Nel libro “L’ultima valle”, (Oscar Mondadori) Carlo Sgorlon ci racconta l’abbandono di un antico borgo montano causato dalla costruzione di una enorme diga. L’ intero paese si sposta, ma il maggiore benessere, le comodità e il progresso tecnologico sembrano, anziché assopire, risvegliare ed acutizzare la nostalgia delle tradizioni e degli antichi valori. “… La festa, durante la giornata, si celebrò con le bancarelle dei venditori di noci, ciambelle, noccioline americane, caramelle, giocattoli di latta; in un angolo della piazza un grappolo di palloncini colorati, ancorati con lo spago a un sasso di fiume, fecero venire ai più piccoli le accensioni della cupidigia. Poi, di sera, le bancarelle furono disfatte, e ognuno credette che la festa finisse lì. Invece prima di andare a letto sentimmo un rumore di campanacci scossi. Che succedeva? Erano discesi i malgàri dalle casere? Ognuno si fece alla finestra. Per la piazza nuova, che aveva mucchi di terra ancora da sistemare, saltellavano secondo i modi della danza antichissima due forme scure, i piedi infilati in zoccoli di legno, di quelli che servono per entrare nelle stalle, una pelle di caprone sulla schiena, con una serie di campanacci di tutte le dimensioni, che suonavano in maniera bizzarra, secondo i salti dei danzatori. Era un ballo che non si vedeva più in paese da anni, era una delle tradizioni abbandonate. Continuò a lungo, nel buio, e molti uscirono in piazza per far circolo attorno ai ballerini e battere le mani. Ma chi erano? Impossibile riconoscerli dalle gambe. Dai calzonacci stazzonati e affumicati parevano proprio dei malgàri. Qualcuno pensò di unirsi alla danza, che forse era nata all’epoca dei celti e delle palafitte costruite sul lago di Brandis, e ognuno rifletté se avesse ancora in casa la rastrelliera di legno con i campanacci. Dov’era finita la mia, che era stata di mio padre e di mio nonno? Non lo sapevo. All’epoca del trasloco non avevo notato che ci fosse, e non l’avevo cercata. …” In the book“L’ultima valle”, (Oscar Mondadori) Carlo Sgorlon tells us the abandon of an ancient mountain village due to the building of a lode. The whole village moved but the highest well being, comforts and technological progress seem to awake and intensify tradition and ancient values nostalgia instead of dieing down. “… during the day the feast was celebrated with nuts, doughnuts, peanuts, sweets, and tin toys stalls; in a corner of the square a group of coloured swell-heads anchored with a thread to a river rock aroused greed in children. Then at the evening stalls were unmade and everybody thought that the feast was ended. On the contrary before going to sleep we heard a sound of shaken cow-bells. What did happen? Had herdsmen come down from farmsteads? Everybody looked at the window. Two dark shadows were hopping following the manner of a very ancient folk-dance in the new square, where still there were earth heaps. They had wooden clogs, the clogs type useful to enter sheds, a goat leather on the shoulders with a series of caw-bells of different measures that sounded in a strange manner following the dancers jumps. This dance had been not seen in the village for years: it was one of the abandoned traditions. They danced for long time in the dark and many people went in the square to get into a circle around the dancers and to shake their hands. But who were they? It was impossible to recognize them from the legs. They seemed real herdsmen due to their creased and smoke-blackened trousers. Someone thought to dance with them that dance originated from Celtics and piles built on Brandis lake epoch; and everybody thought if one had had at home a wooden rack with caw-bells. Where was my rack that had been of my father and of my grandfather? I did know it. At the moment of moving I had not noticed if it was there, and l did not search for it …”
SPAURACCHI DI MONTAGNA OPINIONI Una delle feste più sentite, ancora oggi, da tutte le tribù delle Alpi è il Carnevale. I Carnevali tradizionali sono la trasposizione, in forma burlesca e quindi approvata dalla chiesa, dei riti arcaici che propiziavano il ritorno della primavera e la fertilità delle donne e degli animali. La benedizione clericale serviva a riportare una cerimonia di chiaro significato pagano nell’ortodossia: ricordiamo che proprio nelle valli alpine l’Inquisizione fece il maggior numero di vittime, streghe, eretici dissidenti bruciati a milioni per secoli. In questo quadro, l’uso della maschera trasformava, per qualche giorno, la gente dei paesi in spiriti della natura, capaci di combattere le forze che impedivano la riproduzione e la rinascita ciclica della vegetazione: più brutti erano, piu efficaci erano nella lotta. Nello stesso tempo, chi era impegnato in azioni di indubbia origine sciamanica, proibite dal potere laico e religioso, era protetto dall’anonimato . Oggi molti paesi hanno ritrovato il proprio Carnevale e attraverso la festa, la ricostruzione dei costumi, molti scultori hanno ripreso a fare le maschere: parte essenziale del rituale per chi vive nelle valli, meravigliosi oggetti d’art Anthropologist and historical journalis, cultural attaché at Apline Ecologic Centre of Viote Monte Bondone, Trento One of the most favoured feasts of Alpine tribes is Carnival. Traditional Carnivals are the transposition in mocking form of archaic rites that propitiated the spring return and fertility, therefore approved by the Church. Clerical blessing was useful to transform this pagan celebration into orhodoxy: we remember that just in alpine valleys the Inquisition made the highest number of victims. Millions of witches and dissident heretics had been balzed in the course of centuries. In this case the use of masks transformed for some days village people into nature spirits, able to fight the strengths that prevented the earth from reproduction and vegetation rebirth. The most they were unattractive, the most they were effective in fighting. Who was engaged in shaman actions, prohibited from laic and religious laws, was protected due to the anonymity. Today many countries founded their own Carnival and the reconstruction of costumes. Many sculptors remake masks: an essential part of ritual for whom is living in the valleys and marvellous art objects for whom has the heart to hang them at home.
Andar per musei Witch-hunt originates in Triora, rural village surrounded by Liguria mountains, at the end of 1587, when some women who met in humble hamlets or near sources, had been accused of being responsible of a lasting famine. To witches were pin the most different blames. In reality very often their powers were benevolent. Their knowledge in the field of medicine, the deep knowing of herbs, the familiarity with nervous system made that they often substituted physicians of the epoch. Four of the six rooms which composes ethnographic and witchcraft museum of Triora (each of them represent a country life cycle) are dedicated just to witches and to their tragic stories. In this manner among ancient objects, superstition and belief evidences one can rediscover a particularly living and palpitanting local culture. But what is about Triora witches? By reading a letter dated August 28 1589, which was written by a Cardinal of Santa Severina of the congregation of Rome Holy Inquisition, one can in some way argue that the Holy Office Tribunal acted with less severity in respect of Genoa ecclesiastic authorities and that at least some women but not all the survivors had been released. We would like to think that Tyrolese women –we lost their trails since they had left their home village – could in some way have survived starting a new life and forming new families, whose surname maybe recalls the dialectal word. MOUNTAINS DREAD At the Bolzanino when Karl Wohlgemuth (1867- 1933) started with his popular collection, people said: “The buttonhole of pop art is the mask. Therefore search with enthusiasm for them in your country that is very rich of them!” Masks, jumpers, bird-scarers, dragoon-head shaped stocks, wedding invitation stocks and apotropaic figures (Neidköpfe) used to represent horror in order to frighten animals when they damaged harvests or evil sprits. In the pictures there are some examples of masks and clothes of a jumper presented in occasion of a temporary show in Castel Roncolo, a picturesque manor built at the entrance of Valle Sarentino and featured by frescoed rooms. (For additional information 0471-329844)
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