The Prohibition Against Denying Supernatural Beings

The Prohibition Against Denying Supernatural Beings is an old Baztán saying that cautions against both believing that supernatural beings exist and declaring that they do not. During a tarot reading with Engrasi, Amaia Salazar starts to dismiss the proceedings, but when Engrasi urgently warns her not to continue, Amaia supplies the formula’s missing words. The exchange makes the saying more than an abstract superstition: it is a rule carried in memory, invoked at the very moment Amaia is tempted to reject the supernatural outright.

The Rule and Its Inherited Form

The formula holds a deliberate position between belief and denial. It does not ask its speaker to affirm supernatural beings; instead, it prohibits a categorical declaration that they are unreal. The narration identifies it as an ancient formula recited by thousands of people in Baztán for hundreds of years, giving the warning a communal history beyond the immediate conversation between niece and aunt.

Its wording is divided between the two women. Engrasi begins to caution Amaia, then falters before completing the thought. Amaia pauses and finishes the old formula herself. The interruption and completion show the saying operating as something both women recognize: Engrasi fears its violation, while Amaia knows its words well enough to supply them without prompting.

The Exchange During the Reading

The rule surfaces as Amaia points to the cards and describes the curse she believes has supposedly chosen her before birth, along with the dead and supernatural figures that populate her dreams. Frustrated, she abruptly calls the whole exercise a waste of time. Engrasi responds by covering her mouth with both hands and looking at her niece with growing alarm, then tries to stop her from speaking further.

Amaia does not finish the forbidden denial; instead, she completes the traditional caution against making one. Afterward, the women remain silent for several seconds as they recover their breath and Engrasi looks at the scattered cards. Engrasi then insists that they have not finished. The reading therefore continues after Amaia's outburst, with the inherited rule marking a moment of strain rather than ending the encounter.

Cultural and Narrative Significance

The scene holds skepticism and custom together without resolving them. Amaia openly expresses frustration with the reading, yet the formula comes readily to her when Engrasi's alarm interrupts her. Her completion of it does not establish that she accepts every supernatural claim; it shows that the prohibition has force within the shared language and habits of the two women, even when one of them calls the reading pointless.

As a narrative device, the saying also preserves uncertainty. It disallows both certainty in supernatural existence and certainty in its absence, leaving the question open at the point where Amaia's dreams, the cards, and Engrasi's warning converge. The rule's force in this exchange lies not in proving what is real, but in forbidding a conclusive dismissal.