mercoledì 2 maggio 2012

Between tradition and culture

Yesterday, the 1st May, I finally had the possibility to go to  "Feast of serpents" in Cocullo, a little town in province of L'Aquila.
The feast is also made to celebrate Saint Dominic, and rituals are full of symbolism. From this year and for future, this celebration, usually placed the first Thursday of May, stands on the 1st of this month.

Inside  church, while the altar is the place of ecclesiastical liturgies tied to the devotion to St. Dominic, in other places are held rituals  by the highly symbolic content:   pulling with  teeth the rope of a bell in order to preserve toothache,  taking the earth, a time bin of the church, placed in a small cave behind the niche the saint, for apotropaic uses:   It’s believed that spread on the fields or around home, it takes away the all kind of dangers , meanwhile dissolved in water and drunk, fights fever.


 The main square is the place where stay the serpents who, awaiting the procession, proudly exhibit various types of snakes that have been  able to capture. And this is a moment where ancient fears, dark  hatreds and  unjustified fears about reptiles, slowly melt to the point and, though with some residual reluctance, we are persuaded to touch a snake, almost to meet the need for a deeper relationship with supernatural world that these animals represent.



At midday the procession begins. The Holy One, led by the arms of four persons, get out the church and there, on the churchyard, quivering anxiously awaited by serpents, once again reminds everyone that he was the real ruler of snakes.


At the sides of the statue two girls in traditional costumes, carry on their heads baskets containing five sacred bread, known as "chamberlains", which, in remembrance of a miracle performed by Saint, will be offered to former law, the holders of the simulacrum and the banner.


The procession passes through the old houses are here , as it takes place, the ritual repeats archaic models constituting the remnant of an ancient world such as pan-European
Stories and metaphors in ambiguity of signs attributed to snakes, now custodians of fertility, now enemies.



Isn't it impressioning? XD

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