Legado en los huesos - Facts

 

The novel is set in the area in northern Spain called Baztan. This area is in Navarra and the river Baztan flows through it. Baztan is a municipality from the Chartered Community of Navarre. It is located 58 km from Pamplona, the capital of Navarre. It is the largest municipality in Navarre, with around 376.8 km2 and just over 8,000 inhabitants.

Amaia and James live in Pamplona. Pamplona is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre.

Amaia grew up in Elizondo, where most of the action takes place. Elizondo is a town located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. It is located on both banks of the Baztan River. 

When the murderers commit suicide, they leave the word 'tarttalo' near where they die, written on paper or on walls. Tartaro in Basque mythology, is an enormously strong one-eyed giant very similar to the Greek Cyclops that Odysseus faced in Homer's Odyssey. He is said to live in caves in the mountains and catches young people in order to eat them; in some accounts he eats sheep also.

Amaia also investigates the profanation of a church in Arizkun. Arizkun is a village located in the municipality of Baztan. 

They find a bone in the church, which seems to belong to a baby, and Jonan calls it mairu-beso. Mairu-beso is the arm of a child that has died without being baptized. 

The profanation of the church is connected to the agotes (cagots), a social group that were marginalised in the Middle Ages. The Cagots were a persecuted minority who lived in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. The discriminatory treatment they faced included social segregation and restrictions on marriage and occupation. Despite laws and edicts from higher levels of government and religious authorities, this discrimination persisted into the 20th century.

Flora now lives in Zarautz. Zarautz  is a coastal town located in central Gipuzkoa. The beach is known for being the longest in the Basque Country and one of longest of the Cantabrian cornice.

Amaia discovers that the bones found in the profanated church came from the itxusuria of the family home. The term itxusuria is a Basque concept,  referred to the narrow strip of land located between the wall of a house and the eaves' drip line. Historically, this space was used as a burial ground for infants who died before they could be baptized. Because it sits directly under the shelter of the family home, it is considered a sacred family space.