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Spiders,
songs and suffering in Salento
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| We
go to the deep south of Italy where magic mixes
with religion and celebration with suffering in
a time-worn dance of the soul |
 When
anthropologist Ernesto
De Martino carried out his now famous study
into tarantismo
(the mythical spider's bite experienced by some
women which could only be cured by a frenzied dance)
in the Salento
area in the summer of 1959, few people could have
envisaged his findings which were published in 1961
in his book La
terra del rimorso (The Land of Remorse
- rimorso also means bitten again -ed.).
De Martino's team carried out their research
in Nardo, Galantina, Maglie and other small towns
and villages in the deep south of Apulia.
Their work unveiled an ancient culture where Christianity
was directly linked to primitive pagan traditions.
De Martino refused to interpret the tarantula's
bite literally but as part of a greater truth that
is lodged in our subconscious and which effects
our behaviour, beliefs and culture.
The frenzied dances which were traditionally prescribed
as a cure for the spider's poison are - according
to De Martino's book - a way of expressing, and
maybe even curing very different ailments.
Back in the 17th Century the Jesuit priest
Athanasius
Kircher wrote enthusiastically in his Musurgia
universalis about the therapeutic quality
of music in recovering from tarantula bites.
Kircher, unlike De Martino, doesn't attempt a complex
anthropological explanation, but rather concentrates
on the power of music as a universal healing force
describing a wounded microcosm which can only be
cured through the gift of sound. The most famous
of the refrains Kircher quotes is Antidotum tarantulae,
a melodic piece which is undoubtedly beneficial
to those of a melancholic disposition. "It
was wonderful to see how these songs could ease
emotions such as sadness, love, anger and revenge."
Numerous studies on tarantismo were carried
out after Kircher but nothing significant emerged
until the advent of De Martino who demystified the
phenomenon placing it in a socio-cultural context
where the bite (morso) transforms into remorse
(rimorso) as the people become aware of their
plight. All the repressed suffering of the working
class explodes in the frenzied dances of the
tarantate (the women supposedly bitten
by the spider) and the hopelessness of their existence
is abandoned for a few days.
 The
earth, magic, culture, celebration and religion
fuse together in one ritual which uses music - or
to be more precise the pizzica tarantata -
as its binding force. An entire people awaken to
their state of suffering thanks to the tarantula's
bite only to be delivered to collective freedom
through the therapeutic beat of the music.
Nowadays the pizzica tarantata no longer
carries out the social function identified by De
Martino, but has become part of a local musical
tradition in the able hands of groups such as Ajara,
Lu rusciu nosciu, Aramirè and Terrenure.
While the dances have been claimed by the traditional
festivals which are held at the end of June and
around the 15th of August.
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| by
FABIO
BONVICINI |
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Nov.
29th, 2001
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THE SURVIVOR'S 
