Andra Mari: the Mother Goddess of Euskalerría

According to the mythology of the Basque people, Andra Mari would be the Goddess, the fundamental figure to whom not only the rest of the elementary and fantastic beings who live, or rather survive, are subordinated in the deepest puddles of that protohistory that form the legends and traditions, but also human beings and all the life that develops on the planet.

From his home, in a deep cave located in the Amboto, sacred mountain of the Basque peoples, Andra Mari is, comparatively and metaphorically speaking, Penelope, the divine spinner that handles the threads of life and death, and so so much, also the destiny of all creatures.

It is not surprising, therefore, that in the ancient Basque traditions, the word of Ama or Ama Lur, Mother or Mother Earth, respectively, is also applied, which according to the statements of Antonio Arnáiz Villena and Jorge Alonso García (1), It is the same that the ancient Sumerians used to refer to the ancestral Goddess.

Given the difficulties that Christianity had in evangelizing these peoples so attached to their ancient traditions, they not only allowed in some hermitages and churches to continue using the invocation of Andra Mari, but also tried to mask, to some extent, the remarkable devotion of the Basque people, equating it to the figure of the Virgin Mary, in the form of Nª Sª de Begoña, to whom, by the way, she dedicates all her triumphs one of the Spanish football's dean teams: the Athletic Club of Bilbao.

Notes, References and Bibliography:

(1) Antonio Arnáiz Villena and José Alonso García: ‘The origin of the Basques and other Mediterranean peoples’, Editorial Complutense, S.A., first edition, April 1998.

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