The Land matters. Where you live, How you live, The culture with which you surround yourself, Matters.
Your environment influences you subtly. This is one of the reasons I love living in New Orleans. It is a wonderful mix of Old World and New World. We have strong European influences. These influences tend to be from the French, Spanish, German, Italian primarily Sicilian cultures. We have strong African influences a result of the period of slavery. We have, in American, unique mixtures of European and African influences in the legacy of the French Code Noir. We have American Indian influences mingling with African influences. We have the Cajuns who came to Louisiana in the 1700s.
This place and its unique melange of history makes for an open and interesting life. It has an interesting way of existing "between the worlds", slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. This protects us. So some would say it isolates us and insulates us and makes us backwards. But in many ways we are so far behind we are head. We still have a walkable city with unique neighborhoods. We support local businesses and miss them when they are gone. We don't mind being silly. Or being perceived as unusual. We dance in the face of death. Our jazz funerals are a unique combination of a Irish funeral dirge and African dance. Where else could this have happened?
Can you imagine another city on the planet that, in 2005, could have been completely emptied of every citizen by hurricane followed by an engineering disaster that would have had so many people WANT to return? It's amazing. Some would say foolhardy, others magical.
Where ever you live take the time to know your landscape. Sure this means climate, geography, etc. But it should also include history of the place. Nature (climate, location, geography) influences "Place" but so do the imprints left by history. Get to know these as well. Knowing yourself is part of what it takes to make a witch. So is knowing the place where you live.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Requiem
By Mark Folse
Please watch the video and remember.
If you think it can't happen where you are... think again.
Please watch the video and remember.
If you think it can't happen where you are... think again.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Women's Work & Post Katrina New Orleans
The Post-Katrina, Semiseparate World of Gender Politics
Pamela Tyler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the New York Times reported "a wave of citizen activism" in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, it failed to mention that much of the wave was wearing lipstick and carrying a purse. Mopping up is, and always has been, women's work, so it comes as no surprise that large numbers of local women were active in post-Katrina recovery efforts in New Orleans. While some worked singly, volunteering their help in countless ways, others chose the timeworn path of women's associations. This essay focuses on the activities of three organizations formed by women after the hurricane: Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, the Katrina Krewe, and Women of the Storm.
In the weeks after Katrina, educated, economically comfortable women in New Orleans passed through historically familiar stages that led from a growing awareness of unmet needs, to frustration over official ineptitude, to the formation of women's organizations, which flowered into full-blown women's activism. Indignation over the failure of government galvanized New Orleans women as it had women reformers of the Progressive Era, with whom they have much in common. As women have done for decades, they responded by joining with like-minded women and pursuing a course of activism to bring change.
The experiences of these New Orleans women activists reprise themes of Progressive Era women who battled along a broad front of issues, including the prevention of cruelty to animals, the care of the mentally disabled, consent laws for marriage, and better teacher salaries. These activist women in post-Katrina New Orleans exemplify the silk-stocking tradition of reformism, which has a long history in the Crescent City. In the 1890s, the Women's League for Sewerage and Drainage, led by the sisters Jean and Kate Gordon, of later woman suffrage fame, advocated a modern sewerage and drainage system to curb the periodic epidemics and flooding caused by primitive waste disposal methods and entirely inadequate drainage, which the city had done nothing to improve. Their energetic work resulted in the passage of a property tax increase; the New Orleans press claimed that their small women's pressure group "probably did as much work for the special tax as all the men in this city put together." After 1920, enfranchised New Orleans women frequently participated in electoral campaigns under the banner of "good government" to oust individuals they labeled "corrupt." Their unpaid work of lobbying, canvassing, monitoring, and publicizing often bore fruit. Women pressed state and local governments to adopt measures to protect women and children in factories, to close saloons on election day, and to pay male and female school teachers equally. Elite women reformers became darlings of the local media, as press coverage typically lauded their efforts and praised their motives.
New Orleans women reformers of those earlier eras made use of the southern lady mystique and the magic cloak of privilege as they worked toward their goals. Woven of manner, speech, and social connections, enhanced by the wardrobe and confidence that money can buy, that cloak guaranteed them entrée and helped shield them from criticism. In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans women of the economic elite, equipped with similar advantages, again donned that cloak and stepped forward to work for reforms that they found compelling. * * *
All true, but also so did many less well connected and less well off women join in the fray. One was my friend Karen Gadbois who created Squandered Heritage and who's capacity to see the Web of Life lead to a Peabody, who now writes for The Lens and who still inspires me.
* * * There are about 4475 more words in this article. But there is a fee to read them.
Pamela Tyler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the New York Times reported "a wave of citizen activism" in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, it failed to mention that much of the wave was wearing lipstick and carrying a purse. Mopping up is, and always has been, women's work, so it comes as no surprise that large numbers of local women were active in post-Katrina recovery efforts in New Orleans. While some worked singly, volunteering their help in countless ways, others chose the timeworn path of women's associations. This essay focuses on the activities of three organizations formed by women after the hurricane: Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, the Katrina Krewe, and Women of the Storm.
In the weeks after Katrina, educated, economically comfortable women in New Orleans passed through historically familiar stages that led from a growing awareness of unmet needs, to frustration over official ineptitude, to the formation of women's organizations, which flowered into full-blown women's activism. Indignation over the failure of government galvanized New Orleans women as it had women reformers of the Progressive Era, with whom they have much in common. As women have done for decades, they responded by joining with like-minded women and pursuing a course of activism to bring change.
The experiences of these New Orleans women activists reprise themes of Progressive Era women who battled along a broad front of issues, including the prevention of cruelty to animals, the care of the mentally disabled, consent laws for marriage, and better teacher salaries. These activist women in post-Katrina New Orleans exemplify the silk-stocking tradition of reformism, which has a long history in the Crescent City. In the 1890s, the Women's League for Sewerage and Drainage, led by the sisters Jean and Kate Gordon, of later woman suffrage fame, advocated a modern sewerage and drainage system to curb the periodic epidemics and flooding caused by primitive waste disposal methods and entirely inadequate drainage, which the city had done nothing to improve. Their energetic work resulted in the passage of a property tax increase; the New Orleans press claimed that their small women's pressure group "probably did as much work for the special tax as all the men in this city put together." After 1920, enfranchised New Orleans women frequently participated in electoral campaigns under the banner of "good government" to oust individuals they labeled "corrupt." Their unpaid work of lobbying, canvassing, monitoring, and publicizing often bore fruit. Women pressed state and local governments to adopt measures to protect women and children in factories, to close saloons on election day, and to pay male and female school teachers equally. Elite women reformers became darlings of the local media, as press coverage typically lauded their efforts and praised their motives.
New Orleans women reformers of those earlier eras made use of the southern lady mystique and the magic cloak of privilege as they worked toward their goals. Woven of manner, speech, and social connections, enhanced by the wardrobe and confidence that money can buy, that cloak guaranteed them entrée and helped shield them from criticism. In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans women of the economic elite, equipped with similar advantages, again donned that cloak and stepped forward to work for reforms that they found compelling. * * *
All true, but also so did many less well connected and less well off women join in the fray. One was my friend Karen Gadbois who created Squandered Heritage and who's capacity to see the Web of Life lead to a Peabody, who now writes for The Lens and who still inspires me.
* * * There are about 4475 more words in this article. But there is a fee to read them.
Friday, August 27, 2010
A 911 Investigation .... an 829 investigation
Levees.Org has been recommending that there be an investigation into the largest engineering failure ever to occur in America.
Click here for more detail...
Click here for more detail...
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
What is is about New Orleans
Levees.org supporters know that a letter from Levees.org nearly always contains an action item or some pressing to do right away.
But as we approach the 5th Anniversary of the Worst Civil Engineering Disaster in U.S. History, we will make a couple of exceptions and reach out perhaps only to share....
This past June, I met Dr. Steve Gorelick at a 3-day conference in New Orleans hosted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. On his own, he wrote me recently about his reaction (and his family's) to the City and its people. I found his letter fascinating, and with his permission, I have reprinted it here.
My wife Amy, 12 year-old daughter Molly and I have not been able to stop talking about NOLA. I mean, I know NOLA is hip and mysterious and legendary and what-not. But setting aside all those popular, oft-repeated perceptions, I think it's safe to say that -- completely unexpectedly -- we hooked into a much deeper narrative, one I don't think we even fully understand two months later.
Maybe it was the unexpected lack of repression or puritanical nonsense. Maybe the lack of shame. Or maybe it was the disarming, fearless expression of emotion as people described their homes, their parents, their lost photos, their recipes. I just know that it seemed like a level of personal investment by people in their own, special place that I have never seen anywhere in the world.
And I don't think that many Americans - especially policy makers and politicians -- get what looked pretty obvious to me: All the anger people still feel, all the activism like Levees.org fueled by that anger, and all the mournfulness about the shameful way Katrina refugees and other residents were and are still treated, looked to a first-time outsider as so raw, so intimate, that I started to see it as a marriage. Strange, huh? A marriage?
What I mean is that so many people talked about their connection to their place almost as if they were in long-term, committed, passionate, occasionally rageful, yet lovingly turbulent relationships. I just don't remember ever seeing or hearing that anywhere else. Ever.
At one point, a week after I got back, I actually found myself laughing as I thought: "God help anyone in public life who imagines that the people in NOLA fighting to rebuild and fighting to investigate the history of negligence might actually settle for half a solution or half an investigation! Settle? Please! The people I met seemed as likely to settle for a cold beignet as for a half-baked investigation that reveals anything less than the whole truth of what happened.
It's funny: I have been to conflict zones and countries where people would, in a split second -- kill if they felt their place threatened. Yet I had the feeling New Orleans people have an even stronger tie. And it's not that they would kill. It was even stronger than that. It was an almost mystical refusal to die.
And I need to feel it again. There. Soon.
But as we approach the 5th Anniversary of the Worst Civil Engineering Disaster in U.S. History, we will make a couple of exceptions and reach out perhaps only to share....
This past June, I met Dr. Steve Gorelick at a 3-day conference in New Orleans hosted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. On his own, he wrote me recently about his reaction (and his family's) to the City and its people. I found his letter fascinating, and with his permission, I have reprinted it here.
My wife Amy, 12 year-old daughter Molly and I have not been able to stop talking about NOLA. I mean, I know NOLA is hip and mysterious and legendary and what-not. But setting aside all those popular, oft-repeated perceptions, I think it's safe to say that -- completely unexpectedly -- we hooked into a much deeper narrative, one I don't think we even fully understand two months later.
Maybe it was the unexpected lack of repression or puritanical nonsense. Maybe the lack of shame. Or maybe it was the disarming, fearless expression of emotion as people described their homes, their parents, their lost photos, their recipes. I just know that it seemed like a level of personal investment by people in their own, special place that I have never seen anywhere in the world.
And I don't think that many Americans - especially policy makers and politicians -- get what looked pretty obvious to me: All the anger people still feel, all the activism like Levees.org fueled by that anger, and all the mournfulness about the shameful way Katrina refugees and other residents were and are still treated, looked to a first-time outsider as so raw, so intimate, that I started to see it as a marriage. Strange, huh? A marriage?
What I mean is that so many people talked about their connection to their place almost as if they were in long-term, committed, passionate, occasionally rageful, yet lovingly turbulent relationships. I just don't remember ever seeing or hearing that anywhere else. Ever.
At one point, a week after I got back, I actually found myself laughing as I thought: "God help anyone in public life who imagines that the people in NOLA fighting to rebuild and fighting to investigate the history of negligence might actually settle for half a solution or half an investigation! Settle? Please! The people I met seemed as likely to settle for a cold beignet as for a half-baked investigation that reveals anything less than the whole truth of what happened.
It's funny: I have been to conflict zones and countries where people would, in a split second -- kill if they felt their place threatened. Yet I had the feeling New Orleans people have an even stronger tie. And it's not that they would kill. It was even stronger than that. It was an almost mystical refusal to die.
And I need to feel it again. There. Soon.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Protective Charm for your Vehicle
Place the following in a white cloth:
- salt,
- a sprig of rue,
- a tiny gold horn (or cornu)
- if you can't afford or find a cornu consider using a dried chili pepper
- and a small pair of scissors or a small knife.
Tie the ends shut with red ribbon.
Place the charm on the Chariot Tarot Card and charge on a Full Moon.
You must infuse the charm with your will. You should spend sometime thinking about what it means to be in control of your vehicle. Is it well maintained and fully functional? Is it insured? Do you know how to handle in different circumstances. Think about being a successful and safe driver. Envision yourself capable of handling your car safely as you drive.
After the charm is charged under the moonlight and with your intent place it in the glove compartment.
To enhance your own safety and that of your passengers in the vehicle, dab some protective rue oil (charged under the moon for at least 3 days) on the seat belts locks, and then wear them.
If you are concerned about your vehicle being stolen, use rue oil to mark pentcles or the symbol of power inside the door frames and trunk of your vehicle.
- salt,
- a sprig of rue,
- a tiny gold horn (or cornu)
- if you can't afford or find a cornu consider using a dried chili pepper
- and a small pair of scissors or a small knife.
Tie the ends shut with red ribbon.
Place the charm on the Chariot Tarot Card and charge on a Full Moon.
You must infuse the charm with your will. You should spend sometime thinking about what it means to be in control of your vehicle. Is it well maintained and fully functional? Is it insured? Do you know how to handle in different circumstances. Think about being a successful and safe driver. Envision yourself capable of handling your car safely as you drive.
After the charm is charged under the moonlight and with your intent place it in the glove compartment.
To enhance your own safety and that of your passengers in the vehicle, dab some protective rue oil (charged under the moon for at least 3 days) on the seat belts locks, and then wear them.
If you are concerned about your vehicle being stolen, use rue oil to mark pentcles or the symbol of power inside the door frames and trunk of your vehicle.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Magical Yeast
A few weeks ago I got this really great book by Judika Illes titled Encyclopeadia of 5000 spells. It is a great reference book and a fun read. This made me think about the reference books I typically use when ever spell crafting. One of my all time favorites is Tarot Spells by Janina Renee. This book literally changed the way I do spell work. I find that tarot cards are a great way to draw in universal energies and archtypes and help focus the mind for visualization. Also I don't think I've worked a spell in the past 10 years when I didn't reference Scott Cunningham's Encyclopeadia of Magical Herbs..
All that said, I never do spells straight out of someone elses book even when the book is fun and well researched. It is my experience that magical use items (things like oils, candles, color symbolism, incense, tarot cards, herbs, flowers, etc.) are like magical yeast. You use yeast to make bread rise and to create a transformation. Each recipe is unique and your bread won't be *exactly* like anyone else's. How you use the magical yeast depends on what you are trying to make and the conditions surrounding the issue. As any baker can tell you, the environmental conditions might mean that you have to alter the recipe. This is why all magic should be carefully evaluated in context and carefully "crafted", before acting.
They don't call it witchCRAFT for nothin'. This is also why the saying "Be careful what you ask for" is something even "muggles" understand.
All that said, I never do spells straight out of someone elses book even when the book is fun and well researched. It is my experience that magical use items (things like oils, candles, color symbolism, incense, tarot cards, herbs, flowers, etc.) are like magical yeast. You use yeast to make bread rise and to create a transformation. Each recipe is unique and your bread won't be *exactly* like anyone else's. How you use the magical yeast depends on what you are trying to make and the conditions surrounding the issue. As any baker can tell you, the environmental conditions might mean that you have to alter the recipe. This is why all magic should be carefully evaluated in context and carefully "crafted", before acting.
They don't call it witchCRAFT for nothin'. This is also why the saying "Be careful what you ask for" is something even "muggles" understand.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Works by Sabina Magliocco
"Aradia in Sardinia: the Archeology of a Folk Character," in D. Green and D. Evans, ed., Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon: Essays in Honor of Ronald Hutton, 40-60. Bristol, UK: Hidden Publishing, 2009.
"In Search of the Roots of Stregheria: Observations on the History of a Reclaimed Tradition," in Speaking Memory: Oral History, Oral Culture and Italians in America, ed. Luisa Del Giudice; 165-182. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
"Italian Cunning Craft: Some Preliminary Observations," Journal for the Academic Study of Magic 5 (2008), 103-133.
"Reclamation, Appropriation and the Ecstatic Imagination," in James R. Lewis, ed. Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, 223-240. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
"Italian American Stregheria and Wicca: Ethnic Ambivalence in American Neopaganism," in Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Michael Strmiska (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006), 55-86.
"La reclamación del folclor y la costrucción de la brujería Ítalo-estadounidense," in Modernidades Locales: etnografía del presente múltiple, ed. Steffan Igor Ayora Dias and Gabriela Vargas Cetina; 179-219. Istituto de Cultura de Yucatán, Universidád Autonoma de Yucatán, 2005.
"Altars and Shrines" and "Ritualizing and Anthropology," in Encyclopedia of Nature Religions, ed. by Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan; 36-37 and 1388-1390. London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.
"Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian American Witchcraft," in Performing Ecstasies: Music, Dance, and Ritual in the Mediterranean ed. Luisa Del Giudice and Nancy van Deusen (Ottawa, Canada: The Institute of Mediaeval Music, 2005), 277-301.
"Witchcraft, Healing and Vernacular Magic in 19th and 20th Century Italy," in Popular Magic in Modern Europe, ed. by Owen Davies (Manchester University Press, 2004), 151-173.
"Magic" (Vol. 2, 669-70) and "Sardinia" (Vol. 2, 1013-15) Medieval Italy: an Encyclopedia, ed. by Christopher Kleinhenz (Routledge, 2004).
"Wicca" (441-44) and "Neopaganism" (307-310), Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals and Festivals, ed. Frank Salamone (Routledge, 2004)
"The Opposite of Right Society: Witchcraft, Terrorism and the Discourse of Evil." Etnologia Europaea 32/2 (2003), 13-22.
"Aradia" and "Strega," Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neopaganism, ed. by S. T. Rabinowitch. Citadel Press, 2002; 12-13 and 262-63.
"Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend," The Pomegranate 18 (2002), 5-22.
"Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian-American Witchcraft" Italian American Review 8/2 (2001), 57-81.
"Coordinates of Power and Performance: Festivals as Sites of (Re)Presentation and Reclamation in Sardinia," Ethnologies 23/1 (2001) 167-188.
"Spells, Saints and Streghe: Witchcraft, Folk Magic and Healing in Italy," The Pomegranate 13 (2000), 2-22.
"Witchcraft" (Vol. 20:208-9), The New Book of Knowledge (Grolier, 2000).
"The Real Old-Time Religion: Towards an Aesthetic of Neo-Pagan Song," in Ethnologies 20/1 (1998), 175-201 (with Holly Tannen).
"Introduction," Ethnologies Special Issue: Wicca 20/1 (1998), 7-17.
"Ritual is My Chosen Art Form: The Creation of Ritual as Folk Art Among Contemporary Pagans," Magical Religions and Modern Witchcraft, ed. by James Lewis (SUNY Press; 1996), 93-119.
"Playing With Food: the Negotiation of Identity in the Ethnic Display Event by Italian-Americans in Clinton, Indiana," Studies in Italian American Folklore, ed. by Luisa Del Giudice (Utah State University Press, 1993), 107-126 [Reprinted in Barbara G. Shortridge and James R. Shortridge, ed., A Taste of American Place (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 145-162].
"Eels, Bananas and Cucumbers: A Sexual Legend and Changing Women's Values in Rural Sardinia," Fabula 34 (1993), 66-77.
"Folklore and Language Teaching: Preliminary Remarks and Practical Suggestions," Italica 69/4 (1992), 451-465.
"Single Women in Sardinian Pastoral Society: Contemporary Roles and Historical Models," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Mediterranean Pastoralism (Nuoro: Istituto Regionale Etnografico Superiore, 1992).
"1846 and All That: a New History of Folkloristics," Folklore Forum 21/1 (1988), 128-137 (Reprinted in Metafolkloristica, ed. F. Kinder, 1989).
"The Bloomington Jaycees' Haunted House," Indiana Journal of Folklore and Oral History 14/1 (1984), 19-28.
"Italian Immigrant Narratives," Folklore Forum 17/1 (1984), 61-67.
"In Search of the Roots of Stregheria: Observations on the History of a Reclaimed Tradition," in Speaking Memory: Oral History, Oral Culture and Italians in America, ed. Luisa Del Giudice; 165-182. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
"Italian Cunning Craft: Some Preliminary Observations," Journal for the Academic Study of Magic 5 (2008), 103-133.
"Reclamation, Appropriation and the Ecstatic Imagination," in James R. Lewis, ed. Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, 223-240. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
"Italian American Stregheria and Wicca: Ethnic Ambivalence in American Neopaganism," in Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Michael Strmiska (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006), 55-86.
"La reclamación del folclor y la costrucción de la brujería Ítalo-estadounidense," in Modernidades Locales: etnografía del presente múltiple, ed. Steffan Igor Ayora Dias and Gabriela Vargas Cetina; 179-219. Istituto de Cultura de Yucatán, Universidád Autonoma de Yucatán, 2005.
"Altars and Shrines" and "Ritualizing and Anthropology," in Encyclopedia of Nature Religions, ed. by Bron Taylor and Jeffrey Kaplan; 36-37 and 1388-1390. London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.
"Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian American Witchcraft," in Performing Ecstasies: Music, Dance, and Ritual in the Mediterranean ed. Luisa Del Giudice and Nancy van Deusen (Ottawa, Canada: The Institute of Mediaeval Music, 2005), 277-301.
"Witchcraft, Healing and Vernacular Magic in 19th and 20th Century Italy," in Popular Magic in Modern Europe, ed. by Owen Davies (Manchester University Press, 2004), 151-173.
"Magic" (Vol. 2, 669-70) and "Sardinia" (Vol. 2, 1013-15) Medieval Italy: an Encyclopedia, ed. by Christopher Kleinhenz (Routledge, 2004).
"Wicca" (441-44) and "Neopaganism" (307-310), Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals and Festivals, ed. Frank Salamone (Routledge, 2004)
"The Opposite of Right Society: Witchcraft, Terrorism and the Discourse of Evil." Etnologia Europaea 32/2 (2003), 13-22.
"Aradia" and "Strega," Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neopaganism, ed. by S. T. Rabinowitch. Citadel Press, 2002; 12-13 and 262-63.
"Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend," The Pomegranate 18 (2002), 5-22.
"Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian-American Witchcraft" Italian American Review 8/2 (2001), 57-81.
"Coordinates of Power and Performance: Festivals as Sites of (Re)Presentation and Reclamation in Sardinia," Ethnologies 23/1 (2001) 167-188.
"Spells, Saints and Streghe: Witchcraft, Folk Magic and Healing in Italy," The Pomegranate 13 (2000), 2-22.
"Witchcraft" (Vol. 20:208-9), The New Book of Knowledge (Grolier, 2000).
"The Real Old-Time Religion: Towards an Aesthetic of Neo-Pagan Song," in Ethnologies 20/1 (1998), 175-201 (with Holly Tannen).
"Introduction," Ethnologies Special Issue: Wicca 20/1 (1998), 7-17.
"Ritual is My Chosen Art Form: The Creation of Ritual as Folk Art Among Contemporary Pagans," Magical Religions and Modern Witchcraft, ed. by James Lewis (SUNY Press; 1996), 93-119.
"Playing With Food: the Negotiation of Identity in the Ethnic Display Event by Italian-Americans in Clinton, Indiana," Studies in Italian American Folklore, ed. by Luisa Del Giudice (Utah State University Press, 1993), 107-126 [Reprinted in Barbara G. Shortridge and James R. Shortridge, ed., A Taste of American Place (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 145-162].
"Eels, Bananas and Cucumbers: A Sexual Legend and Changing Women's Values in Rural Sardinia," Fabula 34 (1993), 66-77.
"Folklore and Language Teaching: Preliminary Remarks and Practical Suggestions," Italica 69/4 (1992), 451-465.
"Single Women in Sardinian Pastoral Society: Contemporary Roles and Historical Models," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Mediterranean Pastoralism (Nuoro: Istituto Regionale Etnografico Superiore, 1992).
"1846 and All That: a New History of Folkloristics," Folklore Forum 21/1 (1988), 128-137 (Reprinted in Metafolkloristica, ed. F. Kinder, 1989).
"The Bloomington Jaycees' Haunted House," Indiana Journal of Folklore and Oral History 14/1 (1984), 19-28.
"Italian Immigrant Narratives," Folklore Forum 17/1 (1984), 61-67.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Festival of Torches
Taken from: http://users.erols.com/jesterbear/notes/torches.html
The Ides of August is one of the most magical times of the year, in my opinion. It's the time of a most ancient Feria (festival) of the Nemoralia (aka Festival of Torches), later adopted by Catholics to be The Feast of the Assumption. (1) In Italy, this Feria is celebrated either on the 13-15th of August or during the August Full Moon. If it just so happens that the Full Moon comes on the 13-l5th, hold tight!
This poem by Ovid, from his Fasti, describes the ancient celebration:
In the Arrician valley,
there is a lake surrounded by shady forests,
Held sacred by a religion from the olden times...
On a long fence hang many pieces of woven thread,
and many tablets are placed there
as grateful gifts to the Goddess.
Often does a woman whose prayers Diana answered,
With a wreath of flowers crowning her head,
Walk from Rome carrying a burning torch...
There a stream flows down gurgling from its rocky bed...
Picture this. It is the August Full Moon. A long procession of twinkling lights wind down what is now called Via Diana, or, Diana's Road. The pilgrims forming this procession of torches and candles line up alongside the dark waters of Diana's Mirror, or Lake Nemi. (2) One of the Earth's most sacred sites, the lake is just a few miles south of Rome, Italy, and is dedicated to Diana, the Great Goddess of the Moon. The lake, in a volcanic crater, is almost perfectly oval, and from the vantage point where the Temple of Diana once graced its banks, you can see the Moon reflected clearly in the smooth as glass, dark mirror of water.
Picture again the August Full Moon night. Hundreds have come to Diana's lake, wearing flowers wreathed around their necks and foreheads. According to Plutarch, everyone there had made a special ritual of washing their hair before dressing it with flowers. Garlanded hounds also marched by the side of hunters. Little boats, lit by oil lamps strung on prow and stern, ferried festive crowds back and forth across the lake, traveling from the south jetty to Diana's temple on the north bank. La Luna, rising high overhead, gazed down on the pilgrims and on Her reflection in the lake.
Those gathered there would write small messages on ribbons and tie them to a fence at the sanctuary, in supplication to She Who Provides. Likewise, numerous small statuettes of body parts would have been found there. It was common practice in Italy (and Greece) to bake a small model of an afflicted part of the body and offer it to a God or Goddess as a votive. Also offered were small clay images of mother and child, and tiny sculptures of stags, one of the favored animals of Artemis/Diana (and perhaps a symbol of Actaeon, who spied on the Goddess while She was bathing and was turned into a deer). Apples were likewise given to Diana as the Soul of Nature who protects all species, including humans.
Offerings of garlic are made to the Goddess of the Dark Moon, Hecate, during the festival. In Wicca, Diana is often considered the Maiden aspect of the Moon Goddess, Who manifests as Maid, Mother, and Crone. But at the festival of the Nemoralia, Diana is the Mother, and Hecate is the Crone.
So who is the Maiden? Diana has a legendary daughter, Aradia, whose birthday is given as August 13, 1313. Aradia, so the story goes, was sent to Earth by Her divine Mother to empower the weak and oppressed, particularly the Pagans and gypsies who were chained in slavery to church and state. She was a sort of female "Robin Hood" of the Alban Hills of Italy. (3) Aradia's Mother, the Goddess Diana, like Robin Hood's Father, Herne (Cernunnos), blessed the oppressed and down- trodden, the peasant, the heathen, all those noble souls and noble "savages" who society despises. Diana's most notable temple in Rome was situated on the most apparently humble of Rome's Seven Hills, the Aventine. The ritual hairwashing that precedes the trek to Nemi also proceeded a procession that ended up at the Aventine.
It seems Diana had fewer artificial temples built to Her than any other of the main Deities in the Classical pantheon, which no doubt suits Her, since certainly a Goddess of Nature prefers to be worshipped in Her natural groves. Therefore, it's a good idea to visit a wild and natural area during this festival. Choose a tree to decorate. It may, but does not necessarily have to be, an evergreen. Hang from its branches symbols such as silver moons, bows and arrows, tiny animals, as well as ribbons, bells, and whatever else you think Diana might like. If you are suffering from any kind of illness, you might want to make a symbol of that too, and hang it on the branches in supplication for healing. Imagine Her arrows piercing your pain, discomfort, or disability with a powerful potion of wellness.
The Festival of Torches evolved to become one of those sacred times when the hunting or killing of any beast was forbidden all over Italy. It was a Time of Blessing that extended a truce between humankind and the natural world. Likewise, slaves and women were free from their duties during this feria. Men and masters did participate in the festival, but they were required to be on equal terms with women and slaves. One Roman poet, Propertius, apparently did not attend the festival in the 1st century CE, as indicated in these words to his beloved:
Ah, if you would only walk here in your leisure hours.
But we cannot meet today,
When I see you hurrying in excitement with a burning torch
To the grove of Nemi where you
Bear light in honour of the Goddess Diana.
At night the lights of hundreds of torches reflected upon Diana's lake and sparkled magically upon the surface. Lamps not unlike these torches were used by Vestal virgins and have been found with images of the Goddess at Nemi, hence Diana and Vesta are sometimes considered one and the same Goddess.
The nymph Egeria, who resides in a waterfall spilling into Lake Nemi, is also an aspect of Diana. She is intimately connected with Numa, who was the king of Rome after Romulus, and whose kingship's well being was dependent on his relationship with Her, Diana Egeria, Lady of the Lake. Louis Spence, in the 13th century tale, Sir Lance/ot of the Lake, tells us that the Lady of the Lake dwells in the Lake of Diana. There are also similarities between the Rex Nemorensis (King of Nemi) and King Arthur, according to Raven Grimassi, who points out that one draws a branch (which may be the legendary Golden Bough) from an oak tree, the other draws Excalibur from the stone. Just as the oak branch rises from the Sacred Tree near the stream of Egeria, so does Excalibur rise from the Lake. (4) Egeria is Diana, is the Lady of the Lake, is Nimue (a name similar to, and which may be derived from, "Nemi").
There are also parallels to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania, Regina elle Fate (Queen of the Fairies), is equated with Diana, Regina delle Streghe (Queen of the Witches). Hippolytus, who died and was resurrected and spirited to Nemi by Diana (as Virbius, the first Rex Nemorensis), was the son of Theseus (some say Oberon) and Hippolyta. And Puck, the goat like prankster, has his own festival in Britain at this same time of the year, the Puck's Fair. Thus the Midsummer Night's Dream continues on through August.
Notes
1. All of Italy seems to agree that this is the best time of year to take a holiday. Travel agents warn against going to Italy in mid-August. Almost the whole country shuts down business for the hallowed Feast of the Assumption. This feast day of Mary, Mother of God, seems to the Italian Catholics to be an even more important holy day than Christmas.
2. Nemi is from the Latin nemus, meaning sacred wood, sacred grove. The Sacred Site of Nemi is featured in the Spring 2003 issue of CIRCLE Magazine.
3. Her full story can be found in Raven Grimassi's Ways of the Strega, published by Llewellyn in 1997. The current edition of the book is called Italian Witchcraft.
4. Raven Grimassi, ibid, and Hereditary Witchcraft: Secrets of the Old Religion, published in 1999 by Llewellyn Publications of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Helen Park
Kansas City, Kansas; elenafelene@yahoo.com
CIRCLE Magazine, Summer 2003 (pp. 33-34)
Reproduced with permission from Helen Park
The Ides of August is one of the most magical times of the year, in my opinion. It's the time of a most ancient Feria (festival) of the Nemoralia (aka Festival of Torches), later adopted by Catholics to be The Feast of the Assumption. (1) In Italy, this Feria is celebrated either on the 13-15th of August or during the August Full Moon. If it just so happens that the Full Moon comes on the 13-l5th, hold tight!
This poem by Ovid, from his Fasti, describes the ancient celebration:
In the Arrician valley,
there is a lake surrounded by shady forests,
Held sacred by a religion from the olden times...
On a long fence hang many pieces of woven thread,
and many tablets are placed there
as grateful gifts to the Goddess.
Often does a woman whose prayers Diana answered,
With a wreath of flowers crowning her head,
Walk from Rome carrying a burning torch...
There a stream flows down gurgling from its rocky bed...
Picture this. It is the August Full Moon. A long procession of twinkling lights wind down what is now called Via Diana, or, Diana's Road. The pilgrims forming this procession of torches and candles line up alongside the dark waters of Diana's Mirror, or Lake Nemi. (2) One of the Earth's most sacred sites, the lake is just a few miles south of Rome, Italy, and is dedicated to Diana, the Great Goddess of the Moon. The lake, in a volcanic crater, is almost perfectly oval, and from the vantage point where the Temple of Diana once graced its banks, you can see the Moon reflected clearly in the smooth as glass, dark mirror of water.
Picture again the August Full Moon night. Hundreds have come to Diana's lake, wearing flowers wreathed around their necks and foreheads. According to Plutarch, everyone there had made a special ritual of washing their hair before dressing it with flowers. Garlanded hounds also marched by the side of hunters. Little boats, lit by oil lamps strung on prow and stern, ferried festive crowds back and forth across the lake, traveling from the south jetty to Diana's temple on the north bank. La Luna, rising high overhead, gazed down on the pilgrims and on Her reflection in the lake.
Those gathered there would write small messages on ribbons and tie them to a fence at the sanctuary, in supplication to She Who Provides. Likewise, numerous small statuettes of body parts would have been found there. It was common practice in Italy (and Greece) to bake a small model of an afflicted part of the body and offer it to a God or Goddess as a votive. Also offered were small clay images of mother and child, and tiny sculptures of stags, one of the favored animals of Artemis/Diana (and perhaps a symbol of Actaeon, who spied on the Goddess while She was bathing and was turned into a deer). Apples were likewise given to Diana as the Soul of Nature who protects all species, including humans.
Offerings of garlic are made to the Goddess of the Dark Moon, Hecate, during the festival. In Wicca, Diana is often considered the Maiden aspect of the Moon Goddess, Who manifests as Maid, Mother, and Crone. But at the festival of the Nemoralia, Diana is the Mother, and Hecate is the Crone.
So who is the Maiden? Diana has a legendary daughter, Aradia, whose birthday is given as August 13, 1313. Aradia, so the story goes, was sent to Earth by Her divine Mother to empower the weak and oppressed, particularly the Pagans and gypsies who were chained in slavery to church and state. She was a sort of female "Robin Hood" of the Alban Hills of Italy. (3) Aradia's Mother, the Goddess Diana, like Robin Hood's Father, Herne (Cernunnos), blessed the oppressed and down- trodden, the peasant, the heathen, all those noble souls and noble "savages" who society despises. Diana's most notable temple in Rome was situated on the most apparently humble of Rome's Seven Hills, the Aventine. The ritual hairwashing that precedes the trek to Nemi also proceeded a procession that ended up at the Aventine.
It seems Diana had fewer artificial temples built to Her than any other of the main Deities in the Classical pantheon, which no doubt suits Her, since certainly a Goddess of Nature prefers to be worshipped in Her natural groves. Therefore, it's a good idea to visit a wild and natural area during this festival. Choose a tree to decorate. It may, but does not necessarily have to be, an evergreen. Hang from its branches symbols such as silver moons, bows and arrows, tiny animals, as well as ribbons, bells, and whatever else you think Diana might like. If you are suffering from any kind of illness, you might want to make a symbol of that too, and hang it on the branches in supplication for healing. Imagine Her arrows piercing your pain, discomfort, or disability with a powerful potion of wellness.
The Festival of Torches evolved to become one of those sacred times when the hunting or killing of any beast was forbidden all over Italy. It was a Time of Blessing that extended a truce between humankind and the natural world. Likewise, slaves and women were free from their duties during this feria. Men and masters did participate in the festival, but they were required to be on equal terms with women and slaves. One Roman poet, Propertius, apparently did not attend the festival in the 1st century CE, as indicated in these words to his beloved:
Ah, if you would only walk here in your leisure hours.
But we cannot meet today,
When I see you hurrying in excitement with a burning torch
To the grove of Nemi where you
Bear light in honour of the Goddess Diana.
At night the lights of hundreds of torches reflected upon Diana's lake and sparkled magically upon the surface. Lamps not unlike these torches were used by Vestal virgins and have been found with images of the Goddess at Nemi, hence Diana and Vesta are sometimes considered one and the same Goddess.
The nymph Egeria, who resides in a waterfall spilling into Lake Nemi, is also an aspect of Diana. She is intimately connected with Numa, who was the king of Rome after Romulus, and whose kingship's well being was dependent on his relationship with Her, Diana Egeria, Lady of the Lake. Louis Spence, in the 13th century tale, Sir Lance/ot of the Lake, tells us that the Lady of the Lake dwells in the Lake of Diana. There are also similarities between the Rex Nemorensis (King of Nemi) and King Arthur, according to Raven Grimassi, who points out that one draws a branch (which may be the legendary Golden Bough) from an oak tree, the other draws Excalibur from the stone. Just as the oak branch rises from the Sacred Tree near the stream of Egeria, so does Excalibur rise from the Lake. (4) Egeria is Diana, is the Lady of the Lake, is Nimue (a name similar to, and which may be derived from, "Nemi").
There are also parallels to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania, Regina elle Fate (Queen of the Fairies), is equated with Diana, Regina delle Streghe (Queen of the Witches). Hippolytus, who died and was resurrected and spirited to Nemi by Diana (as Virbius, the first Rex Nemorensis), was the son of Theseus (some say Oberon) and Hippolyta. And Puck, the goat like prankster, has his own festival in Britain at this same time of the year, the Puck's Fair. Thus the Midsummer Night's Dream continues on through August.
Notes
1. All of Italy seems to agree that this is the best time of year to take a holiday. Travel agents warn against going to Italy in mid-August. Almost the whole country shuts down business for the hallowed Feast of the Assumption. This feast day of Mary, Mother of God, seems to the Italian Catholics to be an even more important holy day than Christmas.
2. Nemi is from the Latin nemus, meaning sacred wood, sacred grove. The Sacred Site of Nemi is featured in the Spring 2003 issue of CIRCLE Magazine.
3. Her full story can be found in Raven Grimassi's Ways of the Strega, published by Llewellyn in 1997. The current edition of the book is called Italian Witchcraft.
4. Raven Grimassi, ibid, and Hereditary Witchcraft: Secrets of the Old Religion, published in 1999 by Llewellyn Publications of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Helen Park
Kansas City, Kansas; elenafelene@yahoo.com
CIRCLE Magazine, Summer 2003 (pp. 33-34)
Reproduced with permission from Helen Park
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Stregheria and Vernacular Magic in Italy: A Comparison
Raven Grimassi wrote:
.... first, some background. Last year (2006) Sabina met with my mother and they chatted for several hours. From reading the following, I think two things happened. One is that Sabina now believes that my mother is a native Italian, and the other is that my mother comes from a magical background in Italian Folk Magic. Sabina has also modified her view of me, and now rather than being a charlatan, I am apparenlty a true believer who is just misguided by my interpretation regarding the family lineage. In any case, we're making progress. Perhas after the next meeting, I will go from misguided true believer to an actual witch. What's most promising is Sabina's admonishment that Stregheria "should not be interpreted as inauthentic, fake or contrived"
So here is the article, which appears to be a reworking of some of her earlier articles:
Stregheria and Vernacular Magic in Italy: A Comparison*
Sabina Magliocco
January 10, 2007
The distinction between contemporary Stregheria and traditional Italian magic, healing and spiritual practice has lately been the subject of lively debate on a number of listserves and websites. In this brief essay, I will attempt to summarize some of my academic publications on this theme for a non-scholarly audience, and to encourage further research, questions and discussion on this topic. I should state at the outset that my approach is academic: as an anthropologist and folklorist, I consider both Stregheria and Italian vernacular magic as important facets of culture in their own right. My intention is not to support or deny the authenticity of either, but to help readers understand both in the contexts in which they developed,
and how the former grew from the latter in the context of the Italian American diaspora.
*Stregheria* is an Italian American variety of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft. It owes its origins to Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1889), a collection of spells, rhymes and legends which amateur folklorist Charles G. Leland claimed came from a Florentine fortune-teller named Maddalena. According to Leland, Maddalena belonged to a family of witches who practiced a form of pagan religion centered on the worship of the moon goddess Diana. Leland interpreted the materials he collected according to popular folklore theories of the late 19th century: as survivals of ancient pagan religions, specifically those of the Romans and Etruscans, whose civilizations had once dominated central Italy. He dubbed witchcraft la vecchia religione (the old religion). Right from the start, Leland’s work was controversial. Some of the materials in it – the conjuration of lemons and pins, for instance – have analogues in Italian folklore. Other snippets appear to be versions of popular Italian children’s rhymes, rewritten to suit Leland’s ideology. And the character of Aradia does seem to be based on a figure from medieval Italian folklore: the biblical Herodias (Erodiade in Italian), popularly believed to fly through the air at
night at the head of a ghostly procession. But these bits of folklore do not appear anywhere else in Italian tradition as part of a single text. If The Gospel of the Witches had been an authentic document from a folk tradition, some other version of it would have been collected at some point by Italian folklorists or historians. Yet no other similar text has ever been found by Italian ethnologists. For that reason, Leland’s Aradia has always been suspected to be a fake. More recently, historian Robert Mathiesen has proposed a new explanation: that Aradia be interpreted as a dialogic and intersubjective text – a product of the close interaction between Leland and Maddalena, during which Maddalena selected and re-interpreted bits of folklore in ways that would interest her wealthy patron. The result was a document that incorporated many elements of folklore, but strung them together in unusual ways, giving them a unique and atypical interpretation.
Despite the controversies surrounding it, Leland’s text became quite influential: it equated folk magic to an ancient religion involving the veneration of a goddess, and located this all in Italy. Leland clearly influenced Gerald B. Gardner, who is widely credited with the development of Wicca in its present form, and through Gardner, an entire generation of Witches. Among the first to openly identify as a practitioner of Italian witchcraft was Leo Louis Martello (1933-2001). Martello claimed to have been initiated by a family member as a young man. He described a secret hereditary tradition based on a Sicilian version of the myth of Proserpina (Persephone). Along with priestess Lori Bruno, also a hereditary practitioner, he founded the Trinacrian Rose of New York City, one of the first Italian American covens in North America.
But the real heir of Leland is Raven Grimassi, the architect of Stregheria. Like Martello and Bruno, Grimassi claims to have been initiated into a family tradition of magical practice which he describes as hereditary, domestic, and secret. Grimassi’s mother comes from the region of Campania, outside Naples. She belongs to a family whose members practiced a number of magical traditions, including the removal of the evil eye, the making of medicinal liqueurs and oils, and divination. Like the traditions described by Martello, Bruno and a number of Italian ethnologists, it consisted of a set of secret teachings limited to family members, passed on only to those who were felt to have some innate magical ability and interest. But it is not this tradition that Grimassi writes about in his works The Ways of the Strega (1995), Hereditary Witchcraft (1999), and Italian Witchcraft (2000). Instead, he presents an elaboration of what Leland described: "a religion similar to Wicca in structure and practice, with Italian flavor added through the names of deities, spirits, and sabbats." According to him, Italian Witches divide themselves into three clans: the Fanarra of northern Italy, and the Janarra and Tanarra of central Italy. No mention is made of southern Italy, despite the fact that the majority of Italian immigrants to North America, including Grimassi’s mother, originated there. Each tradition is directed by a leader known as a Grimas. Like the names of the three Strega clans, the word “Grimas” does not occur in Italian or in any of its dialects. Italian American Streghe worship in circles called boschetti (“groves”) led by a High Priestess and Priest. The meet on full and new moons and observe eight sabbats. They venerate a lunar goddess and a horned god based on the Etruscan deities Uni and Tagni, also known as Tana and Tanus, Jana and Janus, Fana and Faunus. Ancestor spirits known as Lasa watch over each family, and various nature spirits such as Fauni, Silvani, Folletti and Linchetti play key roles in Stregheria. The guardians of the four directions are known as Grigori. While Grimassi’s books have been very influential in the United States, individual Stregheria covens that are not descended from his may not necessarily follow his teachings. As in all Neo-Pagan Craft, there is a wide range of variation and adaptation among groups and individuals. The common thread that links all Stregheria covens seems to be their efforts to give their practice an Italian flavor, whether through the types of deities venerated, the food served at rituals, or the adaptation of Italian and Italian American cultural practices to a Pagan context.
Grimassi’s genius is creative, rather than scholarly. He never claims to be reproducing exactly what was practiced in Italy, admitting that Streghe have “adapted a few Wiccan elements into their ways” (1995:xviii). He openly acknowledges that he is expanding on his family tradition, adding elements to it to restore it to what he imagines was its original state. But from his attempts to restore a tradition, a brand new tradition has emerged: one that bears little
resemblance to anything that was practiced in Italy or in Italian American ethnic communities.
While based on Italian folk magic, historical accounts and folklore collections, Stregheria is, like most revival Witchcraft, a modern tradition. Folklorist Robert Klymasz, writing about what happens to folklore as a result of immigration to a new culture, identified three layers of folklore that are present in any ethnic community. These include the traditional, with clear links to Old World forms; the transitional, in which some elements from the Old World crystallize, while others adapt to the new context; and innovational, in which new folklore is developed to make up for older forms that have been lost (Klymasz, 1973). Stregheria belongs to the last category. It has some points in common with Italian vernacular magic, which I will outline below; but there are more differences than similarities. Its true value lies in its ability to provide contemporary Italian Americans with a new context in which to interpret folk magical practices that have remained in their families for many generations, giving these traditions a new life. In the process, it plays a vital role in helping to create and maintain identity for its practitioners.
*Italian vernacular magic*, by contrast, is neither a religion nor a formalized system of practice. It is both a worldview and a set of customs tied to the agro-pastoral cycle which is strongly embedded in the lives of its practitioners, almost never on a self-conscious level. For most of its carriers, it is simply an ordinary way of doing things and behaving. While it may have historical roots in
pre-Christian practices, it is emphatically not a pagan tradition, but firmly embedded within a Roman Catholic cultural matrix. In my more recent work, I have called it “the enchanted worldview,” playing on Max Weber’s trope of the disenchantment of the world.
The enchanted worldview in Italy is rooted in specific pre-market economic and social systems. Because of subsistence activities associated with the land, time is organized according to seasonal cycles; these are reflected in the ritual year, which is dominated by Catholic liturgical forms. These almost always are locally interpreted in ways that connect them to the economic cycle: for example, in
Campania, where wheat and hemp crops have been replaced by tobacco, which has a similar growing season, the ritual year begins at planting time near St. Martin in mid-November, and extends until the end of the harvest season at St. Cosimo and Damiano in October. In pastoral areas such as Sardinia and the Apennine, May and September, the months that frame transhumance, are emphasized in local ritual practices. The exact shape of the ritual year thus differs markedly from one area to
another. The symbols – the Madonnas and saints – are the same, but each township differs in the way it situates these characters within its symbolic and economic system. The enchanted worldview is not only rooted in the ritual year cycle; it is all-pervading in the individual’s life cycle. It begins at birth and penetrates every phase of life and every rite of passage, from the moment of birth, when most
Italian babies who are not born with a caul (la camicia, or “shirt,” in Italian) are given a fine lawn shirt by a relative, often a godparent, to protect them against evil influences, to funerals, where a variety of beliefs about the otherworld are made manifest through practice.
The core of Italian vernacular religion and magic is thus the correlation of its symbolic systems with local economic and social structures. The primary connection is never with the dominant structures of church and state. Hegemonic structures may or may not coincide with indigenous ones, but where there is no match, they are
simply ignored. If a particular element does not make sense in terms of local understandings of time, space, and the nature of the world, people will treat it as though it does not exist, as if it were of no consequence. As a result, the landscape of the enchanted worldview in Italy is everywhere local.
Despite its exquisitely local character, the enchanted worldview exists throughout Italy, in both northern and southern regions, with significantly more commonalities than one might think, given the differences in language, culture and economy that characterize Italy’s twenty regions. Certain concepts are ubiquitous: for example, the evil eye and its diagnosis and cures are found in all regions, and are very
similar throughout. Yet the enchanted worldview defies systematization. Beliefs and practices are nowhere standardized, or even organized into an easily articulated set of principles; they are part of everyday life, part of praxis. German ethnologist Thomas Hauschild, who spent nearly twenty years studying magic in Basilicata,
a region in the south of Italy, wrote: “There is no system, only practice” (Hauschild, 2003:19). The practice is the system. Practices and beliefs exist within a particular cosmology, but its details seldom preoccupy its technologists. Thus, a structure like that described by Grimassi, with orderly branches in various parts of
Italy, each with its own leader and systematic body of lore, is inherently foreign to the enchanted worldview in Italy.
The main characteristic of the enchanted worldview is a belief in the omnipresence of spiritual beings that can influence human lives. These beings include the dead, saints, and the Virgin Mary and Jesus (who are, after all, nothing more than particularly powerful dead). Spirits such as folletti, linchetti and monachelli also appear, echoing some of the spiritual flora and fauna in Grimassi’s works, but they are often troublesome, rather than helpful: they tangle the manes of horses, frighten donkeys and confuse travelers who cross their paths. Some spirits are associated with certain kinds of illnesses, although exact relationships are generally determined by local lore. For instance, in Basilicata, the unquiet dead are said to cause skin diseases such as erysipelas and St. Anthony’s Fire (herpes zoster); in Campania, children who fail to thrive are said to be taken by witches
on their night flights, and worn out with flying and dancing; in Emilia Romagna, Puglia and Sardinia, spiders and/or insects are responsible for a range of illnesses from tarantismo to argismo to arlìa. Some scholars suggest these insects once embodied ancestor spirits who then possessed their victims through the bite or sting (De Martino, 2005 [1961]). Even spirits such as saints and the Madonna, who belong to a greater Catholic pantheon, are everywhere localized: the Madonna is usually worshipped in one or more of her local manifestations, and the devout have their personal favorites based on each Madonna’s attributes and the qualities she “stands over,” or rules, and their own individual needs or interests.
Everywhere in Italy, there are experts who specialize in interfacing with the spirit world. These are the Italian equivalents of British and European cunning folk, and much of their work consists in the diagnosis and cure of spiritual illness. Their names vary according to region; they may be known as guaritori (healers), donne che aiutano (women who help), praticos (knowledgeable or wise people), fattucchiere (fixers), maghi (sorcerers), and by numerous other dialectical terms; but they seldom call themselves streghe (witches). This term is overwhelmingly negative in Italian folklore, and almost always refers to a person who brings harm to others. Italian folklore is rich in legends about witches who fly through the air to their
legendary gatherings around the walnut tree of Benevento, shrink themselves so small they can fit through keyholes, suck breath or blood from victims, and cause all manner of illness and mischief to their neighbors. Clearly, these activities refer to folkloric witches; they have never been practiced by actual human beings. Occasionally, however, healers may be accused of being streghe by those who believe
themselves to be victims of black magic, or by clients who have failed to be healed by the cunning person’s cures.
There are two principal strains of healing in Italian vernacular culture: healing through the use of herbs, and spiritual healing. In some cases, both may be practiced by the same individual. Of the two, healing with herbs is considered less a matter of spiritual ability than of practical knowledge. Spiritual healing, in contrast, is believed to be more connected with personal power. This is variously
called la forza (power), la virtù (virtue; also attribute); or il segno (the sign), and is generally believed to be inborn. But power alone is useless without the prayers, magical formulae and techniques that make up the cunning person’s craft. Knowledge and power are passed on through an initiation, most commonly at midnight on
Christmas Eve mass, during the elevation of the host -- that magical moment of transformation in the Catholic liturgical year at which the world is transformed by the birth of the Savior, and the host is transformed into his body -- and thus, by association, any transformation can take place. The knowledge takes the form of prayers that call upon a saint or the Madonna, and in some cases an accompanying technique, which varies according to the nature of the spiritual cure. These formulas and techniques are secret; they cannot be passed on to others without the healer losing her or his power, and they can only be passed on at the appointed time in the ritual cycle. Often, this is the only initiation and training necessary for the transmission of simple charms. Healing knowledge and power are typically passed down within the family; in some cases, family members – typically a group of siblings or cousins – must work together in order to bring about the cure.
As scholars have documented for other parts of Europe, spirits figure prominently as the helpers of Italian cunning folk. While many ordinary Italians living in traditional communities admit to belief in spirits, and occasionally even to contact with them, cunning folk seem to possess an intensified ability to commune with them above and beyond that of ordinary people. In many areas, healing is essentially
conceptualized as a battle against malevolent spirits – whether those of the unquiet dead, witches, or others. Healers need spiritual allies in these battles, and many healers claim to have them in the form of spirits who guide and help them in their craft. The nature of these spirits, once again, is highly localized as well as idiosyncratic: they may be saints, personal ancestors, or helpful dead. They may
appear to the healer in dreams and visions: trance and ecstatic states are a fundamental part of communicating with the spirits; they are doorways into the spiritual world for healers and magic workers. When cunning folk rely on saints or the Virgin Mary as helpers, they may maintain shrines to them, participate actively in the organization of festivals in their honor, and play active roles in religious
sororities and fraternities that raise money for the feasts. Cures for certain illnesses may take place only on specific feast days or in the context of saints’ festivals. Thus, healing is closely connected to the seasonal and economic cycle of the community, and to the Catholic liturgical calendar.
Italian cunning folk may use a variety of tools in their work which suggest a connection to Stregheria and Neo-Pagan Witchcraft. They commonly keep notebooks in which charms and prayers are recorded – the forerunners of modern-day books of shadows. Some use weapons of various types (daggers, swords, bayonets and even guns) to frighten evil spirits or symbolically cut away certain illnesses, such as
worms. Ropes or cords may be used in binding spells and charms, while other tools may be entirely idiosyncratic.
The Italian cunning tradition has a number of traits that suggest that some aspects of modern Stregheria may derive from it in part, and that many Italian Americans who see themselves as carriers of Stregheria grew up in families that preserved aspects of the rural Italian enchanted worldview. Like modern Neo-Paganism and revival witchcraft, this way of life was organized around a ritual year that followed the
cycle of the seasons; the moon and sun influenced rhythms of work and production. Women were recognized as life-givers and nourishers, and were closely involved in the maintenance of shrines to a feminine divine figure, the Virgin Mary. Their immigrant ancestors may have been carriers of a tradition of healing that involved herbal and magical practices. They may have kept notebooks of charms and prayers
that were precursors of today’s Neo-Pagan books of shadows. Their tools may have included knives, swords and other weapons designed to frighten away malevolent spirits, and their craft involved communication with helpers who took the form of ancestor spirits. Since these traditions could often be conflated with witchcraft in
popular narratives, it is possible that this link persisted into the second, third and fourth generation after immigration, giving contemporary Streghe the impression that their ancestors belonged to an organized, hierarchical but secret society of witches. But Italian cunning craft also differs from modern Neo-Pagan Stregheria in
important ways. It is emphatically not a pagan religion; there is no mention of a goddess and god, nor are deities ever drawn down into the bodies of practitioners. It exists within a largely Catholic worldview, albeit one permeated with ancestor spirits, magical practice and other elements that mark it as vernacular, rather than ecclesiastical, in nature. Absent, too, is the Wiccan ritual framework, and while there may be certain similarities between the Wiccan year cycle and that of rural Italy, that is because the former is based largely on the Irish agro-pastoral cycle, which shares a common heritage with that of other parts of Europe, including Italy.
But could an ancient pre-Christian religion involving the veneration of Diana have survived in Italian peasant tradition, only to be brought to North America by Italian immigrants? The lack of written evidence makes any answer to this question hypothetical at best, but from the historical record, such a scenario would be very unlikely. Three factors make the survival of a pagan religion in Italy into the 20th century, and its transmission through written documents such as Leland’s Aradia, improbable: the strong presence of Christianity throughout the peninsula from fairly early after the fall of the Roman Empire; the lack of a unified Italian culture and language until the late 19th century; and the relative isolation and lack of resources of the peasant classes – the very ones who are said to have preserved the religion, according to the Neo-Pagan mythos.
Stregheria and Italian vernacular magic and healing are, then, quite different but interconnected traditions. Many Italian Americans who today see themselves as carriers of Stregheria grew up in families that preserved aspects of the enchanted worldview in an immigrant context. While Stregheria may be helping contemporary Italian Americans rediscover aspects of their roots and feel pride in their ethnic identity, its form, structure and cultural context are markedly different from those of the enchanted worldview and its associated practices in Italy. Yet Stregheria should not be interpreted as inauthentic, fake or contrived, for innovation and reclamation are part of the process of tradition. The enchanted worldview cannot exist in the context of contemporary urban North America; Italian Americans need new ways to construct and preserve ethnic identity, and for some, Stregheria satisfies those needs.
.... first, some background. Last year (2006) Sabina met with my mother and they chatted for several hours. From reading the following, I think two things happened. One is that Sabina now believes that my mother is a native Italian, and the other is that my mother comes from a magical background in Italian Folk Magic. Sabina has also modified her view of me, and now rather than being a charlatan, I am apparenlty a true believer who is just misguided by my interpretation regarding the family lineage. In any case, we're making progress. Perhas after the next meeting, I will go from misguided true believer to an actual witch. What's most promising is Sabina's admonishment that Stregheria "should not be interpreted as inauthentic, fake or contrived"
So here is the article, which appears to be a reworking of some of her earlier articles:
Stregheria and Vernacular Magic in Italy: A Comparison*
Sabina Magliocco
January 10, 2007
The distinction between contemporary Stregheria and traditional Italian magic, healing and spiritual practice has lately been the subject of lively debate on a number of listserves and websites. In this brief essay, I will attempt to summarize some of my academic publications on this theme for a non-scholarly audience, and to encourage further research, questions and discussion on this topic. I should state at the outset that my approach is academic: as an anthropologist and folklorist, I consider both Stregheria and Italian vernacular magic as important facets of culture in their own right. My intention is not to support or deny the authenticity of either, but to help readers understand both in the contexts in which they developed,
and how the former grew from the latter in the context of the Italian American diaspora.
*Stregheria* is an Italian American variety of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft. It owes its origins to Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1889), a collection of spells, rhymes and legends which amateur folklorist Charles G. Leland claimed came from a Florentine fortune-teller named Maddalena. According to Leland, Maddalena belonged to a family of witches who practiced a form of pagan religion centered on the worship of the moon goddess Diana. Leland interpreted the materials he collected according to popular folklore theories of the late 19th century: as survivals of ancient pagan religions, specifically those of the Romans and Etruscans, whose civilizations had once dominated central Italy. He dubbed witchcraft la vecchia religione (the old religion). Right from the start, Leland’s work was controversial. Some of the materials in it – the conjuration of lemons and pins, for instance – have analogues in Italian folklore. Other snippets appear to be versions of popular Italian children’s rhymes, rewritten to suit Leland’s ideology. And the character of Aradia does seem to be based on a figure from medieval Italian folklore: the biblical Herodias (Erodiade in Italian), popularly believed to fly through the air at
night at the head of a ghostly procession. But these bits of folklore do not appear anywhere else in Italian tradition as part of a single text. If The Gospel of the Witches had been an authentic document from a folk tradition, some other version of it would have been collected at some point by Italian folklorists or historians. Yet no other similar text has ever been found by Italian ethnologists. For that reason, Leland’s Aradia has always been suspected to be a fake. More recently, historian Robert Mathiesen has proposed a new explanation: that Aradia be interpreted as a dialogic and intersubjective text – a product of the close interaction between Leland and Maddalena, during which Maddalena selected and re-interpreted bits of folklore in ways that would interest her wealthy patron. The result was a document that incorporated many elements of folklore, but strung them together in unusual ways, giving them a unique and atypical interpretation.
Despite the controversies surrounding it, Leland’s text became quite influential: it equated folk magic to an ancient religion involving the veneration of a goddess, and located this all in Italy. Leland clearly influenced Gerald B. Gardner, who is widely credited with the development of Wicca in its present form, and through Gardner, an entire generation of Witches. Among the first to openly identify as a practitioner of Italian witchcraft was Leo Louis Martello (1933-2001). Martello claimed to have been initiated by a family member as a young man. He described a secret hereditary tradition based on a Sicilian version of the myth of Proserpina (Persephone). Along with priestess Lori Bruno, also a hereditary practitioner, he founded the Trinacrian Rose of New York City, one of the first Italian American covens in North America.
But the real heir of Leland is Raven Grimassi, the architect of Stregheria. Like Martello and Bruno, Grimassi claims to have been initiated into a family tradition of magical practice which he describes as hereditary, domestic, and secret. Grimassi’s mother comes from the region of Campania, outside Naples. She belongs to a family whose members practiced a number of magical traditions, including the removal of the evil eye, the making of medicinal liqueurs and oils, and divination. Like the traditions described by Martello, Bruno and a number of Italian ethnologists, it consisted of a set of secret teachings limited to family members, passed on only to those who were felt to have some innate magical ability and interest. But it is not this tradition that Grimassi writes about in his works The Ways of the Strega (1995), Hereditary Witchcraft (1999), and Italian Witchcraft (2000). Instead, he presents an elaboration of what Leland described: "a religion similar to Wicca in structure and practice, with Italian flavor added through the names of deities, spirits, and sabbats." According to him, Italian Witches divide themselves into three clans: the Fanarra of northern Italy, and the Janarra and Tanarra of central Italy. No mention is made of southern Italy, despite the fact that the majority of Italian immigrants to North America, including Grimassi’s mother, originated there. Each tradition is directed by a leader known as a Grimas. Like the names of the three Strega clans, the word “Grimas” does not occur in Italian or in any of its dialects. Italian American Streghe worship in circles called boschetti (“groves”) led by a High Priestess and Priest. The meet on full and new moons and observe eight sabbats. They venerate a lunar goddess and a horned god based on the Etruscan deities Uni and Tagni, also known as Tana and Tanus, Jana and Janus, Fana and Faunus. Ancestor spirits known as Lasa watch over each family, and various nature spirits such as Fauni, Silvani, Folletti and Linchetti play key roles in Stregheria. The guardians of the four directions are known as Grigori. While Grimassi’s books have been very influential in the United States, individual Stregheria covens that are not descended from his may not necessarily follow his teachings. As in all Neo-Pagan Craft, there is a wide range of variation and adaptation among groups and individuals. The common thread that links all Stregheria covens seems to be their efforts to give their practice an Italian flavor, whether through the types of deities venerated, the food served at rituals, or the adaptation of Italian and Italian American cultural practices to a Pagan context.
Grimassi’s genius is creative, rather than scholarly. He never claims to be reproducing exactly what was practiced in Italy, admitting that Streghe have “adapted a few Wiccan elements into their ways” (1995:xviii). He openly acknowledges that he is expanding on his family tradition, adding elements to it to restore it to what he imagines was its original state. But from his attempts to restore a tradition, a brand new tradition has emerged: one that bears little
resemblance to anything that was practiced in Italy or in Italian American ethnic communities.
While based on Italian folk magic, historical accounts and folklore collections, Stregheria is, like most revival Witchcraft, a modern tradition. Folklorist Robert Klymasz, writing about what happens to folklore as a result of immigration to a new culture, identified three layers of folklore that are present in any ethnic community. These include the traditional, with clear links to Old World forms; the transitional, in which some elements from the Old World crystallize, while others adapt to the new context; and innovational, in which new folklore is developed to make up for older forms that have been lost (Klymasz, 1973). Stregheria belongs to the last category. It has some points in common with Italian vernacular magic, which I will outline below; but there are more differences than similarities. Its true value lies in its ability to provide contemporary Italian Americans with a new context in which to interpret folk magical practices that have remained in their families for many generations, giving these traditions a new life. In the process, it plays a vital role in helping to create and maintain identity for its practitioners.
*Italian vernacular magic*, by contrast, is neither a religion nor a formalized system of practice. It is both a worldview and a set of customs tied to the agro-pastoral cycle which is strongly embedded in the lives of its practitioners, almost never on a self-conscious level. For most of its carriers, it is simply an ordinary way of doing things and behaving. While it may have historical roots in
pre-Christian practices, it is emphatically not a pagan tradition, but firmly embedded within a Roman Catholic cultural matrix. In my more recent work, I have called it “the enchanted worldview,” playing on Max Weber’s trope of the disenchantment of the world.
The enchanted worldview in Italy is rooted in specific pre-market economic and social systems. Because of subsistence activities associated with the land, time is organized according to seasonal cycles; these are reflected in the ritual year, which is dominated by Catholic liturgical forms. These almost always are locally interpreted in ways that connect them to the economic cycle: for example, in
Campania, where wheat and hemp crops have been replaced by tobacco, which has a similar growing season, the ritual year begins at planting time near St. Martin in mid-November, and extends until the end of the harvest season at St. Cosimo and Damiano in October. In pastoral areas such as Sardinia and the Apennine, May and September, the months that frame transhumance, are emphasized in local ritual practices. The exact shape of the ritual year thus differs markedly from one area to
another. The symbols – the Madonnas and saints – are the same, but each township differs in the way it situates these characters within its symbolic and economic system. The enchanted worldview is not only rooted in the ritual year cycle; it is all-pervading in the individual’s life cycle. It begins at birth and penetrates every phase of life and every rite of passage, from the moment of birth, when most
Italian babies who are not born with a caul (la camicia, or “shirt,” in Italian) are given a fine lawn shirt by a relative, often a godparent, to protect them against evil influences, to funerals, where a variety of beliefs about the otherworld are made manifest through practice.
The core of Italian vernacular religion and magic is thus the correlation of its symbolic systems with local economic and social structures. The primary connection is never with the dominant structures of church and state. Hegemonic structures may or may not coincide with indigenous ones, but where there is no match, they are
simply ignored. If a particular element does not make sense in terms of local understandings of time, space, and the nature of the world, people will treat it as though it does not exist, as if it were of no consequence. As a result, the landscape of the enchanted worldview in Italy is everywhere local.
Despite its exquisitely local character, the enchanted worldview exists throughout Italy, in both northern and southern regions, with significantly more commonalities than one might think, given the differences in language, culture and economy that characterize Italy’s twenty regions. Certain concepts are ubiquitous: for example, the evil eye and its diagnosis and cures are found in all regions, and are very
similar throughout. Yet the enchanted worldview defies systematization. Beliefs and practices are nowhere standardized, or even organized into an easily articulated set of principles; they are part of everyday life, part of praxis. German ethnologist Thomas Hauschild, who spent nearly twenty years studying magic in Basilicata,
a region in the south of Italy, wrote: “There is no system, only practice” (Hauschild, 2003:19). The practice is the system. Practices and beliefs exist within a particular cosmology, but its details seldom preoccupy its technologists. Thus, a structure like that described by Grimassi, with orderly branches in various parts of
Italy, each with its own leader and systematic body of lore, is inherently foreign to the enchanted worldview in Italy.
The main characteristic of the enchanted worldview is a belief in the omnipresence of spiritual beings that can influence human lives. These beings include the dead, saints, and the Virgin Mary and Jesus (who are, after all, nothing more than particularly powerful dead). Spirits such as folletti, linchetti and monachelli also appear, echoing some of the spiritual flora and fauna in Grimassi’s works, but they are often troublesome, rather than helpful: they tangle the manes of horses, frighten donkeys and confuse travelers who cross their paths. Some spirits are associated with certain kinds of illnesses, although exact relationships are generally determined by local lore. For instance, in Basilicata, the unquiet dead are said to cause skin diseases such as erysipelas and St. Anthony’s Fire (herpes zoster); in Campania, children who fail to thrive are said to be taken by witches
on their night flights, and worn out with flying and dancing; in Emilia Romagna, Puglia and Sardinia, spiders and/or insects are responsible for a range of illnesses from tarantismo to argismo to arlìa. Some scholars suggest these insects once embodied ancestor spirits who then possessed their victims through the bite or sting (De Martino, 2005 [1961]). Even spirits such as saints and the Madonna, who belong to a greater Catholic pantheon, are everywhere localized: the Madonna is usually worshipped in one or more of her local manifestations, and the devout have their personal favorites based on each Madonna’s attributes and the qualities she “stands over,” or rules, and their own individual needs or interests.
Everywhere in Italy, there are experts who specialize in interfacing with the spirit world. These are the Italian equivalents of British and European cunning folk, and much of their work consists in the diagnosis and cure of spiritual illness. Their names vary according to region; they may be known as guaritori (healers), donne che aiutano (women who help), praticos (knowledgeable or wise people), fattucchiere (fixers), maghi (sorcerers), and by numerous other dialectical terms; but they seldom call themselves streghe (witches). This term is overwhelmingly negative in Italian folklore, and almost always refers to a person who brings harm to others. Italian folklore is rich in legends about witches who fly through the air to their
legendary gatherings around the walnut tree of Benevento, shrink themselves so small they can fit through keyholes, suck breath or blood from victims, and cause all manner of illness and mischief to their neighbors. Clearly, these activities refer to folkloric witches; they have never been practiced by actual human beings. Occasionally, however, healers may be accused of being streghe by those who believe
themselves to be victims of black magic, or by clients who have failed to be healed by the cunning person’s cures.
There are two principal strains of healing in Italian vernacular culture: healing through the use of herbs, and spiritual healing. In some cases, both may be practiced by the same individual. Of the two, healing with herbs is considered less a matter of spiritual ability than of practical knowledge. Spiritual healing, in contrast, is believed to be more connected with personal power. This is variously
called la forza (power), la virtù (virtue; also attribute); or il segno (the sign), and is generally believed to be inborn. But power alone is useless without the prayers, magical formulae and techniques that make up the cunning person’s craft. Knowledge and power are passed on through an initiation, most commonly at midnight on
Christmas Eve mass, during the elevation of the host -- that magical moment of transformation in the Catholic liturgical year at which the world is transformed by the birth of the Savior, and the host is transformed into his body -- and thus, by association, any transformation can take place. The knowledge takes the form of prayers that call upon a saint or the Madonna, and in some cases an accompanying technique, which varies according to the nature of the spiritual cure. These formulas and techniques are secret; they cannot be passed on to others without the healer losing her or his power, and they can only be passed on at the appointed time in the ritual cycle. Often, this is the only initiation and training necessary for the transmission of simple charms. Healing knowledge and power are typically passed down within the family; in some cases, family members – typically a group of siblings or cousins – must work together in order to bring about the cure.
As scholars have documented for other parts of Europe, spirits figure prominently as the helpers of Italian cunning folk. While many ordinary Italians living in traditional communities admit to belief in spirits, and occasionally even to contact with them, cunning folk seem to possess an intensified ability to commune with them above and beyond that of ordinary people. In many areas, healing is essentially
conceptualized as a battle against malevolent spirits – whether those of the unquiet dead, witches, or others. Healers need spiritual allies in these battles, and many healers claim to have them in the form of spirits who guide and help them in their craft. The nature of these spirits, once again, is highly localized as well as idiosyncratic: they may be saints, personal ancestors, or helpful dead. They may
appear to the healer in dreams and visions: trance and ecstatic states are a fundamental part of communicating with the spirits; they are doorways into the spiritual world for healers and magic workers. When cunning folk rely on saints or the Virgin Mary as helpers, they may maintain shrines to them, participate actively in the organization of festivals in their honor, and play active roles in religious
sororities and fraternities that raise money for the feasts. Cures for certain illnesses may take place only on specific feast days or in the context of saints’ festivals. Thus, healing is closely connected to the seasonal and economic cycle of the community, and to the Catholic liturgical calendar.
Italian cunning folk may use a variety of tools in their work which suggest a connection to Stregheria and Neo-Pagan Witchcraft. They commonly keep notebooks in which charms and prayers are recorded – the forerunners of modern-day books of shadows. Some use weapons of various types (daggers, swords, bayonets and even guns) to frighten evil spirits or symbolically cut away certain illnesses, such as
worms. Ropes or cords may be used in binding spells and charms, while other tools may be entirely idiosyncratic.
The Italian cunning tradition has a number of traits that suggest that some aspects of modern Stregheria may derive from it in part, and that many Italian Americans who see themselves as carriers of Stregheria grew up in families that preserved aspects of the rural Italian enchanted worldview. Like modern Neo-Paganism and revival witchcraft, this way of life was organized around a ritual year that followed the
cycle of the seasons; the moon and sun influenced rhythms of work and production. Women were recognized as life-givers and nourishers, and were closely involved in the maintenance of shrines to a feminine divine figure, the Virgin Mary. Their immigrant ancestors may have been carriers of a tradition of healing that involved herbal and magical practices. They may have kept notebooks of charms and prayers
that were precursors of today’s Neo-Pagan books of shadows. Their tools may have included knives, swords and other weapons designed to frighten away malevolent spirits, and their craft involved communication with helpers who took the form of ancestor spirits. Since these traditions could often be conflated with witchcraft in
popular narratives, it is possible that this link persisted into the second, third and fourth generation after immigration, giving contemporary Streghe the impression that their ancestors belonged to an organized, hierarchical but secret society of witches. But Italian cunning craft also differs from modern Neo-Pagan Stregheria in
important ways. It is emphatically not a pagan religion; there is no mention of a goddess and god, nor are deities ever drawn down into the bodies of practitioners. It exists within a largely Catholic worldview, albeit one permeated with ancestor spirits, magical practice and other elements that mark it as vernacular, rather than ecclesiastical, in nature. Absent, too, is the Wiccan ritual framework, and while there may be certain similarities between the Wiccan year cycle and that of rural Italy, that is because the former is based largely on the Irish agro-pastoral cycle, which shares a common heritage with that of other parts of Europe, including Italy.
But could an ancient pre-Christian religion involving the veneration of Diana have survived in Italian peasant tradition, only to be brought to North America by Italian immigrants? The lack of written evidence makes any answer to this question hypothetical at best, but from the historical record, such a scenario would be very unlikely. Three factors make the survival of a pagan religion in Italy into the 20th century, and its transmission through written documents such as Leland’s Aradia, improbable: the strong presence of Christianity throughout the peninsula from fairly early after the fall of the Roman Empire; the lack of a unified Italian culture and language until the late 19th century; and the relative isolation and lack of resources of the peasant classes – the very ones who are said to have preserved the religion, according to the Neo-Pagan mythos.
Stregheria and Italian vernacular magic and healing are, then, quite different but interconnected traditions. Many Italian Americans who today see themselves as carriers of Stregheria grew up in families that preserved aspects of the enchanted worldview in an immigrant context. While Stregheria may be helping contemporary Italian Americans rediscover aspects of their roots and feel pride in their ethnic identity, its form, structure and cultural context are markedly different from those of the enchanted worldview and its associated practices in Italy. Yet Stregheria should not be interpreted as inauthentic, fake or contrived, for innovation and reclamation are part of the process of tradition. The enchanted worldview cannot exist in the context of contemporary urban North America; Italian Americans need new ways to construct and preserve ethnic identity, and for some, Stregheria satisfies those needs.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Variations on a Strega
Recently there was an interesting conversation in a Streghe yahoo group.
I thought I'd offer my own take on the many variations of those who call their practice Stregheria or themselves Strega or Stregone or Streghe.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who are neopagan (Pagan-Wiccan/Roman) reconstructionists and do spell/ritual work based on the Gods of those traditions. If they have Wiccan tendencies they will more freely mix and match Gods & Goddess and influences from other paths. If they are more Roman in their tendencies the Gods and Goddesses and influence will be more specialized. These people may see Aradia as a historical person or as a Goddess. So there are at least 4 subgroups in this group:
Pagan-Wiccan - Aradia historical person
Pagan-Wiccan - Aradia Goddess
Roman Reconstruction - Aradia historical person
Roman Reconstruction - Aradia Goddess
There are people who call themselves Streghe who are essentially Catholic (more rarely Christian & not Catholic)and of Italian descent or Italian influence. Saint and Mary Worship is a part of this practice, as are things that aren't Catholic but of the Old Ways and left over from what "Nonna" or their great aunt or ... used to do. These people essentially Christian in their approach to life.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who are Pagan-Wiccan but who freely work with Saints and Mary and other semi-Christian folkways as well as other pagan Gods and Goddesses. These people may see Aradia as a historical person or as a Goddess. These people are essentially Pagan but use the Christian Mythos as freely as they use any other Mythos.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who work so hard to walk the line between Catholic/Christian and Pagan Old Ways that it is almost impossible to know how they will land on any issue. It is best to work with these individuals as if they are essentially Christian and then be surprised when they come down on the Pagan side of the fence.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who just practice folk magic with no religion attached to it. (This is also referred by some as Stregoneria.)
There are people who call themselves Streghe with a lineage of some sort and the practices that go with being in those clans, etc. These people have been either born into or adopted into a Streghe tradition. They have been intentionally trained and initiated into the Old Ways and have taken vows to teach and to hold the some secrets back from those who are not adopted/trained/initiated. I belong to this group. But freely interact with all others.
I thought I'd offer my own take on the many variations of those who call their practice Stregheria or themselves Strega or Stregone or Streghe.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who are neopagan (Pagan-Wiccan/Roman) reconstructionists and do spell/ritual work based on the Gods of those traditions. If they have Wiccan tendencies they will more freely mix and match Gods & Goddess and influences from other paths. If they are more Roman in their tendencies the Gods and Goddesses and influence will be more specialized. These people may see Aradia as a historical person or as a Goddess. So there are at least 4 subgroups in this group:
Pagan-Wiccan - Aradia historical person
Pagan-Wiccan - Aradia Goddess
Roman Reconstruction - Aradia historical person
Roman Reconstruction - Aradia Goddess
There are people who call themselves Streghe who are essentially Catholic (more rarely Christian & not Catholic)and of Italian descent or Italian influence. Saint and Mary Worship is a part of this practice, as are things that aren't Catholic but of the Old Ways and left over from what "Nonna" or their great aunt or ... used to do. These people essentially Christian in their approach to life.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who are Pagan-Wiccan but who freely work with Saints and Mary and other semi-Christian folkways as well as other pagan Gods and Goddesses. These people may see Aradia as a historical person or as a Goddess. These people are essentially Pagan but use the Christian Mythos as freely as they use any other Mythos.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who work so hard to walk the line between Catholic/Christian and Pagan Old Ways that it is almost impossible to know how they will land on any issue. It is best to work with these individuals as if they are essentially Christian and then be surprised when they come down on the Pagan side of the fence.
There are people who call themselves Streghe who just practice folk magic with no religion attached to it. (This is also referred by some as Stregoneria.)
There are people who call themselves Streghe with a lineage of some sort and the practices that go with being in those clans, etc. These people have been either born into or adopted into a Streghe tradition. They have been intentionally trained and initiated into the Old Ways and have taken vows to teach and to hold the some secrets back from those who are not adopted/trained/initiated. I belong to this group. But freely interact with all others.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Cornucopia
"Now hear the words of Aradia: "Know that every action brings forth another and that these actions are linked together through their natures. Therefore, whatsoever you send forth, so shall you receive. A farmer can harvest for himself no more than he plants. Therefore let us consider what is good in our lives and what is full. Let us also consider that is bad and what is empty. And let us meditate upon the reasons for all of these things."
Taken from the Cornucopia Ritual in "Hereditary Witchcraft" by Raven Grimassi
Lots of folks think of Cornucopia as a celebration of aubundance, a harvest festival.
And there is that aspect to the holiday.
But there is more to it than that.
Now is the time to take stock of your life and determine
what is good and to take the time to be thankful for the blessings and abundance in your life
AND
what is bad and empty or not so good and think about why this is and meditate on what you should do about it.
Anyone who gardens will understand the need to review what plants are "working" in the garden and what plants are not.
Sometimes a plant doesn't work because it doesn't grow well in the location. Maybe all it needs is to be moved to a new spot.
Sometimes a plant doesn't work in the garden because it grows too well and begins to take over and leaves no room for others.
Sometimes a plant is just not hardy in the enivornment and needs to be removed.
As Streghe this is the time of year we assess our lives and take time to make the decisions and to enlist the Gods as necessary to make changes.
Taken from the Cornucopia Ritual in "Hereditary Witchcraft" by Raven Grimassi
Lots of folks think of Cornucopia as a celebration of aubundance, a harvest festival.
And there is that aspect to the holiday.
But there is more to it than that.
Now is the time to take stock of your life and determine
what is good and to take the time to be thankful for the blessings and abundance in your life
AND
what is bad and empty or not so good and think about why this is and meditate on what you should do about it.
Anyone who gardens will understand the need to review what plants are "working" in the garden and what plants are not.
Sometimes a plant doesn't work because it doesn't grow well in the location. Maybe all it needs is to be moved to a new spot.
Sometimes a plant doesn't work in the garden because it grows too well and begins to take over and leaves no room for others.
Sometimes a plant is just not hardy in the enivornment and needs to be removed.
As Streghe this is the time of year we assess our lives and take time to make the decisions and to enlist the Gods as necessary to make changes.
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