Kirikoketa

Lore & Background

The kirikoketa takes its name from the sound it produces. It consists of a single board about 1.5 m long, placed almost at ground level on two low, soft mounds at each end.

Two or three players each use a striker—a cone‑shaped, person‑high implement with a wide base—or hammers to beat the board. The instrument stems directly from the apple‑pressing work of cider making, where men would crush apples on the cider press for about eight days. On the final day they gathered in the village market square, using the same tools to play the kirikoketa while singing a tune, each syllable accompanied by a beat.

The custom was maintained for centuries by inhabitants of the Bidasoa and Baztan region of northern Navarre, but it almost died out in the 1920s. Thanks to Basque cultural revival and field research by scholars and activists, especially from the 1960s onward, the kirikoketa emerged from obscurity—though to a far lesser extent than the renaissance of the txalaparta.

In performance, two or three people stand in front of the board and beat it alternatingly with their strikers, a pattern that originally enlivened the long apple‑crushing process. Players may move along the board to find different sounds and vary the speed and force of their beats.

With three players the rhythm is ternary (simple triple time). A player may optionally rest (skip a beat). Singing may accompany the beating.

Reader's Guide

The kirikoketa is significant as a direct musical offshoot of a traditional work process—the apple pressing for cider—and as a symbol of Basque cultural resilience. Its near‑disappearance in the 1920s and subsequent revival since the 1960s mirror the broader Basque cultural renaissance, though its profile remains more modest than that of the related txalaparta. The instrument’s survival and renewed practice are due largely to field research by Basque scholars and cultural activists.

Today the Kirikoketa Besta festival, held in Arizkun (Baztan, Navarre) since about 2001 and organized by the Society Jo Ala Jo Elkartea, stages a re‑enactment of the cider‑making process and encourages use of the kirikoketa as a musical instrument. This festival helps preserve both the craft of cider making and the instrument’s role in community celebration. The kirikoketa thus stands as a living link between agricultural labor, festive gathering, and Basque musical identity.