Lauburu
From Academic Kids
Lauburu.jpg
The lauburu or Basque cross has four comma-shaped heads, each of which is drawn with a compass upon a scribed cross, employing in each head a common center but two settings, one the half of the other (illustration, right]].
Historians and authorities compete to apply allegorical meaning to the ancient symbol–some say it signifies the "four heads or regions" of the Basque Country [1] (http://www.bcbasque.com/HTMLfiles/lauburu.htm), even though these are in fact seven, not four; the lauburu does not appear in any of the seven coats-of-arms that have been combined in the arms of the Basque Country: Navarra, Guipuzcoa, Bizkaia, Alava, Labourd, La Soule [2] (http://gofree.indigo.ie/~janoty/euskadi/zazpiak.htm); The Basque intellectual Imanol Mujica liked to say that the heads signify spirit, life, consciousness, and form [3] (http://www.bcbasque.com/HTMLfiles/lauburu.htm) – but it is generally used as a symbol of prosperity. Many Basque homes and shops display the symbol over the doorway as a sort of talisman. In modern times it has been associated with the swastika.
The symbol in its positive form (right-facing) can symbolise life, and in its negative form (left-facing) death. This is the reason why many Basque tombstones display left-facing lauburus.
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Etymology
Lau buru means "four heads" in Basque, but it could a folk etymology applied to the Latin labarum.
External link
- "La croix Basque, laubaru" (http://gofree.indigo.ie/~janoty/euskadi/croix.htm): demonstrating the layout for scribing the arms
See also
External link
- The Baskian Swastika Lauburu, its symbolic meaning and history (http://www.swastika-info.com/en/article/Allgemeine-Bedeutung/1066313818.html)eo:Lauburu
