I have recently worked in class on Etxahun Barkox’s beautiful and touching cobla. The bad guy! The afflictions of the house began because of the creation of the “praube with beauty”, but in seventeen years she had entered the sea of misfortune, having to abandon the girl without a dowry, Marie Rospide, whom she loved, and the son that this entailed in her womb, to marry Engrazi Pelento, who had kindness. But for this woman too, says Jean Haritxelhar in his thesis, marriage was forced, because she was in love with another man. Etxahun tells us that his uncle decided to “deprimüera”, that he was “primagen xangriti” in “nineteen” years, that “three haciendas bei[zin] galdü aitagati” and that “even my mother” did not want “primürazi”. This is how Etxahun demonstrated the centrality of material conclusions in intergenerational coexistence among the Basque people of the time.

And here I see that the central theme of the January 15 issue of the weekly Le 1 hebdo is precisely the conclusion, today. However, writes the editor-in-chief, Julien Bisson, sociologists say that it is increasingly difficult for the individual to get rich from his work and that more and more people are waiting for the legacy left by their father and mother, unable to extract prosperity from their work. The tragic experience of Etxahun and Balzac’s drawing seems like we could revisit the 19th century Human comedy...

In life, heritage is not only material: it is also cultural. In this regard, we Basques have a lot of charm, because we have not interrupted the linguistic and cultural transmission in families, at least in part. The sociopolitical scientist Lionel Arnaud has shown in various articles and in last year’s meeting of the Ethnopole, sponsored by the Basque Cultural Organization, that since the 18th century, France has gradually taken a hand in the cultural field, throughout the state, trying to show through public actions that in the cultural field there are rules, that there is a hierarchy. Today, says Lionel Arnaud, official cultural actions seek to overcome this distinction and promote the creative capacities of simple citizens. But in the meantime, the disease has caused: In most of France’s other oppressed cultures, popular culture has either disappeared or is on the verge of death.

This, we could quite clearly deduce plumas.occitanica.eu from the last number extracted by the Occitan literary magazine that can be read online. It refers to the Occitan, the Breton and the Corsican. As it appears, there are no more visible public squares in these territories: theatrical production is channeled by professional or artistic groups, despite the difficulties, carrying out projects according to the administrative criteria of the public funders, in multiple cases. In the South Basque Country, the theatrical world has been structured and institutionalized to survive. In the north, however, it is still the citizens who have a part in making it live, although, as Peio Berterretxe said in LA LUZ, number 2.899, they give it a more and more stimulating social and political sense.

The life of Etxahun Barkox was tragic because it had a question of material consequence, but the immaterial culture he achieved as a result helped him to survive and, today, his coblas are included in our collective good. It is now up to us to take care of this collective good. Let’s see if the popular events of the upcoming ihauteri period will witness a cultural transmission, channeling a little hope of warmth of heart in the “delizius relatives” zones.