IV - ESTELAS, LAUDAS AND DOMESTIC INSCRIPTIONS.
(From L. Colas "The TB"). Zuberoa, as a whole, is much less rich in discoids, ornamented laudas and domestic inscriptions than Laburdi and, above all, than Baja Navarra. Some cemeteries do not keep more than a negligible number of ancient tombs and even so, they are much smaller and much less worked than in the other two provinces. There are localities where almost nothing is found anymore: sometimes some insignificant fragments, embedded in the pavement, or used in the construction of a wall, testify that the discoid of the ancestors was known in the past in this place. This is the case of Suhare, Mendy, Idaux, Menditte, Olha by or Garindein. Some villages, hidden at the bottom of the mountains and whose isolation seemed to guarantee the preservation of ancient customs (Larrau, Sainte-Engrce, Lacarry), have barely preserved three or four discoidal ones, on the other hand without much interest. . It seems that in many towns in Suletina this type of funerary monument has ceased to be liked for a long time. I have not found any dating from the 19th century, except in Barcus, while they exist in Baja Navarra and in Laburdi. Undoubtedly, there are exceptions. Restoue, Mendibieu, Moncayolle, Cihigue, Larrebieu, are still rich in old stones. Ainharp is entirely comparable to the most interesting cemeteries in Lower Navarra, although it should be noted that this town is located on the Navarre border. In Soule, as in other places, the secularization of cemeteries has been fatal for the old monuments. I have been able to verify it in Viodos and Chraute. The facade of the houses is also decorated in an infinitely more sober way. Those magnificent historiated lintels are no longer found, those copious inscriptions that Laburdi and Baja Navarra offer. What could be the causes of such hardship? It is impossible to admit that the man from Suletino is less gifted than his brothers from Laburdi and Baja Navarra. It will be observed that the best period of the discoid appears to be, for both provinces, the one that extends from the first years of the 17th century to the second half of the 18th century. The embellishment of the ancestral tomb has probably contributed to prolonging the cult of the Laburdino and Navarrese populations by an old traditional form already of at least twenty centuries. It seems that this artistic renewal has been lacking in Soule. The same as in the neighboring provinces, they are still found, in some forgotten corner of an old cemetery, discoidal ones of visible antiquity. I must point out that it is in Soule -and exclusively in Soule- where I have found those enigmatic stelae in relief (Abense-de-Haut, Sunhar, Licq) that visibly go back a long way and are, perhaps, commemorative of events places of which the lapidary has endeavored to transmit the memory. Today the details are hardly noticeable but the very marked countryside still makes it possible to recognize the main reasons. If I have found in Lower Navarre (Saint-Martin-de-Lantabat, Ibarre) sculptures to which a mnemonic function can also be attributed, they are, from the point of view of drawing and ution, in the traditional tradition. n linear, while the Suletine stelae to which I allude constitute a curious attempt at a round shape. Apart from Ainharp, we would search in vain, in the Suletino cemeteries, for the rich decoration that unfolds on the wide discs of Baja Navarra. I believe that this last province must have had close relations with Spain, although it returned to being completely French in the 17th century. The Castilian influence must have lasted for a long time, as attested by the inscriptions in Spanish that are still found in the tombs and in the houses; Some parish registers, dating from the early years of the 17th century, are in Spanish. Laburdi, thanks to its ports, thanks above all to its constant relations with Bayonne, was more open to foreign influences. Soule, on the contrary, with its narrow valleys, its highest mountains, its most lush forests (it is, even today, the most wooded of the continental Basque provinces), had to resist them longer. Countries like the Val Dextre, the Larrau region, the D'gairie de la Petite Arbaille, must have been removed from the world, removed from diverse influences. This more complete isolation of Soule perhaps explains why a strange echo of the Middle Ages has been preserved in the theater of the Pastorals, so extensively studied by Georges Hérelle. The poverty of the funerary or domestic decoration could be explained by a reason of the same kind. The Suletinos knew, like their brothers of race, the ancient anthropomorphic discoid. But they were closer to the primitive stage. They did not adopt some epigraphical traditions. They did not reproduce in their discoids those complex decorations that abound in the neighboring province. These instruments are found much less among them, those diverse tools that remind the living of the profession of the deceased. It seems that the Suletinos have been less accessible to concepts or examples translatable into a richer ornamentation, a more varied decoration, a renewed decorative grammar. Whatever the reasons suggested to explain this relative paucity, the fact is that it exists. Soule is, of the three Basque provinces, the one whose funerary archeology offers less wealth. It comes in third place, quite a distance from Laburdi, even further from Baja Navarra.