Basque ethnography at a glance

Detail of the cemetery of Garruze (Nafarroa Beherea). Emilio Xabier Dueñas.

Despite it not being a priority area in my investigations, I am nonetheless passionate about all matters concerning the broad research field within which the subject of death and dying falls. We refer, in this particular case, to the worship of the dead through different forms of expression: this life is followed by a supposed afterlife.

As a native of Bizkaia, few cemeteries have I seen attached to churches or hermitages in my territory. I therefore remember with emotion the first time I visited a burial ground in Lapurdi (with similar features to those of Nafarroa Beherea and Zuberoa), for I was surprised by the cleanliness and care of the surroundings, the ornamentation, the souvenirs or the stelae.

Cemetery and Trinitarian church in Mendi (Zuberoa). Emilio Xabier Dueñas.

Church and churchyard form a remarkable unity which delights the eye and fills visitors, myself included, with genuine admiration for a living heritage of incalculable value; curiously enough, it is normally a place of remembrance and silence, lived solely by those who ‘no longer live’.

Living because it is visible and palpable. Living because it is currently being used. Living because it is, with odd exceptions, continuously renovated in its floral aspect. Living because it serves for private worship and, on certain occasions, like All Saints Day, parishioners accompanied by the priest visit it. Living because it is also part of other celebrations, among which we shall highlight the feast of Corpus Christi, locally known as Besta berri or Pesta berri (Fête-Dieu): every year the processional cortège leaves the church and marches around the cemetery on its way to the square to the sound of melodies played by a brass band, while the oilarrak dance without raising their feet from the ground and two flags are waved in the air.

Group of anonymous discoidal stelae at the cemetery of Itsasu (Lapurdi). Emilio Xabier Dueñas.

And what can we find in the mentioned cemeteries? To begin with, tombs of once famous people: from singer Luis Mariano (González), through Agnès Souret (the first miss France), to the koblakari, txülülari and author of a dozen Pastorals (Pastoralak) Etxahun Iruri, among many others. As one would expect, however, the vast majority correspond to ordinary people but no less popular with their fellow neighbours at the time.

Yet, if anything characterizes these cemeteries which often completely surround the temple, in addition to the iron or painted crosses and the large slabs of the graves located in the portico, it is the clusters of tabular and, above all, discoidal stelae, ranging from the 16th century to the 21st, with human figures carved in relief, objects or tools for trades, astral or geometric drawings, and the JHS initials (standing for Jesus saviour of humankind, it would seem).

Beyond the age of the ensemble, or its components, I would highlight: the silence in these small cemeteries and their churches; the cadence of the surnames in inscriptions of graves, pantheons, and as homage to the dead in the two world wars; or collections of crosses and stelae in secluded places such as mountaintops or enclosed spaces behind glass windows.

Memorial to victims of both world wars. Cemetery of Altzükü (Zuberoa). Emilio Xabier Dueñas.

Such symbology manifests itself in stone and popular sentiment. In the work of stonemasons who left their mark, but also in the degree of testimony which death after life instils.

Emilio Xabier Dueñas – Folklorist and ethnographer

Translated by Jaione Bilbao – Ethnography Department – Labayru Fundazioa