The Ancient Polemic of Tubalism (An Important Chapter in the History of Spain)

In 1667, Jose de Moret, a Basque Jesuit essayist from Navarra published a "diatribe," (El bodoque contra el propugnaculo historico y juridico del licenciado Conchillos). The "diatribe's" title, written in the baroque Spanish of that era, still suggests that de Moret considered Conchillos (a jurist) a dunce ("bodoque"), whose ideas could also have historical consequences, due to Conchillos' position. de Moret used the pseudonym Fabio Sylvio y Marcelo while, at the same time, pretended to be in Cologne, Germany. de Moret wished to engage Conchillos in a "bitter polemic" about the original founder of the city of Tudela, in Navarra. de Moret was aware that Conchillos had affirmed Tudela was founded by Tubal. de Moret's purpose was to challenge Conchillos to a debate. Conchillos immediately responded with a diatribe of his own (Desagravios del propugnaculo de Tudela contra el trifauce cerbero autor del bodoque). The dedication, or title, of Conchillos' response reflects that he was a master of the Spanish language. Conchillos' choice of words was ambiguous but, clear enough, to show that he could be willing to, at the very least, smear the character of his opponent with some unsavory personal accusations. The ensuing debate "that engaged sages and erudites during several centuries" (Pintado, La lengua vascoiberica) is still known today as the Polemic of Tubalism.

A very serious matter was, and still is, at stake in regard to the polemic, namely "the primitive language of the Iberian Peninsula." (Pintado, La lengua de Tubal). Likewise, the Polemic of Tubalism sheds light on the question of the veracity of the formal history of medieval Spain. Julio Caro Baroja was able to reconstruct "in minute detail" (Ibid) the entire plot shortly before his death. Caro Baroja died in 1995 and was a "distinguished member" of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, of the Royal Academy of History, and of the Academy of Basque Language. He was the recipient of the Prince of Asturias Prize for Social Sciences (1983), the winner of the Gold Medal of Fine Arts (1984), the winner of the National Prize of Spanish Literature (1989), the winner of the International Menendez Pelayo Prize (1989), and the winner of the Prince of Viana Culture Prize (1989). (Julio Caro Baroja) Furthermore, he is the nephew of Pio Baroja, the renowned novelist who was a chronicler of the Basque way of life, and one of the founders of the Generation of 98, known as the Golden Era of Spanish Literature.

According to Julio Caro Baroja's reconstruction, the origin of Tubalism is XV century Italy, and its author was a Dominican monk, Giovanni Nanni, who published (with commentary) five books that he fictitiously attributed to a Chaldean priest named Beroso, who allegedly wrote them between IV-III B.C. Those tomes were dedicated to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, in a manner that Caro Baroja describes as "not innocent."

Some have alleged that Nanni was "insane" (Pintado, La Lengua de Tubal) but in Rome, he enjoyed much prestige and "a great reputation." (Ibid) Unfortunately, Nanni was poisoned and died as a result.

The fictitious Boroso noticed that in Genesis X:2, Tubal was mentioned as one of Noah's grandchildren. Thereafter, the author took a flight of fancy, and constructed "a primitive history" (Ibid) of the Iberian Peninsula that is in accordance with great events told by the Hebrew, Babylonian-Chaldean, Egyptian, and Greco-Latin traditions. (Ibid)

According to Beroso, Tubal escaped to the Iberian Peninsula after the Tower of Babel debacle, an event that took place "131 years after the Flood, and became Spain's first king" upon his arrival, creating a sole monarchy in the territory, "since the beginning of time." (Ibid) His reign lasted for 155 years, and he was succeeded by Ibero, from whom all the Iberians descended. Thereafter, twenty-two other kings ruled with such "suspect" names as "Hispalo, Hispano, or Luso." (Ibid)

Upon his arrival, Tubal "was dragged by the currents of a mysterious river until he arrived at the Port of Bares, in La Coruna. "He founded the city of Noega in memory of his grandfather, he invented the bagpipe, and he was transfigured into an old idol known as Pena Tu, a rocky promontory near the Asturian coast of Llanes." (Ibid) Naturally, he brought one of the languages of Babel to the Iberian Peninsula.

The repercussions of the Catholic version of the early history of Spain, as cited above, are still painfully evident today, despite efforts on the part of many scholars and sages, such as Don Miguel de Unamuno, and the Barojas, to bring clarity and accurary to such an appalling situation. However, such efforts did not stop other well known "authorities" from publishing similar inventions in sensitive fields, such as "natural history and geography." (Ibid)

Not all members of the clergy supported the farce, as evidenced by the efforts of de Moret. Father Juan de Mariana, a historian, wished to put an end to Tubalism in 1601, comparing it to "un plato de entremeses," or a platter of mixed appetizers.

Years later, the polemic attracted other scholars such as Wilhelm Von Humboldt, and re-emerged as Basque-Iberianism which affirms, in essence, that Basque was the "language spoken by the ancient Iberians or, in other words, the first and only language spoken for a long time in all of the Iberian Peninsula." (Ibid)

Much earlier, French-Basque Arnaud Ohienart "went a step further in his Notitia utriuske Vasconiae" (Paris 1639). Ohienart "established that not only Lusitanians, but Gaellics, Asturians, Cantabrians, Vardulos and Vascones, also spoke the same language, Basque." He also stated that the Spanish language was derived from Basque. Another Jesuit, Manuel de Larramendi, published a book (De la antiguedad u universalidad del vascuence en Espana) in 1728, supporting the findings of Ohienart. (Ibid) Larramendi was the author of the Trilingual Dictionary (Basque, Spanish, and Latin) published in 1745.

The excommunicated Jesuit Francisco de Masden (1783-1805), on the other hand, published yet a new theory in his Historia critica de Espana y de la cultura espanola en todo genero (A Critical History of Spain and Spanish Culture in all its Forms). According to de Masden, Basque was a Celtic-Iberian language because "Iberian and Celts were the oldest inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, the descendants of those mentioned in Biblical traditions, and Basque emerged from those languages. (Ibid)

In Sabino's Sin (Racism and the Founding of Basque Nationalism) by William A. Douglass, an anthropologist and the coordinator Emeritus of Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, states that Isidor, the Archbishop of Seville (560-630 AD) argued in his History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, that the Visigoths that overtook Spain after the Fall of Rome were the descendants of Magog, while the Iberians were the descendants of Tubal. Poliakov is cited in Douglass' paper, in a statement noting that after the Christian Reconquista the issue of "maintaining purity of blood" divided the nation. Thereafter, Spanish theologians issued a doctrine maintaining that "Jews and the Moors had soiled Spanish blood," and that such a "stain" had been "transmitted to their descendants, forcing them into the almost untouchable caste of New Christians or conversos."

Defying the dogma of the regenerative "virtue" of baptism, soon after the Reconquista, theologians brought about a new doctrine in an "institutional form." (Ibid) While recognizing that both categories of Christians were descended from "the common Father Adam, they maintained that the new conversos were corrrupted biologically." (Ibid) This edict penalized the conquered while it rewarded the new conquerors, Douglass asserts. A new edict issued in 1526 produced something known in Spain as the "New Fuero," a proclamation of nobility for Old Christians "only," a means to exclude the "tainted" blood mentioned earlier.

Miguel de Aramburu was commissioned to compile a history of Guipuzcua (by the Guipuzcuan authorities) in 1696. He was able to describe two centuries of Basque "historiography" (Ibid) in a preamble that was less than one paragraph in length. Aramburu claimed that according to tradition known as autoridad comun (common authority), Tubal arrived to the area from Armenia, accompanied by family and entourage, while no specific mention in the sacred scriptures indicated the place where the group arrived.

Tubalism was still active, but as Douglass points out, at the service of Basque particularism almost a millenium after Isidore of Seville decreed that the Visigoths were the descendants of Magog.

In the mid-eighteenth century Manuel the Larramendi, a confirmed Tubalist, who regarded Basques "to be the original unsullied Spaniards," stated that he "viewed Spanishness and Basqueness as mutually exclusive and conflicting." Caro Baroja, among others, views Larramendi as a "precursor of modern racists." (Ibid)

The exposition of these facts aims to underscore their relevance within the context of linguistics as a science. As Douglass points out, the current state of affairs interferes not only with disciplines such as genetics, biology, anthropology, and archaeology:

The 'exceptional' Basque case regards the early recognition
within the scientific challenge to theological interpretations
of human origins that the Basques could not be accommodated
within the emerging view that historical Europe was the legacy
of prehistorical invasions of the continent from the east by
related speakers of the Indo-European languages. As we have
seen during the first half of the nineteenth century, thanks to
the Sanskritists language reigned supreme as the evidence that
defined the parameters of the scientific racialist research agenda
and discourse. (Ibid)

In 1821, Wilhelm Von Humboldt's treatise redefined Basque uniqueness and its "Ancient Iberian" credentials, thus eliminating the possible Indo-European connection. (Ibid)

By the end of the nineteenth century, Sabino Arana, the founder of the Basque Nationalist Party, published a book, Bizcaya por su independencia, (Biscay for its Independence), wherein he composed further "fabrications" of earlier battles of the ancient people of Biscay. He resented immigration of Spanish workers into Biscay. He created the epithet, "maquetos," based "on a place of La Mancha," the home of Cervantes' El Quijote, to designate all Spaniards. Much like his predecessors, Sabino was a staunch Catholic who proclaimed that the Basques were a separate race:

We the Basques, must avoid the mortal contagion, maintain
firm our faith in our ancestors and the serious religiosity
that distinguishes us, and purify our customs, before so
healthy and exemplary, now so infected and at the point
of corruption by the influence of those who have come from
outside." (Sabino Arana)

It is commonly known throughout Spain that the ideas of Sabino Arana have been an inspiration to the Democratic Nationalist Movement, and the Basque terrorist organization known as ETA.

In conclusion, all of the above is representative of the attitudes, beliefs, and biases of those who wrote the history of Spain, and that of the New World.

Habanera

Works Cited:
Pintado, Manuel. La lengua vascoiberica. Centro Virtual Cervantes. Dec. 1998
http://cvc.cervantes.es/el_rinconete/anteriores/diciembre_98/02121998_01.htm
Pintado, Manuel. La lengua del Tubal. Centro Virtual Cervantes. April. 1998
http://cvc.cervantes.es/el_rinconete/anteriores/abril_98/27041998_01.htm
Douglass, Sabino's Sin (Racism and the founding of Basque nationalism.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/conversi/Douglass.pdf
Sabino Arana (Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabino_Arana
Julio Caro Baroja. Wikipedia. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Caro_Baroja

Note: Translations into English provided by the author.