English
Cimitero delle Fontanelle and "The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" or "The Neapolitan Skull Cult" of Naples, Italy by Morbid Anatomy
"Death in Naples" by Michael A. Ledeen
"Enigmatic Traditions: The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" by Il Regno
"The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead: A Profile for Virginia Commonwealth University" by Elizabeth Harper
Italiano
"Le Anime del Purgatorio nella Tradizione Napoletana"
"Il Culto dei Morti a Napoli" di Andrea Romanazzi
From the official website of the Comune di Frigento:
The statue of the Saint is taken in the streets of the town with a procession. Some women who are devoted to the saint put on their heads the “mezzetti” which are large wooden containers that contain roughly 30 kg of wheat.
The “mezzetti” are decorated with weaved wheat, colored ribbons and plastic flowers.
In this clip, you can see many traditions which are still alive today, including the pinning of money to the saint! (I've yet to see an assassination at a festa in New York, though.)
Forty minutes of plague trance, for all your plague trance needs. NB - The song is definitely for San Rocco, but the image is of San Giuseppe! Here is an image of San Rocco for contemplation while listening:
La Smorfia is a type of Southern Italian gematria. It maps dream motifs onto numbers 1 through 90, revealing which numbers should be played in the lottery. Dictionaries mapping thousands of items and ideas onto these numbers are popular in Southern Italy, particularly Naples. You can read one online for free: Nuova Smorfia del giuoco del lotto (1866) - Giustino Rumeo
Or, if you are looking for an easier way to interpret your dreams according to La Smorfia, this website may be of help.
In this video, my teacher, Alessandra Belloni, demonstrates a ritual rhythm used in devotion to San Rocco in Calabria. This is a 6/8 rhythm, which is a time signature associated with trance and spirit contact in traditional religions from around the world, including African diasporic traditions.
Above: A mosaic from Pompeii which appears to depict the tammurriata being played and danced in Antiquity.
"The arms are held in front of the body with the elbows outward, and the movements that they make are basically two, inspired by agricultural activities. The first is a downwards gesture of sowing. The second is an upwards gesture that resembles the movements made when collecting fruit from trees. The steps of the tammurriata follow the rhythm of the drums and are characterized by mirrored movement of the feet, side-to-side, back and forth, or toe-to-heel of the two dancers. All in all, the dancers move in circles." - Arianna Sacco
"Life causes motion, and motion can give evidence of life. This becomes: 'Life causes motion, hence motion is evidence of life.' Humans can see that the motions of work have a direct purpose, but motion for motion's sake is something else--'dance' broadly taken. (In the languages of eastern Europe, the same word often means both 'dance' and 'play,' and other nondirect motions like swinging, tickling, and laughing may fall in this basket. Medieval western Europeans, too, called the nocturnal dancing and feasting of the spirits the game, its goal being an abundance of crops called luck.) Supernatural powers, of course, need not work to survive; hence divine life simply 'dances' and in this very act of dancing is thought to create life. ... "The spirits that villagers sought to influence were the spirits of the dead. But different categories of dead existed, with different powers and different connections to the living.
"First, one's dead ancestors. Since they had begotten the living, one could reasonably appeal to them to help their offspring survive. And because these ancestors had been buried in the ground (where their spirits were assumed to pass much of their time), presumably they could help the seeds down there--the newly sown crops--to germinate and grow. Basic to this belief is the notion of resurrection: the seed seems dead, it is buried, it rises to produce new seed. The eternal cycle of life.
"Second were the spirits of the dead of other villages. These were particularly dangerous because they would be busy sequestering all the existing abundance for their offspring. So ritual dancers, from the Balkans to Britain, marked out territories and fought intruding bands, to the death if necessary.
"Finally, there existed a very special group: young women born into the clan who had died before having any children--hence not ancestors of the living but still belonging to the community. Most important, they had not used their natural store of fertility. So, people reasoned, if we're especially nice to them, they might bestow that unused fertility on us. Because unmarried girls in the living community spent much of their time singing and dancing together, people inferred by analogy that the spirits of dead girls would likewise band together and spend their time singing, dancing, swimming, laughing, and so on. These Dancing Goddesses inhabited the wilds, controlling the rain and other waters, creating fertility and healing powers people needed. The challenge was to lead, cajole, trap, or entice them into the cultivated areas to shed their fertility here, and one way to do this was to do what they did: dance."
Elizabeth Wayland Barber, The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance, pp. 3-4.
napulitano
Si mont' o si 'ma mont' 'e na jastemm' Si 'a morte si 'na mort' ca' po' tremm' Montagna fatta 'e lava 'e cient' len' (gue) Tu tien' 'mman a te' sta vita meja
So pizz' 'e case o so pizz' 'e galera addò staje chiuse d'a matina a sera si' o purgatorio 'e tutt' chesta 'ggente ca vive dint' e barrache e vive 'e stient'
si fumm' o si nun fumm' 'o faje rumore 'o fuoco che te puort' dint' o core quann' fa notte 'e o ciel' se fa scur' sul' o ricordo 'e te ce fa paura
chi campa 'nsiene 'a te, te para' nient' si jesce pazz è pazz overamente l'unica verità pe' tutt' quante sarria chell' 'e fui'
ma po' addo' jamm' , primma ca tocca juorno dopp' tant' stu' ffuoco e lava ce port' tutt' quant' a 'mmiez' a via
(strumentale)
chi campa 'nsiene 'a te, te para' nient' si jesce pazz è pazz overamente l'unica verità pe' tutt' quante sarria chell' 'e fui'
Si mont' o si 'ma mont' 'e na jastemm' Si 'a morte si 'na mort' ca' po' tremm' Montagna fatta 'e lava 'e cient' len' (gue) Tu tien' 'mman a te' sta vita meja
English
You're a mountain, but a swearing mountain. You're death, but death that sends tremors. Mountain of lava, of hundreds of paths, you hold in your hands this life of mine.
Is this a place for homes or a place for jail
Where you're locked from morning till night? You're purgatory for all these people who live in slums and who live in need.
Whether you smoke or not you still make noise its the fire you bear in your heart. When the night falls and the sky gets dark the mere thought of you makes us tremble.
Those who live with you, don't be surprised if they go out mad they really are mad. The only (truth?) safety for us would be to run away from you...
and yet, where shall we go? before the day breaks this river of lava will drag us along and leave us homeless.
(instrumental)
Those who live with you, don't be surprised if they go out mad they really are mad. The only (truth?) safety for us would be to run away from you...
You're a mountain, but what a mountain. You're a mountain, but a swearing mountain. You're death, but death that sends tremors. Mountain of lava, of hundreds of paths, you hold in your hands this life of mine.
"Edicola at Naples. The niche at the top contains a Madonna con Bambino; the niche at the bottom holds a diorama of the souls in Purgatory."
Michael Carroll, Veiled Threats.
“These purgatories, which meet the eye more or less upon the walls in every part of Italy, abound to a singular degree in the kingdom of Naples, where the neighboring volcanos appear to have furnished the imagination of the artist with more than common horrors.” (pp. 45-46) “A profusion of tapers was thought particularly acceptable to [Ceres]. ‘Then light the unctuous torch; should incense fail, with Ceres chaste not costly gifts prevail.’ (Fast. iv. 411) But it was further usual to dedicate to her candles or torches of that enormous size which I have said are now offered to St. Agatha; emblematical, no doubt, of the pines which she is reputed to have plucked up and lighted at Aetna whens he traversed Sicily in search of her daughter Proserpine.” (pp. 63-64)
“...the dress of the persons officiating the procession of the saint... was made expressly for the occasion, and was invariably white. In all heathen rites that colour was thought to have a favourable influence upon the gods, and the prayer of a suppliant so lcothed was held to have a more common claim upon the bounty of Heaven. In the worship of Ceres, however, no other colour was even permitted…” (p. 71)
“Again, the custom of kissing objects of religious reverence, so universally prevailing in Italy and Sicily, seems to have been a mark of affection formerly bestowed on the images of the heathen gods with equal profusion.” (pp. 75-76)
“Finally, it may be remarked, that as the greater and less Eleusinia were celebrated in the same year, at an interval of six months, so are there now two annual festivals to S. Agatha, the one in February, the other in August. ...The festival of S. Rosolia [sic], the patron saint of Palermo, exhibits a similar spectacle; and I doubt not that both the one and the other derive their origin from a common source--the honours paid to pagan deities, but especially to Ceres, whose worship radiating from Enna, the centre of Sicily, and the throne of her glory, extended to the most remote and inaccessible shores of the island.” (pp. 82-83)
“Thus the temple of Vesta is now the church of the Madonna of the Sun; fire being the prevailing idea in both appellations. That of Romulus and Remus is now Cosmo and Damien, not only brothers, but twin brothers. The site of the old Templum Salutis is supposed to be occupied by the church of S. Vitale, if not an imaginary saint, at least one whose name was selected as doing little violence to that of Salus. In the church of S. Maria Maggiore, the cradle or manger in which our Savior was laid is amongst the relics; a peculiarity very probably derived from that building having succeeded the temple of Juno Lucina.” (pp. 91-92)
“I will add, that the necklaces, rings, and pendants for the ears, with which the [pagan gods] were bedecked, are now lavished on the [saints] with equal profusion. Indeed, the excess of rings seems, if possible, to be greater than in the days of Pliny…” (p. 105)
“...the practice of drawing curtains before these figures, to create in the people a mysterious awe, had its commencement in Pagan times. Thus we read in the 2d Book of Kings (ch. Xxiii. 7.) “of the women who wove hangings for the groves,” which is explained by some of the commentators, with apparen reason, to mean ‘curtains spread before the idol of the grove for the purpose of procuring it respect’… (pp. 105-106)
“There is every reason to suppose that the Egyptian temples did not greatly differ in the style of their furniture from those of Italy; the latter country having derived a great part of her mythology, and many of her religious rites, from the people of the Nile.” (pp. 107-108)
“The sounding brass, in some shape or other, was struck in the sacred rites of Dea Syria; and in those of Hecate. ‘It was thought,’ says the scholiast on Theocritus, ‘to be good for all kinds of expiation and purification.’ It had, moreover, some secret influence over the spirits of the departed. …[bells] were instruments well known to the ancients, and employed by them… for many superstitious purposes.” (pp. 115-116)
“Again, the familiarity with which the Romans treated the effigies of their gods is not less remarkable with respect to those of our Savior and the saints, in the present Italians and Sicilians. I have seen them expostulate with an image in a church in a half whisper, with as much emphasis and expression as if an answer had been forthwith expected to have issued from its lips.” (pp. 123-124)
“When disappointed by his tutelary saints, an Italian or Sicilian will sometimes proceed so far, as to heap reproaches, curses, and even blows, on the wax, wood, or stone, which represents them.” (p. 125)
In his Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs, Discoverable in Modern Italy and Sicily (1823), Rev. John James Blunt describes several locations where the Lares, or Roman domestic gods, were commonly positioned and where contemporary Italians and Sicilians often keep images of saints. These are:
Vestiges of ancient manners and customs, discoverable in modern Italy and Sicily (1832) by the Rev. John James Blunt is a compilation of Rev. Blunt's observations on the culture of the Mezzogiorno region compared with texts describing that of antiquity. While Rev. Blunt, an Englishman, tends toward a tone at once condescending and titillated, many of his observations are worth reading. Chapters:
I. Introductory Remarks II. On Saints III. On the Virgin IV. On the Festival of S. Agatha at Catania V. On the Churches of Italy and Sicily VI. On the Religious Services and Ceremonies of the Italians and Sicilians VII. On the mendicant Monks VIII. On sacred Dramas IX. On the Dramatic Nature of the Ceremonies of the Church of Italy X. On Charms XI. On the Burial of the Dead XII. On the Agriculture of Italy XIII. On the Towns, Houses, Utensils, &c. Of the Italians and Sicilians XIV. On the Ordinary Habits, Food, and Dress, of the Italians and Sicilians XV. Miscellaneous Coincidences of Character between the ancient and modern Italians
It is available through the grace of archive.org for reading and download here.
"Some Italian Americans preserved the Old World custom of personifying Lent as an old woman represented by a doll made from a potato decorated with feathers and cloth. Each week the children of the household would remove a feather from the doll until by the time Easter came it was totally denuded. Then the doll was burned. "The climax of the Lenten season and Passion week on Good Friday begins a three-day period, ending on Easter Sunday, which condenses the previous seven weeks of spiritual concentration. Good Friday itself has been marked by religious processions, the most thoroughly documented being that of Maria Addolorata (the Virgin of Sorrows) in Brooklyn. Many residents of the parish of the Church of the Sacred Heart and Saint Stephen trace their ancestry to Bari in Apulia, where the tradition of the procession originated. They gather in the church in the early morning on Good Friday to await the priest and several formally attired young men, who will carry the statue of the Virgin on a platform through the streets. Accompanied by various parish organizations, the church band (playing funeral music), and any parishioners who care to join, the statue makes its way through the neighborhood, pausing frequently to permit devotees to pay their respects. As the procession passes their houses, people kneel to receive a blessing or join the marchers. Many have put up special decorations of flowers and lights.
"Shortly after the procession of the Virgin leaves from the front of the church, another group sets out from the rear. Bearing a glass coffin with a life-size statue of the crucified Jesus, several men set out through the streets on a route that will bring them into contact with the Virgin's procession when it ends at the church door. The meeting of the two processions (la giunta) climaxes the event, which is supposed to depict the mother's mournful search for her lost, now-dead son.
"Italian Americans in Brooklyn also process on Good Friday in reenactments of the Stations of the Cross, marked by black crosses at sites throughout the neighborhood. At each, the procession of parish organizations bearing their identifying banners pauses while a priest narrates the events depicted there, and some are enacted by costumed children.
"Such Good Friday customs serve as commemorative reminders of the events in sacred history which charter the fundamentals of Christian doctrine. They also allow participants a sense of imaginative identification with the happenings in the Passion of Jesus and the sorrows of his mother. The following day's activities offer opportunities for a final cleansing and purgation before the celebration of Easter. Purification on Holy Saturday may be domestic, as in the Sicilian-American custom of using the day to cleanse one's house of the devil, or it may be personal. According to Ligurian tradition reported in California, after bathing the face on Holy Saturday, one should recite, 'Flowing Water / Quench this ardent fire that courses through my veins.'"
Malpezzi and Clements, Italian-American Folklore, pp. 90-91.
Transcription courtesy of Preghiere Siciliane:
Posta:
San Giusippuzzu fustivu patri virgini fustivu comu la Matri Maria la rosa, Giuseppi lu gigghiu datini aiutu, riparu e cunsigghiu.
Scura ora e aggiorna dumani la pruvvidenza nn'aviti a mannari la pruvvidenza di la casa mia l'aspettu di Gesu, Giuseppi e Maria.
Grani:
Ludamu l'eternu Quantu, lu Patri, lu Figghiu e lu Spiritu Santu Sia lodatu e binidittu sia lu nomu di Gèsu, Giuseppi e Maria.
Pater Noster
Ave Maria
"Many Italian-American women have had knowledge of folk prophylactics and cures which they use for the daily health of family members. At the same time, folk medical specialists, individuals with special knowledge and gifts, were available for serious ailments. Particularly when an illness lasted for some time or when its cause was uncertain, Italian Americans went to folk healers, usually women who could diagnose the source of an ailment, perform the necessary procedures for curing it, and prescribe additional remedial activity as needed. Such healers usually had to be versed in two kinds of medicine: one based on a folk pharmacopeia of herbs and other natural ingredients, and one requiring expertise in magical counteractants to illness. The latter often overlapped with cures for malocchio, but it also included magical responses to ailments whose causation was purely natural. Sometimes the healer would rely on only one kind of medicine, but sometimes she had to combine the natural and the magical to effect the required cure. "Some communities had folk medical specialists, such as the spilato among Sicilians in Buffalo, New York. This person, blessed with an inborn healing gift that became honed through instruction traditionally by a relative, could use his or her hands to cure sprains, strains, stiffness, bruises, and other skeleto-muscular disorders. Generally, specialists in magical healing were able to practice their skills in the United states much more effectively than those who relied on natural remedies, since the ingredients for the latter were often unavailable in the New World and might be replaced by relatively inexpensive patent medications that were available to anyone. Usually the herbal remedies that have endured in Italian-American folk tradition are those requiring no specialized healer status within the community. They are truly 'home remedies.'
"There is also an interplay between scientific and magical folk medicine, seen in some ways in which Italian Americans have traditionally promoted good health. These include drinking holy water, eating a bowl of grapes on New Year's Day before rising, putting blessed palms from Palm Sunday beneath the mattress, sprinkling clothes with salt, wearing garlic or camphor in a pouch around the neck, or having a priest bless one's house."
Frances M. Malpezzi and Wiliam M. Clements, Italian-American Folklore, pp. 134-135.
Amaro (literally, "bitter") refers to a class of Italian herbal aperitifs/digestifs. Many of these are based on recipes which are hundreds of years old and steeped in cultural memory. Definitely worth exploring!
Amaro 101: An Introduction to Italian Amari
"Women outnumbered men in the devotion since the time of the earliest available documents, although they were not included in its organizational life. They have always been the primary economic support of the devotion. With only about two exceptions, women wrote in to report the graces granted by the Madonna even when the grace had been bestowed on a man. Women were also the central figures in the life of the church.... "Women felt a profound sense of identity and a special closeness to the Madonna, as they reveal in their letters to her requesting graces or thanking her for favors granted. When their sufferings as mothers and wives were most intense, as these women tell their stories, when they felt that no one else could understand their particular agonies, they turned to the one who long ago had appealed to the masses of Europe because of her evident participation in humanity's trials. The mothers and grandmothers of the women of Italian Harlem had contributed to the evolution and popularity of this image, which now found an urban restatement. The Madonna to whom these women were so attached was not a distant, asexual figure, but a woman like themselves who had suffered for and with her child. Her power was located precisely in those areas where the power of Italian women, in all its complexity, was located: the domus. Like Italian women, the Madonna was expected to hold families together. She was also asked to forgive and to protect, suggesting a complex and considerable power--and one that could be wielded capriciously."
Robert Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street, pp. 205-206.
"From a description that dates back to the first half of the eighteenth century, we learn that the choreutic-musical-chromatic exorcism could be held at home or outdoors, in either case with the ceremonial observance of several distinct particulars and sometimes even the artificial preparation of the surroundings in the manner of a real 'sacred space'. Here is a description by Nicola Caputo, a doctor and scholar from Lecce:
They customarily adorn the bedroom dedicated to the dance of the tarantati with verdant branches outfitted with numerous ribbons and silken sashes in gaudy colors. They place similar drapery throughout the room; sometimes they prepare a sort of cauldron or tub full of water, decorated with vine leaves and green fronds from other trees; or they make pretty fountains of limpid water spout, capable of lifting the spirits, and it is near these that the tarantati perform the dance, seeming to draw the greatest delight from them, as well as the rest of the setting. They contemplate the drapes, the fronds, and the artificial rivulets, and they wet their hands and heads at the fountain. They also remove damp bands of vine leaves from the cauldron and strew them all over their bodies, or--when the vessel is large enough--they plunge themselves inside, and in this way they can more easily bear the fatigue of the dance. It often happens that those who go dancing through the towns and hamlets accompanied by the usual music are brought to an orchard, where, in the shade of a tree, near a pond or brook offered by nature or prepared through craft, they abandon themselves to the dance with the greatest delight, while groups of youths in search of pleasure and pranks gather near. Among the latter mingle more than a few who are approaching old age and who, contemplating with serious curiosity the melodic frolicking, seem to exhort the youths with unspoken admonishment..."
Ernesto de Martino, The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism, p. 87.
"The Jews had no nine days' religious celebration or nine days' mourning or feast on the ninth day after the death or burial of relatives and friends. They held the number seven more sacred than any other. On the contrary, we find among the ancient Romans an official nine days' religious celebration whose origin is related in Livy (I, xxxi). After a shower of stones on the Alban Mount, an official sacrifice, whether because of a warning from above or of the augurs' advice, was held on nine days to appease the gods and avert evil. From then on the same novena of sacrifices was made whenever the like wonder was announced (cf. Livy, XXI, lxii; XXV, vii; XXVI, xxiii etc.). "Besides this custom, there also existed among the Greeks and Romans that of a nine days' mourning, with a special feast on the ninth day after death or burial. This, however, was rather of a private or family character (cf. Homer, Iliad, XXIV, 664, 784; Virgil, Aeneid, V, 64; Tacitus, Annals, VI, v.). The Romans also celebrated their parentalia novendialia, a yearly novena (13 to 22 Feb.) of commemoration of all the departed members of their families (cf. Mommsen, "Corp. Inscript. Latin.", I, 386 sq.). The celebration ended on the ninth day with a sacrifice and a joyful banquet. There is a reference to these customs in the laws of the Emperor Justinian ("Corp. Jur. Civil. Justinian.", II, Turin, 1757, 696, tit. xix, "De sepulchro violato"), where creditors are forbidden to trouble the heirs of their debtor for nine days after his death. St. Augustine (P.L., XXXIV, 596) warns Christians not to imitate the pagan custom, as there is no example of it in Holy Writ. Later on, the same was done by the Pseudo-Alcuin (P.L., CI, 1278), invoking the authority of St. Augustine, and still more sharply by John Beleth (P.L., CCII, 160) in the twelfth century. Even Durandus in his "Rationale" (Naples, 1478), writing on the Office of the Dead, remarks that "some did not approve this, to avoid the appearance of aping pagan customs".
"Nevertheless, in Christian mortuary celebrations, one finds that of the ninth day with those of the third and seventh. The "Constitutiones Apostolicae" (VIII, xlii; P.G., I, 1147) already speak of it. The custom existed specially in the East, but is found also among the Franks and Anglo-Saxons. Even if it was connected with an earlier practice of the pagans, it nevertheless had in itself no vestige of superstition. A nine days' mourning with daily Mass was a distinction, naturally, which could be shared by none but the higher classes. Princes and the rich ordered such a celebration for themselves in their wills; even in the wills of popes and cardinals such orders are found. Already in the Middle Ages the novena of Masses for popes and cardinals was customary. Later on, the mortuary celebration for cardinals became constantly more simple, until finally it was regulated and fixed by the Constitution "Praecipuum" of Benedict XIV (23 Nov., 1741). For deceased sovereign pontiffs the nine days' mourning was retained, and so came to be called simply the "Pope's Novena" (cf. Mabillon, "Museum Italicum", II, Paris, 1689, 530 sqq., "Ordo Roman. XV"; P.L., LXXVIII, 1353; Const. "In eligendis" of Pius IV, 9 Oct., 1562). The usage still continues and consists chiefly in a novena of Masses for the departed. A rescript of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (22 Apr., 1633) informs us that such novenas of mourning, officia novendialia ex testamento, were generally known and allowed in the churches of religious (Decr. Auth. S.R.C., 604). They are no longer in common use, though they have never been forbidden, and indeed, on the contrary, novendiales precum et Missarum devotiones pro defunctis were approved by Gregory XVI (11 July, 1853 [sic]) and indulgenced for a confraternity agonizantium in France (Resc. Auth. S.C. Indulg., 382)."
Hilgers, Joseph. "Novena." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 20 Feb. 2016<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11141b.htm>. Emphasis mine.