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The first neighbour was notified and he would, in turn, be entrusted with informing the local council and the parish priest. The nun sacristan would usually hand the first neighbour the funeral cross and he would respectfully carry it to the room of his neighbour; meanwhile she would toll the bell to tell the village and surrounding areas. A certain “code” was often followed depending on whether the deceased was a man, woman or child.
The first neighbour, sometimes along with the second (those neighbours are defined according to criteria that we have sought to specify), would meet with the family and draw up the list of relatives to be told. The first neighbour distributed this task among his neighbours and other locals if needed, who thus became death’s death's harbingers, ''hil mezukari''; he would undertake the longest journey. The announcement, ''hil abertitzia'', would let people know about the death and indicate the date of the funeral. Some animals (cows, sheep, bees, dogs) would also be told of the death and that would be left up to a member of the family. Some of those animals could mourn for a considerable length of time, particularly the bees and ewes: they were kept in the burn, their bells were kept silent or a cloth was placed over them.
And finally, the announcement was echoed with the death knell tolled three times a day, at dawn, at midday and at night: ''argitzian, eguerdian, ilhuntzian''.