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138these regions, oral polyphony was sung in the non-religious repertoire (i.e. ballads) butabove all, it was related to religious brotherhoods; they were sung during processions topraise the patron saint through the ‘goigs’ [chant to a patron saint]”. The musicallanguage of the polyphonic traditions of most of these regions is heavily influenced bythe late European harmonic style.The tradition of vocal polyphony in the province Albacete in eastern Spainfeatures totally different characteristics: a long pedal drone, a richly ornamented melodicline with descending undulating melody, development in free rhythm, and scales usingchromatic elements:Ex. 78. Spain, Albacete (Schneider, 1969, part 3, #64)The oldest inhabitants of Spain (and arguably the whole of Western Europe), theBasques speak their own unique pre-Indo-European language and demonstratetremendous historical and musical continuity. For example, the ancient, 22.000-year-oldbird-bone flute with three holes, found in the city of Izturitz in France, a part of theBasque country, demonstrates quite clear connections with txistu – the contemporarythree-hole flute of the Basques (Laborde, 2000: 314, 316).In the notes to “The World Collection of Recorded Folk Music” (1984)Constantine Brailoiu mentions the predilection of Basques for singing in two parts (inthirds) as a widely known fact. A special article on Basque music at the GarlandEncyclopedia fails to mention this fact, and only the presence of a CD “PolyphoniesBasques” in “Audiovisual Resources” gives the reader an idea about this fact. Two-partsinging among the Basques, as in most other Spanish regional styles of vocal polyphony,does have obvious traces of the influence of the European major-minor system. Parallelthirds and sixths are prevalent here. The music flow is strictly organized metrorhythmicallyand the major scales dominate:Ex. 79. Example of Basque polyphony (Ghvacharia and Tabagua, 1983:210)