Our Lady of Muskilda, a Virgin venerated in Otxagabia, Salazar valley, Navarre; on the mountain of the same name.
The church and the chaplain’s house are at the end of a cobbled path that begins from the parish church, with a route of 1,800 meters. Soon the remains of the old oak grove can be seen, exploited around the year 1930, the land being divided into parcels and the plots distributed among the neighbors, dedicating them to the sowing of cereals. The rest of the mountain was devoted to the grazing of native cattle.
Making the ascent by the traditional route, one goes past the stations of the Way of the Cross, erected in 1926 by José Cruz de Echeverría. Before reaching the hermitage, about one hundred meters from it, is found “El Pilar,” a small tower of dressed stone, quadrangular, four meters high, topped by a little roof in the form of a pyramid finished by a cross. On the main face there is a barred window with an image of the Virgin at the back. “Tradition maintains that inside it is the oak on which the Virgin appeared to the shepherd from the house of Asa.” [Barber Arregui, Muskilda y sus danzas. Temas de Cultura Popular].
It was said that a cattle herder on Mount Muskilda had lost his bull, which he found at the foot of the said oak, beside an image of the Virgin. The image was taken down to the parish, but the next day it had disappeared. And it was found on the same oak indicated by the bull. “El Pilar” bears the following carved inscription: “La villa de Otxagabia hizo hacer este Pilar, año 1654. Jesús María”.
On our visits to Muskilda in 1971 and 1984 we noted the dances in front of the walled-in oak of the apparition and the good state of preservation of the little tower. In 1971 the dancers danced before the said monument after the mass and the procession of September 8. Then they went down dancing a pasacalle, accompanied by the people and authorities, to the mayor’s house, from the house of Anica. There bread, cheese, and wine were distributed to everyone.
The temple of Musquilda. Fr. Jacinto Clavería Arangua, in Iconografía y Santuarios de la Virgen en Navarra, volume II, says: “In Romanesque style, it bears stamped upon it the emblem typical of San Juanist architectural works, reminding us of the fabric of the parish church of Aibar, of Santa María of Sangüesa and others.” In the opinion of the said Fr. Clavería, it seems that it provided help and service to pilgrims who were heading to Compostela.
“This sanctuary consists of three naves, the central one with a barrel vault with pointed arches; the side ones, by a quarter vault corresponding to the half-arches similar to counter-support flying buttresses, except that here, instead of appearing on the exterior part of the wall, they remain included within the interior area of the church, gaining space.” Its construction is attributed to the reign of Sancho the Strong (1194–1234). The main doorway is of the purest Romanesque style, with four archivolts decorated with the classic pinecones and straight-edged columns. A wrought-iron grille separates the presbytery from the nave, serving as a defense for the tabernacle and the image of the Virgin. The altarpiece dates from 1642. On the walls, on both sides of the presbytery, there are four paintings of the Flemish school representing scenes of the Annunciation of the Angel, the Visitation, the Holy Family, and the Espousals.
The image of the Virgin. It occupies the central niche. It is a gilded wooden carving. She is seated and rests her left hand on the child’s left shoulder, the child seated on her knee. According to Fr. Clavería: “The image of Musquilda is a precious example of Romanesque style and even more so of transition.” It was restored years ago, thanks to Francisco Goyena, of Otxagabia.
Ruins of great antiquity. Above the sacristy door there is a Roman inscription, S. P. Q. R. The presence of this Roman trace indicates that there were ruins of buildings from that period and that their stones were used for the construction of later ones, specifically for the church of Muskilda, as happened in Andión of Mendigorría; in N. Sra. de Unzizu, of Arellano; and in that of Gastiain in the Lana valley.
Patronage, chaplain, seroras. From time immemorial it was administered by the patronage constituted by the town councilors of Otxagabia. Until 1943 there was a chaplain with daily mass and resident in the sanctuary house. The last of them was Angel Goicoa Portal, who held the post for thirty years.
In 1596 Juana Chacón, serora of the basilica, lodges a complaint against the vicar, the abbot, and the councilors of Otxagabia, because she had arrived at Muskilda three years earlier, with her aunt Ana de Alzate y Urtubia, serora. After the aunt died, she wished to continue with the seroría. But they expelled her and placed María Juana de Labari. The town’s Patronage alleged that Juana had arrived as a servant when she was a young girl under 20 years old and a foreigner, from Ultrapuertos. In 1697 there were 3 seroras.
The preceptory. In it, studies were taught for the first courses of an ecclesiastical career. Each student provided food for himself. On Thursday afternoons they had leave and went down to the village. It remained until the last third of the previous century.
The house of Muskilda. A rectangular, spacious building, located in front of the church, being well supplied with water, electricity, and telephone. There is a room in it for the sessions of the Patronage. Also a parchment with the nominal list of the mayordomos from 1795 to the present. On the ground floor there is a hall for the rest of pilgrims. In 1794, the house and 184 others, plus 52 bordas, were burned by the French army. In 1796–97 it was rebuilt by the neighbors of Otxagabia. One kilometer from the basilica is the Muskilda spring.
Muskilda dance group. The groups of dantzaris are eight in number, men only. Ritual dances with fixed dates for performance. Their leader is the one called “Bobo.” His attire is different, of various colors, with a large bag slipped over the head, where he keeps the sticks for the dance. The most notable is his double mask, like the god Janus of ancient Italy, protector of doors and windows. There is also a group of dantzaris txikis.
The cult of the oak. The sacred character of the oak among Europe’s native populations, and from the Indo-European to the Semitic, was practically general. In Muskilda we note the felling of the oak grove, of which some specimens remain, and the pillar where it is believed the old oak of the Muskilda apparition is found, indicated by a bull to the herder of the said mountain. In Garde, Roncal valley, the Virgin of Zuberoa was also indicated to a shepherd by a bull. This bovine, in Greco-Roman mythology, represents Aquiloo, god of the river. Let us not forget that Mount Muskilda lies at the fork of Otxagabia’s two watercourses, the Anduña and the Zatoya. The Muskilda oak grove must have been the only “sacred forest” of the Basque Country preserved until our time. With its felling, a witness to pre-Christian worship in the Navarrese Pyrenees disappeared.
The construction of the current access road via Ollarzeguias and the beech forest of Ituzkia was inaugurated on the date 10-IX-1975. It was blessed by the parish priest of Otxagabia, Isidro Garcés Barace. This new access route takes prominence away from the traditional cobbled path. And it may perhaps impair the performance of the dancers before “El Pilar” and the descent, in a joyful pasacalle, to the town to begin the patronal festivities of September 8.
To the cited works on the subject by Fco. Barber Arregui and Fr. Jacinto Clavería we must add the booklet by the former parish priest of Otxagabia, Salvador Napal, Historia y Novena de Nuestra Señora de Muskilda, where, in addition, he made a brief and exact study of the dances of the group attached to the hermitage-basilica.