of singing?

These songs are called The Wild Ones. They are melodies that the shepherds invented, it seems that gutti has reached us, but there are five or six known ones. Pastor Johañe Barcos showed them to us. Not many are the donors of these songs, but five or six people in Xibero and abroad to another area. The elders tell us that the shepherds were only pigeons in the mountain, that they went from home and to the shore to chant cattle in the evening, and from the mountain on the other side, that a shepherd knew the answer. An energy that has passed through the interior was returned to the environment there. The shepherds united with nature through singing, with the things that are visible or hidden there: rocks, trees, birds, wind... This form of singing was very important. Many pastors lived alone, I think that was a way of walking, following, supplementing, being part of the nature of that area.

Do you also sing in the mountains?

Yes, I always sing outside, I walk, I climb up from our house to a high region. The place is open and I can sing there. I guess it connects to one thing from my youth time, our house was in a winged, open space, and the voice goes to that expanse. I also love to sing in the jungles, the wind, although small, and nature changes the song. Once we went to record Basaide with a filmmaker named Elsa on a mountain. We started recording, just us, the silence, a light wind, some vultures started singing, they started flying around, they knew something was going on there. At the end they went again. Sometimes these things happen, I think everything is connected, much more than we think.

When you started singing, men sang mostly in the public space. How did you go about making these songs and songs your own?

I always have doubts. Most of us in the church have learned that women can’t sing like men. When I was little we had seroras in our country and they didn't accept it. I always loved getting a third voice, even at home I’ve always done that with my sisters. Once, for example, it was a local party, a long hostel with a big bouquet and it was impossible to sing there, I said in the mic that I did not know what to do, that nothing could be sung, because of the noise. Some of them came over and I gave two songs. There were three or four elders there, they came to me and said: In our youth, we sang.” Little by little my way of singing is thus created, selecting some songs and giving them as such. Listening to people’s answers, I gained some confidence. I never doubted that women sang, that they always sang, not on stage, but at home. I took a job at Sü Azia and interviewed the old singers. Many received the songs from their mother and grandmother at home. Men's mouths are engraved above all, and so these are the ones that have become ours. Now there are many women singing in Xibero with very beautiful voices, it is seen every year in masks, pastoral. There are groups of women, such as the daughters of the Mother. There was a group before them, Tehenta. They were very good, close friends, always together and sincerely full of harmony.

You once told me that some man once told you that you don't sing well.

They still exist! I'm always trying to learn, constantly trying. I didn’t have a chance to study when I was young. Once at a school party, a good old male singer told me that with my singing mode I never knew where I’m going. He felt something he didn't understand, maybe something he didn't accept. At the same time I realize that some young people love this way very much because that is where their feelings move. When we made the last album, one critic wrote that he did not know if “a reserved joy or a bruise moved” in the songs. And that's one thing that's been going on inside, that speaks to anyone. If this is the case in Xibero’s song, it seems that we are out of tune, as this excites other emotions and today that is disappearing.

To what extent do these comments or looks condition you?

I always doubt it, but others believe it, in the end it gives me strength. Of course, I would never have done anything by myself, I always love the work, the way, with the other. When I was young, I sang when I was working, for example, in a gas station I worked every day between the cold and the wet, every day I was singing at the top there. Maite Idirín, Lourdes Iriondo, Estitxu and their songs were heard on the radio at that time. In 1997, at the age of 41, we released the album Territorio plata with Michel Etxekopar and Mixel Arotz. Then, Arbaila, with the Artze brothers and Kent Karter. Then we recorded two or three more albums with Josetxo Goi, and then with Juantxo Zeberio. The last one with Jérémie Garat, the Xibero. Every time these friends call me, push me, help me...

You will see it again when the song was selected for a tourism campaign of the Basque Government and appeared on TV. How did you create that song?

That song is weird. Suddenly I lost my job and went to see a person asking for help. He said to me: “You just have to sing.” I was very bad. While I was in the car: this song originated there, on the way home, with this optimistic poem by Itxaro Borda. I thought I had to admit it, because everyone said that to me. That song that gave me hope in those hours, Esperaro is very clear to say what it means. And we should sing more songs today, always. Optimistic claims are important, the dream of a better world to create mutual visions.

Lately we have seen you sing a Lili with Olaia Intziarte at both the Urmuga and the Getxo Folk festival. You were joined by Getxon Verde Prato and Miren Narbaiza at the Aqueduct. How did you live these concerts?

I think this labo song should also be sung around the world so that people understand that we need to take care of each other. I felt very careful singing among these women. In Getxo, for example, we did a pre-concert session, where we were about twenty musicians and I was nervous. The three women we were in the locker room, we kneaded and started singing, all three at once. There was a moment of happiness there to feel together.

Many of the letters you use are written by Itxaro Borda. What do you find in his words?

He lived in Xian. He does not speak much, but he observes much: he sees and feels. Both spaces and people. I chose some poems that spoke to me, I do not fully understand everything, I have been in school very little and sometimes I have difficulties. They once asked us to give them a song for the Basque Country Live and that day I chose Espero to write a poem that denounces how our little village suffers so many things. It is looking at the things we live in, to see what we can do to improve, to achieve peace.

You have also been inspired by the lyrics of Leire Bilbao.

I bought the book Ezkatak (2006) and selected two or three poems because I thought it was my story too. His texts spoke to me as a wife, even though I did not know this other woman and had an age gap between us. It was very exciting to read those things. The poem In the Balance of the Insignificant, for example, mentions that the things we receive when we were little ones make our way to life. He alludes to the smell of his mother, we always return to that moment of initiation and unexpectedly sure of the life of our predecessors as well. We can't prove it clearly, but I'm sure it's hola. This text is also very universal, very moving. I felt like I was made of the most, seeing that you can't get to the things you're thinking about. In the poem Cherry Blossoms you can see a theme that really touches me: the detachment of a child. He says he wants to go back to the village to silence his child's crying.

You said that Itxaro Borda knows how to silence, and you sing in the song Maybe written by him, “silence is love”. But you also sang Atahualpa Yupanki’s Le tengo rabia al silencio in the Azebarri Cultural Center in Getxo, and on Mount Arraitz you spoke of imposed silence through the words of the Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwich. What is silence to you?

Eneko’s time as a child was a hard frontier. A great uniqueness. I have since realized that it is also the other way around. Mikel Laboa said, “When our corner hides the mist from me.” Silence has both sides. I've always heard older people say that when someone starts singing, they shut up to learn what they heard. Singing breaks the silence, and at the same time, it is important to know how to be silent and listen to create songs. The silenced words are quoted in the lyrics of the Palestinian writer Darwich. And there is the silence of the world watching Palestine. What does that silence say about us?