Table of contents

I. OMENS OF DEATH

Animal-related omens

• Dog howling

• Rooster crowing

Presence of crows and other birds

• Presence of insects

Omens related with facts and events

Bells ringing

• Paying, measuring or weighing just enough

• Noises and other coincidences

 

II. DEATH THROES AND DEATH

Death throes

• Names

Caring for the person in their dying moments

• • Care and attention
  • Visiting the dying person
  • Watching over the person in their dying moments
  • Contemporary changes

Prayers during the death throes

• Other religious practices

Causes for the death throes dragging on

• • Feuds and grievances
  • Possessed by spirits

• Remedies to stop the death throes dragging on

• • Meza enkomendadua
  • Offering lights and fasts
  • Facilitating the exiting of the soul

The death

Extraordinary causes of death

• • Spells
  • Evil eye
  • Death spirits

 

III. VIATICUM AND EXTREME UNCTION

Receiving the Last Sacraments

Preparing the room of the sick person

• • Home altar
  • Decorating the house

• Viaticum

• • Viaticum in the Northern Basque Country (lying within France)
  • Viaticum in Navarra
  • Viaticum in Gipuzkoa
  • Viaticum in Bizkaia
  • Viaticum in Alava

 

 

V. HOUSEHOLD MOURNING AND HELP FROM NEIGHBOURS

Signs of mourning of the bereaved household

Concealing the mirrors

• Concealing other belongings

• Covering the walls

• Closing windows

Role of the neighbours during the mourning period

• The neighbourhood and neighbours with regard to the bereaved household

• • Organisation of the neighbourhood hierarchy
  • The first neighbour
  • Reconciliation and friendship between neighbours

• Help provided by the neighbours

• • Household chores and tasks
  • Primacy of family support
  • Customarily established help

 

VI. COMMUNICATING THE DEATH

Notifications

• Recipients of the notification

• Death announcers

Relatives and neighbours The first settlers Youths Female announcers Messengers and auroros choirs

Bell ringing

Person in charge of ringing the bells

• The language of the tolling of the bells

• • Religious status and sex differences
  • Death knell for children
  • Social categories

Death knells in chapels

• Burial bell tolls

Death notices

Street death notices

• Antiquity of the death notices

Telling domesticated animals of the death

• Telling the bees

• • Survival of the beehive
  • Producing more wax
  • Requesting wax and avoiding the death of the bees
  • The death of the owner
  • The new owner
  • Signs of mourning

• Telling the barn animals

 

VII. SHROUD

ashing and shrouding

• Ways of washing the corpse

• Cleansing the corpse

• Arranging the hands and feet

• Salt on the corpse

• The shroud and its types

• • Cloth shroud
  • Religious habits
  • Festive garments

Objects that accompany the corpse

• Pious symbols

• Death indulgences

• Secular objects

 

VIII. THE WAKE. GAUBELA

The wake

• Daytime vigil

Night-time vigil

• • Names
  • The wake in the Northern Basque Country (lying within France)
  • The wake in the Southern Basque Country (lying within Spain)
  • Looking after the lamp
  • Meals during the wake

The room with the deceased

Light

• Holy water

Laying out the corpse

• The corpse on the death bed

• The corpse in the main room

The coffin

• Names

Making the coffin

• Classes and types of coffins

• Duties of the carpenter

 

IX. CORPSE WAYS

Corpse ways in localities with a scattered population

Southern Basque Country

• Northern Basque Country

 

X. TAKING THE CORPSE TO THE CHURCH

The bearers

• Names

• Neighbours as bearers

• • Northern Basque Country
  • Southern Basque Country

Youth bearers in Álava

• Relatives and neighbours as bearers

Removal of the corpse

Hospitality house

• Mother house or of the patron saint

 

XI. THE FUNERAL CORTEGE

Composition of the funeral cortege

• Names

• Head of the procession

The funeral cortege in Navarra

• The funeral cortege in the Northern Basque Country

A child's burial

Northern Basque Country

• Southern Basque Country

• The godparents at a child's burial

The mourners

• Historical documentation

• Ethnographic sources

 

XII. ATTIRE IN THE FUNERAL CORTEGE

Old mourning attire

The cape

• The shawl

 

XIII. OFFERING BEARERS IN THE CORTEGE

The bearer of the offering. Names

The bread offering

• The light offering

Floral wreaths and flowers in the funeral cortege

• Flowers at the start of the century

Artificial wreaths and flowers

• Homemade crosses and wreaths

• Prevalence of flowers and wreaths

Attributed meanings

• Position in the cortege

 

XIV. OBSEQUIES

The corpse during the obsequies

• The coffin in the gateway

• Burial prior to the funeral service

• The catafalque or burial mound

• The funeral with the body present

Arrangement of the family mourners in the church

• Male mourners

• Family mourners

The funeral mass

• Names

• Types of funeral

• Satires on the types of funeral

• The social standing of the funeral

• Burial mass and Funeral rites

• «A tiempo» masses (concelebrated by different priests)

• Infant funerals

 

XV. OBSEQUIAL DAYS

Novena

• Names

Persistence and transformation of the novena

• The novena in the Northern Basque Country

• Reciting the rosary during the novena

Anniversary Mass

Southern Basque Country

• Northern Basque Country

Mass offerings

• Names

• Northern Basque Country

• Southern Basque Country

 

XVI. GRAVES IN CHURCHES. PITS

Validity of the symbolic graves

• Household grave

Burial goods

Cloth or tablecloth

• Light holders

• • Woodcutter
  • Grave. Pit
  • Argizaiola
  • Candlestick

Match

• Candle decorations

• Making candles and matches by hand

• Hamper of offerings

Activation of the grave

• Primacy of the lady of the house

• Sister's involvement

• Duties of the sister on the day of the obsequies

 

XVII. OFFERINGS AND SUFFRAGES AT THE GRAVE

Light offering

• Beliefs

• Light offering at the obsequies

• • Gipuzkoa
  • Navarra
  • Alava
  • Bizkaia
  • Northern Basque Country

Light offerings during the mourning period

• • Gipuzkoa
  • Navarra
  • Alava
  • Bizkaia
  • Northern Basque Country

Bread offering

Extent and validity of the bread offering

• Types of bread, number and weight

Names

• Offerings and recipients

Offering ritual at the obsequies

• Bread offering at the novena

• Offerings during the year of mourning

• Offerings at the anniversary mass

• Offerings on certain days

Money offerings at the grave

• Names

• The responsories of the day of the burial

Responsories during the period of mourning

• • On feast days
  • Ordinary days

Responsories on certain days of the year

• Evolution of the stipend of the responsories

Animal offerings in the past

• Historical sources

 

XVIII. ACT OF BURIAL

Attending the burial act

• Ex officio attendees

Bereavement after the burial

• Cortege to the limes

Direct cortege to the cemetery

• Large procession

Rituals in the cemetery

• Retrieval of religious symbols

Orientation of the tomb

In the cemetery

• • Orientation with respect to the Sun
  • Orientation with respect to the church
  • Orientation with respect to the floor plan of the cemetery
  • Random distribution

 

XIX. RETURNING TO THE HOUSE OF THE DECEASED AND FUNERAL FEAST

Feast and refreshments for the attendees

• The «goodwill» in Alava

• Karidadea in Gipuzkoa

Gifts to the participants in the obsequies

• To the priests

• To the coffin bearers

• To children

• To the auroros choirs

• Alms to the poor

The burial meal

• Names

Place of the meal

• • At the house of the deceased
  • In inns and taverns
  • Preparing the room and the meal

Diners

• • Relatives
  • Neighbours
  • Mezakoak
  • Other guests
  • Top table
  • Prayers

• Composition of the meal

• The burial meal at different places

• • Beskoitze (L)
  • Izpura (BN)
  • Ezpeize-Ündüreiñe (Z)
  • Basabüria (Haute Soule)
  • Aria (N)
  • Allo (N)
  • Mezkiriz (N)
  • Berastegi (G)
  • Elosua (G)
  • Abadiano (B)
  • Zeanuri (B)
  • Ribera Alta (A)
  • Salvatierra (A)

Anniversary and funeral rites meals

• Current valuations

 

XX. THE MOURNING

Restrictions during the mourning period

Attending dances and parties

• Presence in bars and public establishments

Household celebrations

• Noisy activities

Mourning apparel

Women's mourning apparel

• • Mourning veil
  • Mantalina
  • Shawl
  • Mantaleta
  • Kaputxina

• Men's mourning apparel

• • Kapa
  • Kapa ttipia and taulerra

• Children's mourning apparel

• Less rigorous mourning

 

XXI. COMMEMORATION OF THE DEAD

1 November All Saints' Day

• Offerings at the church

Visiting the cemetery

• • Southern Basque Country
  • Northern Basque Country

2 November Commemoration of the Faithful Departed or All Souls' Day

Distribution of the offerings to children

• Indulgences for the deceased

 

XXII. ASSOCIATIONS AROUND DEATH

Neighbourhood brotherhoods in Bizkaia

Brotherhood of San Miguel de Alzusta in Zeanuri

• Brotherhood of San Adrián de Argiñeta in Elorrio

Appendix

Charter of the Brotherhood of the Holy True Cross of the village of Villanueva de Valdegovía

• Book of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary of this town of S. Román

• Rules and Charter of the Brotherhood of Spirits. Llodio

• Statuts ou Règlements des Confrères de la Confrérie de Saint-Blaise du quartier d'Amots, en la Paroisse de St-Pé, du 14 fevrier 1779

«Bakartasuna» Brotherhood of the Dead (Solitude). Zeanuri

• Rules of the Brotherhood of the True Cross, founded in Alonsótegui in 1882

 

XXIII. BURIAL PLACES AND METHODS

The cemetery

• Names

• Location of the cemetery

• • Next to the place of worship
  • Cemeteries around chapels
  • Cemeteries in the outskirts

• Distribution of the cemetery area

Burial methods

• • The burial mound
  • Grave in the ground with flagstone
  • The pantheon
  • The crypt

Headstone

• • Crosses
  • Stelae

Unconsecrated ground

• • Limbo
  • Area for people who have committed suicide and non-believers
  • Specific cases
  • Civil burials

 

XXIV. GHOSTS AND WANDERING SPIRITS

Types of spirit apparitions

• Sounds and strong noises

• Lights and glows

Bodily form

• Other types of apparition

Apparition scenarios

• The house and outside the home

Reaction to the apparitions

Preventions

• Dialogues and rules

• Precautions and accreditations

• Ways of driving them away

Petitions to the spirits

• • Masses
  • Prayers
  • Settling debts
  • Fulfilling promises

Traditionalised ghost stories

• The travelling ghost hunger-priest

• The priest one mass away

• Debtor servant girl

Appendix: Ghost stories

Thundering spirit

• Shining spirit

Fire footprint

• The swine herd

Moving away in seven stages

• The travelling ghost hunger-priest

Arima herratua (âme errante) qui écrit sur un papier nu

• Apparition in church

• Group of spirits next to the cemetery

• The lamp under the bushel