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Carmelo Urza. The homeland of the Basques is in the western nook of the Pyrenees, tucked between the modern countries of Spain and France. Numerous wars and its diminutive size led its people to emigrate far and wide. Starting in the late 19th century, Basque men travelled to the American West to herd sheep, work shunned by most Americans due to its isolation, challenges and low pay. There, they would live alone in the vast wilderness — facing the challenges of caring for 1,000 sheep amid wild animals, unpredictable weather and unrelenting solitude. Basque women came too, working grueling hours supporting the sheep industry in boarding houses, kitchens and sheep camps.

Emigration to the United States ended in the 1950s. Basques that remained became established ranchers or farmers, over time improving their group reputation. Simultaneously, the much-hated Franco dictatorship ended with his demise in 1975 and the region developed its own local and regional governments, eventually becoming one of the richest parts of Spain.

Former Peavine sheep range chosen to host monument

In 1984, Chicago Sculpture International invited the Basque Government to participate in its annual exhibit. Artist Nestor Basterretxea accompanied his sculpture and met there José Ramón Cengotitabengoa. Cengotitabengoa was living in Chicago as a representative of a steel foundry in the Basque Country. He soon became obsessed with a monument which would draw attention to the Basque people.

Cengotitabengoa decided to locate it in Reno, given its location in the center of Basque settlement throughout the American West and its status as a major tourist destination. UNR professor William Douglass suggested that Reno’s San Rafael Park might provide an appropriate site. Indeed, the portion of the park on the flanks of Peavine Mountain had once been sheep range. Douglass sought and received support from Ginny Kersey, a visionary supporter of the park; and Gene Sullivan, director of parks.

A committee was formed, strategy devised and fundraising launched. A booklet was printed describing the project and highlighting the support from a U.S. senator, three governors and presidents of three autonomous Basque regions. 

The committee asked community leaders Janet Inda and Nekane Oiarbide to lead fundraising on both sides of the Atlantic. Basque Americans were asked to donate $300 to place their names or the names of their families on plaques. It’s not an easy matter to garner that much money from Basques, but the idea caught on. By 1988, Inda and Oiarbide had secured approximately $350,000.

'Much more than a man dressed as a herder'

The monument was intended to memorialize the Basque people, personified in the immigrant Basque herder. There was considerable debate as to whether it should be representational and look like a herder, or if it should be abstract, a medium allowing greater symbolism. In the end, the committee selected Nestor Basterretxea’s "Solitude/Bakardade." It is a compromise, a postmodern sculpture that combines elements from Modernism and Realism. It is easy to recognize that the sculpture represents a man, but his features are exaggerated. Because of this dual nature, the Monument is doubly coded: accessible and inaccessible, superficial and profound. 

During the inauguration ceremony, Basterretxea explained, “We are in the last years of the 20th century and no matter how archaic and rustic the character of the shepherd, I don’t see a reason to abandon our own artistic form of expression as modern men. It would, in fact, be unjust to reduce the personality of the sheepherder to a portrait determined by the simple sum of external appearances: for example, by his manner of dress. In the end, a beret or hat on his head and the boots on his feet, do not make a herder. A herder is much more than a man dressed as a herder.”

This sculpture is austere and distancing. Its rectangular backing represents the earth from which emerges a man, its back an etching that evokes the solar system, on top a disc imitating the moon, all of it symbolic of the natural world in which the herder lived. It is an abstract way of communicating that these men lived in the open under the moon, constellations, born of the mountain itself like the naturalistic, pantheistic religion of the ancient Basques. On the figure’s shoulders, there is etched the outline of a lamb, revealing the fragility of his responsibilities.

The arms are disproportionately thick, the limbs of someone who will be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Sheepherding, in its most fundamental essence, is an expression of hard work, responsibility and constancy. Day after day, the herder was required to remain in the wilderness in care of his charges, placing enormous demands not only upon his physical strength but also on his mental health. Douglass and Bilbao, in their seminal work "Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World" discuss these values “expressed by the terms indarra and sendotasuna. Indarra may be translated as 'force' or 'strength.' Sendotasuna includes 'physical prowess' and 'strength of character' ... The Basque emigrant combines an obsession with success as validation of personal worth and a predisposition to engage in hard physical and/or psychologically trying tasks … (this) world view proved …adaptable in the tenuous enterprise of gaining an immigrant’s foothold in the alien economies of sometimes hostile societies.”

From society to solitude

The name of the monument, "Solitude/Bakardade," reflects the loss of his missing Old World social context. The herder that came to Nevada was likely from a farm or farming village and a member of a large extended family. There he attended school and church, danced at festivals, competed in local rural sporting competitions and participated in a rich social array of first communions, marriages, funerals. One can only imagine what the young man felt the first day he stood alone in the vastness of the sagebrush sea or on a forested mountain. Alone, with the coming of the night, he must have wondered what he had condemned himself to, wondered how he would withstand the unbearable solitude. The Basque monument expresses the ideology of a culture, giving heroic dimension to the spirit and animus of men who are willing to silently test their mettle to the utmost. A people with these values will be able to adapt to any exigency, transposing their single-mindedness to any task. That the Basque was a sheepherder at this time and place is an accident of history.

These values were reflected in an article published in Nevada’s Goldfield Times on April 8, 1910: “Back in the frigid hills of Humboldt County the remains of a shepherd were found the other day. He was only a Basque or a common shepherd whose services were at the command of the big sheep companies for a nominal monthly stipend. The poor boy undaunted by inclement weather had insisted on venturing back to the range in spite of a blizzard and set forth with a couple of packhorses to reach his destination. This was months ago. Within the past week the shriveled remains denuded of flesh by the mountain varmints were found ... Only a Basque shepherd found in the snow lifeless and sodden in the clasp of an inexorable winter but true to the duty and as consistent in his faith as the soldier who harks forth to the wars inspired by the blare of trumpets and the cheers of multitudes. When the last roll is called and the spirit of the humble Basque shepherd shall respond to the trumpet his soul shall appear wreathed in all the glory of heroism to claim his reward at the throne.”

Other archetypes of the American West: the cowboy, Native American, soldier, miner and trapper have frequently been represented heroically in literature, painting and sculpture. Basterretxea has elevated the representation of the normally humble, simple, archaic Basque herder into its own (and our) heroic figure.