Arizkun in Baztán is linked to grave desecrations involving children’s remains, an unsettling clue that leads Amaia and Sarasola to consider whether contemporary crimes draw on older practices of witchcraft and sacrifice. The location becomes part of a larger investigation into the use of the dead—and the threatened killing of the living—in ritual acts.

Historical and Cultural Setting

Sarasola places the events in the context of Baztán’s long history of witchcraft. He recalls the seventeenth-century investigations of Salazar y Frías, which extended across the French border and examined beliefs that had become deeply rooted in the valley, merging with Christianity. His account also complicates the historical record: alongside confessions produced under the threat of torture, declarations described unresolved crimes against young children and adolescent girls, and the subsequent disappearance of their bodies.

The Desecrations

The profanations at Arizkun draw attention because they involve the remains of children. Sarasola explains that human remains, especially those of children, have been used in different forms of witchcraft, but distinguishes such use from human sacrifice: killing a child as an offering represents a more extreme act. Arizkun’s disturbed graves therefore point beyond simple desecration toward the possibility of a ritual system.

Connection to the Cave

Amaia links the Arizkun profanations to the cave where Berasategui and Rosario had been preparing to kill her son. She suspects that the conspicuous Tarttalo murders have distracted attention from a more consequential pattern involving desecrated family remains and the reason for the intended sacrifice. When she asks Sarasola whether the historical practices connect to both Arizkun and the cave, he slowly nods. The exchange places the location within the novel’s widening inquiry into how old beliefs may persist beneath apparently separate crimes.