Onintza Irureta/ARGIA. Maite Berrogain first heard about Katalina Erauso in 2005. She read Florance Delay's book Catalina: Enquete and thought she had come across a combative woman who is unknown in the Basque Country and yet who is famous all over the world. There were many parts to the character: the army, the Church, fights, being a woman, doubts about her sexual orientation… Berrogain thought she was a perfect subject for a Pastoral.
Eleven years later in Baiona, on 5th June, 3,000 people saw the first performance of Katalina Erauso at Lauga sports centre. The spectators forgot about the stifling heat and hung on the actors' words. They applauded when they agreed with what they said, laughed and booed when they did not like what they heard. In Donostia's Victoria Eugenia theatre there will be space for 800 people. Many fewer people than at Baiona, and many of them will probably be from the Southern Basque Country, unused to seeing Pastorals. Guillaume Irigoyen (one of the actors and the writer of several of the songs) told us that he was worried about whether the spectators would take part in the way they should in a Pastoral: "Half the people at Baiona had taken part in a Pastoral at some time, and half of the other half want to take part.”
The play ‘Katalina de Erauso’
Apparently, Erauso started writing her autobiography in 1624 and published it the following year. We say 'apparently' because some people think it is a made-up tale rather than somebody's memories.
In the following lines MaiteBerrogain will tells us about Katalina Erauso's life of adventure, following the ideas she has used when writing the Pastoral about her.
Katalina Erauso was born in Donostia in 1592. Her father was Captain Migel Erauso, a soldier of Philip III of Spain. Her mother was María Pérez Galarraga. She had four daughters over four years, having had a son previously. Katalina's family was well-off.
Aspaldiko urte haietan [In those far-off years]
Familia sosdunetan [in well-to-do families]
Neskak sartzen ziren [they put the girls]
Ttipitik komentuetan [in convents when they were little]
They put their four daughters in the Dominican convent. Katalina was only four years old. Her father did not hide his disdain for his daughters:
Alabak hanitx zaitzo [Daughters cost]
Familiari kostatzen [families a lot]
Aldiz semeek deioe [while sons]
Hari ohoreek arten [bring them honour]
At the Baiona performance, the spectators did not like the father's attitude at all, and their first shouts of disapproval were directed at him.
She lived in the convent until she was around fifteen. But she was impatient to leave. This is what she said to the mother superior:
Hügü dit zure manüa [I've had your orders]
Joanen nüzü hebendik [I'm going to leave here]
Ez dit maite diziplina [I don't like discipline]
Badit nik beste gogorik [I want something different]
And, in a rage, the time to leave arrived. The time to escape and start a new life, and dress as a man too:
Biloak dütüt moztüko [I'll cut my hair]
(E)ta galtza lüzeak jauntsi [and wear long trousers]
Holaxe niz gizon üdüri [that way I'll look like a man,]
Gaztea lerden bühürri [become a good-looking man]
Geroa esküetan düt [I've got the future in my hand]
Düdarik gabe joanen niz [I really will leave]
Barnean dütan sükarra [The fire I have inside]
Ez zaüt itzaliko berriz [will not go out again]
She took the name Frantzisko Loiola and joined the service of the court of Philip IV. She wanted to go to the New World, to America. She travelled through Chile, Bolivia, Panama, Venezuela and Peru, sword in hand, trying to find silver and gold for the king of the Spanish empire.
She made the journey to America with her uncle Egino:
Honki jin ene lloba [Have a good trip, my niece]
Noski dakizün bezala [As you know,]
Zilar ürre ebasteko [we're all good at stealing]
Denak hortan trebe gira [silver and gold]
Itsasontziak dirade [It's ships]
Osoki ürrez betetzen [that fill up with gold]
Hau denen ontsa zaintzea [Looking after them all]
Zure kargüa da izanen [is your job]
The Dutch did not like the Spaniards' hunger for theft:
Ürrez ezin aseak zidee [They can't get enough gold,]
Deabrüen bizkar hotzak [the devil's cold backs,]
Aspalditik gure etsaiak [our long-lasting enemies,]
Espainol ohoin ustelak [rotten Spanish thieves]
Robbery, fights, swordplay, adventures and escapes were matters of daily life in the 24 years she spent in America. Sometimes she fled when she thought they were about to realise that Frantzisko Loiola was, in fact, a woman. People have talked about Katalina Erauso's attitude towards women when she was dressed as a man. In fact, she seems to have fallen in love with some women. Maite Berrogain believes that she had to act all the time in order for nobody to realise that she was a woman. Others –for instance the North American lesbian movement– think that Erauso liked women. Here are two verses Berrogain has written about the subject:
Xiletik landa niz Perun [I've gone from Chile to Peru]
Solarteren zerbütxüko [to serve as a soldier]
Nola ez aipa alabak [I have to say]
Izigarri dütüt gustüko [I really like girls]
Zoriona düt topatü [I've found happiness]
Hanitx jente düt ikusten [I've seen lots of different people]
Neskekin denborapasa [Spending time with girls]
Lana ez düt nik senditzen [doesn't seem like work to me]
There are few stories about love, but there was real hatred in America too. The spectators in Baiona were not asleep, and they started to shout their disapproval once more at Lauga sports centre when Katalina's brother Migeltxo Erauso spoke and his sister answered her:
Heben zidee suntsitzeko [Here will be the ruin]
Arraza apalagoak [of lowlier races]
Gük garaitüko dütügü [We will win,]
Nausi dira xuriak [the whites are the leaders]
Indiano bürügorri [Stupid Indians,]
Espainolek zütüe hilko [the Spaniards will kill you]
Trumilka jiten beitira [if they come in large groups]
Amalürra ebasteko [to steal the Mother Earth]
After 24 years there, she returned to Europe, admitted that she was a woman and asked the Pope for permission to carry on living looking like a man. His answer scandalised the audience and Erauso's answer, on the other hand, got their applause.
Lehenik jakin behar dit [First I must know]
Beti birjina zirenez [if you've always been a virgin]
Hebenko bi emagintsek [The two midwives here]
Erranen düe bai ala ez [will say yes or no]
Gizon bati ez deiozüe [You don't ask a man]
Galtatzen denez birjina [if he's a virgin]
Gizon emazteen arteko [There's more injustice]
Injüstizia bat haboro da [for women than for men]
She did not stay put in Europe. She went to America again, to Mexico, and in 1650 the soldier-nun died there.
Interview with Maite Berrogain Ithurbide, author of the pastoral
Maite Berrogain: “Katalina, too, is a black sheep”
How did the Baiona performance go?
-I thought it was great and the audience took part. I really liked that. That moved me, it was a nice surprise.
It will be a different type of audience in Donostia. How do you think it will respond?
-Who knows! Some people say that things like that don't happen in other places. But I don't know. I think they will respond, there's that struggle between the reds and the blues, in favour of womanhood… I think they will respond, people will take part in the Pastoral.
You say that Katalina Erauso's story has everything for a Pastoral. Which side of her did you decide to show?
-Firstly, women's concerns. That hunger for freedom. Women didn't have to go into a convent or get married, there were some other wishes too, there were other types of women for those times too. Later I read that all the people who went with Christopher Columbus were men, but some women, too, went with Pizarro and Cortes on their conquests. So it isn't so astonishing to see women, even though Katalinalooked like a man. However, sometimes she appeared as a woman. We can imagine that when she embarked with her uncle, he knew that she was a woman.
There are more sides to Erauso.
-A fighter. It was the time of the conquest. If she had lived today she might have defended other things, I don't know. Another side to her: Love between women. But we have no way of knowing if she loved women. You can think what you want about that.
At one moment Erauso expresses love for a woman.
-In fact, she had to show that she was a man and ready to love women. I couldn't go further than that.
She had to act the man and that had to be clear at all times.
-I think that was it, she had to take her act all the way. In any case, we don't have to show everything in the Pastoral. At one point, after the Andes desert, a black woman and her daughter took her home. The mother asked her to marry her daughter. We don't show it, but in one text it says that the woman was so ugly that she didn't want to marry her. And maybe she found some excuse to get out of it.
It's difficult to know whether she desired women or not.
-That's it. Some people have taken hold of that idea, some associations in North America from the Lesbian world.
There is Basque character in the Pastoral too.
-It was amazing. The Church leaders, judges and magistrates were Basque and they always supported Katalina. We don't show it, but she was condemned to death twice and, at the last moment, somebody said that Katalina was from Bizkaia and she had to be saved. She always got out like that.
She was also Spanish. She fought for the king and she was a conqueror.
-I don't know if you've been to South America, but if you go you'll see Basque names everywhere, street names, house names… We, too, have a dark history. Katalina, too, is a black sheep. Basques took part in the conquest on the Spanish and French sides. The Basques were caught in a trap between the two.
There is a bronze bust of her in Donostia, and a street with her name, an association with her name… but, outside Donostia, she's unknown. I think her history has been hidden.
Why do you think it's been hidden?
-Because Katalina doesn't bring together Basque values.I could say that this Pastoral will never be put on in Zuberoa. Because the character isn't traditional. Think what this Pastoral is for people of a certain age: some people get angry when the Church's history is mentioned.
They say that the Pope must know that Erauso was a virgin and the spectators in Baiona booed that.
-Yes, yes, it was incredible.
The character, Katalina Erauso, is red. It's usual for the good ones to be blue.
-We made her red. They've never done that in Zuberoa and I don't know if they ever will. There's a belief that the main character must always be good, be blue… but I don't think the main character always had to be good. She took part in the conquest, she was in the Spanish army, and we've made her red and given the Indians and the Mapuches strength to state their concerns. For some people, making her red has been a revolution, but we didn't see any other way to do it.
Do you think people have accepted that change?
-Some people haven't. Some people don't know that the main character always has to be blue, I don't know what those codes are [laughter], it's oral tradition. Somebody told me that we've broken the code, and I said I'm glad we've done that.
Nobody's told you they don't like the character.
-No, nothing like that. It's a story with topicality, and everyone was amazed, they didn't know the story. I have nieces and nephews in North America and they know who the military nun was; nobody here does. I think she's fairly well-known outside the Basque Country.
'KATALINA DE ERAUSO' Pastoral
Donostia, 3rd September
Donibane Garazi, 10th September
Author: Maite Berrogain.
Directors: Pantxika Urruty and Maitena Lapeyre.
Katalina Erauso: Alaia Ithurbide, Laida Abadie, Miren Elkegaray and Graxiana Castillon.
(originally published in Argia)
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