Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

We will take for our book of reference no certain Sicilian customs,41 one of Dr. Pitrè’s exhaustive cycle. We could not have a better guide. Dr. Pitrè has devoted twenty good years of his life, health, and fortune to collecting and preserving the records of all the popular superstitions, habits, legends and customs of Sicily. Some of these are already things of the past; others are swiftly vanishing; others again are in full vigor. Dr. Pitrè’s work is valuable enough now; in a short time it will be priceless to students and ethnologists who care to trace likenesses and track to sources, and who are not content with the mere surface of things without delving down to causes and meanings.

All women, the world over, who expect to become mothers, are curious as to the sex of the unborn child; and every old wife has a bundle of unfailing signs and omens which determine the question out of hand without leaving room for doubt. In Sicily these signs are as follows – among others of dubious modesty, which it is as well to leave in obscurity. If you suddenly ask an expectant mother: “What is the matter with your hand?” and she holds up or turns out the palm of her right hand, her child will be a boy. If she holds up her left hand or turns out the back of her right, it will be a girl. If she strews salt before the threshold, the sex of the first person who enters in at the door determines that of the unborn – a man for a boy, a woman for a girl. If she goes to draw water from the well, and throws a few drops over her shoulder without looking back, the sex of the first person who passes, after the performance of this “sortilegio,” in like manner determines the sex of the child. After the first child, the line in which the hair grows at the nape of the neck of the preceding is an unfailing sign of that which is coming after. If it grows in a peak it presages a boy, if straight a girl. This is also one of the infallible signs in India. If the woman sees an ugly or a deformed creature, and does not say in an audible voice: “Diu ca lu fici” – God has made it – she will produce a monster. If she repeats the charm, devoutly as she ought, she has saved her child from deformity.

The patron saint of expectant mothers in Sicily is S. Francisco di Paola. To secure his intervention in their behalf they go to church every Friday to pray specially to him. The first time they go they are blessed by putting on the cord or girdle proper to this saint; by receiving, before their own offering, two blessed beans, a few blessed wafers, and a small wax taper, also blessed, round which is twisted a slip of paper whereon is printed – “Ora pro nobis Sancte Pater Francisce di Paola.” The cord is worn during the time of pregnancy; the candle is lighted during the pains of childbirth, when heavenly interposition is necessary; and the beans and wafers are eaten as an act of devotion which results in all manner of good to both mother and child.

In country places pregnant women who believe in the knowledge of the midwife rather than in the science of the doctor, are still bled at stated times, generally on the “even” months. Dr. Pitrè knew personally one woman who had been bled the incredible number of two hundred and thirteen times during her pregnancy. She had moreover heart disease; and she offered herself as a wet-nurse.

The quarter in which the moon chances to be at the time of birth has great influence on the future character and career of the new-born. So have special days and months. All children born in March, which is the “mad” month of Italy (“Marzo è pazzo”), are predisposed to insanity. Woe to the female child who has the ill-luck to be born on a cloudy, stormy, rainy day! She must infallibly become an ugly woman. Woe to the boy who is born with the new moon! He will become a “loup garou,” and he will be recognized by his inordinately long nails. But well is it for the child who first sees the light of day on a Friday – unlike ourselves, with whom “Friday’s child is sour and sad” – or who is born on St. Paul’s night. He will be bright, strong, bold and cheerful. He will be able to handle venomous snakes with impunity for his own part, and to cure by licking those who have been bitten. He will be able to control lunatics and to discover things secret and hidden; and he will be a chatterbox.

More things go to make a successful or unsuccessful “time” in Sicily than we recognize in England. A woman in her hour of trial is held and hindered as much as was ever poor Alcmena, when Lucina sat crosslegged before her gate, if a woman “in disgrazia di Dio” – that is, leading an immoral life – either in secret or openly, enters the room. The best counter-agent then is to invoke very loudly Santa Leocarda, the Dea Partula of Catholicism. If she be not sufficiently powerful, and things are still delayed, then all the other saints, the Madonna, and finally God himself, are appealed to with profound faith in a speedy release. In one place the church bells are rung; on which all the women within earshot repeat an Ave. In another, the silver chain of La Madonna della Catena is the surest obstetrician; and science and the doctor have no power over the mind of the suffering woman where this has all. To this day is believed the story of a poor mother who, when her pain had begun, hurried off to the church to pray to the Madonna della Catena for aid. When she returned home, the Holy Virgin herself assisted her, and not only brought her child into the world, but also gave her bread, clothes and jewels.

If the child be born weak or dying, and the need is therefore imminent, the midwife baptizes it. For which reason she must never be one who is deaf and dumb – nor one who stutters or stammers. Before baptism no one must kiss a new-born infant, seeing that it is still a pagan; which thing would therefore be a sin. In Modica the new-born child is no longer under the protection of the Madonna, but under that of certain mysterious beings called “Le Padrone della Casa.” To ensure this protection the oldest of the women present lays on the table, or the clothes chest, nine black beans in the form of a wedge – repeating between her teeth a doggerel charm, which will prevent “Le Padrone della Casa” from harming the babe or its mother. Others, instead of black beans, put their trust in a reel or winder with two little bits of cane fastened to it crosswise, which they lay on the bed, and which also is certain to prevent all evil handling by these viewless forms. At Marsala, the night after that following the birth, the windows of the room where the infant lies are shut close, a pinch of salt is strewn behind the door, and the light is left burning, so that a certain malignant spirit called ’Nserra may not enter to hurt the new-born. In other places they hide in the woman’s bed – generally under the pillow – a key, or a small ball, or a clove of garlic, or the mother’s thimble, or scissors, all or any of which does the same good office of exorcism as the pinch of salt, and the light left burning. For the first drink, a whole partridge, beak and feet, is put into a pint of water, which is then boiled down to a cupful, and given to the woman as the best restorative art and science can devise. When she is allowed to eat solids she has a chicken, of which she is careful to give the neck to her husband. Were she herself to eat it, her child’s neck would be undeniably weak.

When taken to the church to be baptized, the infant, if a boy, is carried on the right arm – if a girl, on the left. In the church the father proper effaces himself as of no account in the proceedings; and the godfather carries off all the honors. The more pompous ceremonial at baptism occurs only at the birth of the first son. The Sicilian proverb has it: “The first son is born a baron.”

Immediately after the baptism Sicilian Albanians dance a special dance; and when they go home they throw out roasted peas to the people. Hence: “When shall we have the peas?” is used as a periphrasis for: “When does she expect her confinement?” The water in which the “chrism,” or christening cup is washed, is accounted holy, because of the sacred oil which it has touched. It is flung out on to a hedge, so that no foot of man may tread the soil which has received it. Also the water in which the child is first washed is treated as a thing apart. It is thrown on to the highway, if the babe be a boy; under the bed, or the oven, or in some other part of the house, if it be a girl; – the one signifying that a man must fare forth, the other that a woman must bide within.

When the child “grows two days in one,” and “smiles to the angels?” it is under the guardianship of certain other viewless, formless and mysterious creatures, who seem to be vagabonds and open-air doubles of the “Padrone della Casa.” These are “Le Donne di fuori.” The mother asks permission of these “Donne,” before she lifts the child from the cradle. “In the name of God,” she says, as she takes it up, “with your permission, my ladies.” These “Donne di fuori,” are not always to be relied on, for now they do, and now they do not, protect the little one. It is all a matter of caprice and humor; but certainly no mother who loved her child would omit this courteous entreaty to the, “Donne” who are supposed to have had the creature in their keeping while she was absent, and it was sleeping.

Not everyone in Sicily can marry according to his desire and the apparent fitness of things; for there are old feuds between parish and parish, as bitter as were ever those of Guelf and Ghibelline in times past; and the devotees of one saint will have as little to say to the devotees of another as will Jew and Gentile, True Believer and Giaour. In early times this local rivalry was, naturally, more pronounced than it is at present; but even now in Modica it is extremely rare if a San Giorgioaro marries a Sampietrana, or vice versâ – each considering the other as of a different and heretical religion. A marriage made not long ago between two people of these several parishes turned out ill solely on the religious question, the husband and wife not agreeing to differ, but each wanting to convert the other from the false to the true faith, and indignant because of ill-success. Just lately, says Dr. Pitrè, a Syracusan girl, whose patron saint was Saint Philip, and who was betrothed to a young man of the confraternity of the Santo Spirito, sent all adrift because, a few days before the marriage was to take place, she went to see her lover, lying ill in bed, and found hanging to the pillow a picture of the objectionable Santo Spirito. Whereat, furious and enraged she snatched down the picture, tore it into a thousand pieces which she trampled under foot, and then and there made it a sine quâ non that her husband-elect should substitute for this a picture of Saint Philip. This the young man refused to do; and the marriage was broken off.

Here in Sicily, as elsewhere, the seafaring population have little or nothing to say to the landsfolk by way of marriage; holding themselves more moral, more industrious, and in every way superior to those who live by the harvests of the earth or by the quick returns and easy profits of trade. But there is much more than this. The daughter of a small landed proprietor will not be given to the master of men in any kind of business, nor will the son of the former be suffered to marry the daughter of the latter. A peasant farmer, without sixpence, would not let his girl marry a well-to-do shepherd. A workman or rather a day laborer – “bracciante” – would not be received into the family of a muleteer, nor he again into one where the head was the keeper of swine or of cattle. The husbandman who can prune vines disdains the man who cannot dig, let him be what he will; the cow-herd disdains the ox-herd, and he again the man who looks after the calves. The shepherd is above the goat-herd; and so on, down to the most microscopic differences, surpassing even those of caste-ridden India.

When conditions, however, are equal, and there are no overt objections to the desired marriage, the mother of the young man takes the thing in hand. She knows that her son wants to marry, because he is sullen, silent, rude, contradictious and fault-finding; because last Saturday night he hitched up the ass to the hook in the house wall, instead of stabling it as he ought, and himself passed the night out of doors; or because – in one place in Sicily – he sat on the chest, stamped his feet and kicked his heels, so that his parents, hearing the noise, might know that he was disturbed in his mind, and wanted to marry so soon as convenient. Then the mother knows what is before her, and accepts her duties as a good woman should.

She dresses herself a little smartly and goes to the house of the Nina or Rosa with whom her son has fallen in love, to see what the girl is like when at home, and to find out the amount of dower likely to be given with her. She hides under her shawl a weaver’s comb, which, as soon as she is seated, she brings out, asking the girl’s mother if she can lend her one like it? This latter answers that she will look for one, and will do all she can to meet her visitor’s wishes. She then sends the daughter into another room, and the two begin the serious business of means and dowry.

In olden times the girl who did not know how to weave the thread she had already spun had small chance of finding a husband, how great soever her charms or virtues. Power looms and cheap cloth have changed all this and substituted a more generalized kind of industriousness; but, all the same, she must be industrious – or have the wit to appear so – else the maternal envoy will have none of her; but leaving the house hurriedly, crosses herself and repeats thrice the Sicilian word for “Renounced.” In Modica the young man’s mother sets a broom against the girl’s house-door at night which does the same as the weaver’s comb elsewhere; and, if all other things suit, the young people are betrothed the following Saturday. And after they are betrothed the girl’s mother goes to a church at some distance from her own home, where she stands behind the door, and, according to the words said by the first persons who pass through, foretells the happiness or the unhappiness of the marriage set on foot.

The inventory of the girl’s possessions – chiefly house and body-linen – is made by a public writer, and always begins with an invocation to “Gesù, Maria, Giuseppe” – the Holy Family. It is sent to the bridegroom-elect wrapped in a handkerchief. If considered satisfactory, it is kept; if insufficient, it is returned. If accepted as sufficient, there is a solemn conclave of the parents and kinsfolk of the two houses. The girl is seated in the middle of the room. Her future mother-in-law, or the nearest married kinswoman of the bridegroom if she be dead, takes down and then plaits and dresses her hair – all people who have been to Italy know what a universal office of maternal care is this of dressing the girl’s hair; – slips the engaged ring on her finger; puts a comb in her head; gives her a silk-handkerchief, and kisses her. After this the girl rises, kisses the hands of her future father-and mother-in-law, and seats herself afresh, between her own kinsfolk on her left, and those of her “promesso sposo,” on her right. In some places is added to these manifestations a bit of flame-colored ribbon (“color rosso-fuoco; colore obbligato”), which the future mother-in-law plaits into the girl’s tresses while combing her hair, and which this latter never puts off till the day of the wedding. Formerly a “promessa sposa” wore a broad linen band across her brow and down her face, tied under her chin with a purple ribbon.

On her side the girl’s mother gives the future son-in-law a scapulary of the Madonna del Carmine, fastened to a long blue ribbon. When the formal kiss of betrothal is given between the young people, the guests break out into “Evvivas!” and the wine and feasting begin. Formerly a “promessa sposa” shaved off one or both of her eyebrows. But this custom was inconvenient. If anything happened to prevent the marriage it spoilt all chances for the future.

Gifts from the man to the woman are de rigueur – a survival of the old mode of barter or purchase. These gifts are generally of jewelry; but sometimes the pair exchange useful presents of body-linen, &c. At Easter the man gives the woman either a luscious sweet called “cassata,” or a “peccorella di pasta reale,” that is a lamb couchant made of almond paste, crowned with a tinsel crown, carrying a flag, and colored after nature. At the Feast of St. Peter – the 29th of July; not the same as Saints Peter and Paul – he gives keys made of flour and honey, or of almonds, or of caramel. On the 2nd of November – the day off All Souls’ – he takes her sweet brown cakes with a white mortuary figure raised in high relief, as a child, or a man, or a death’s head and cross bones, or a well-defined set of ribs to symbolize a skeleton, according to the nearest relative she may have lost. But in Mazarra no one who loved his bride would give her aught in the likeness of a cat, as this would presage her speedy death. Biscuits for St. Martin’s day; gingerbread in true lovers’ knots, tough and tasteless, and sugar bambini for Christmas; huge hearts, of a rather coarse imitation of mincemeat, and sugared over, for the Feast of the Annunciation; on the day of Saints Cosmo and Damian, medlars, quinces and the saints themselves done in honey and sugar – and so on; – these are the little courtesies of the betrothal which no man who respected himself, or desired the love of her who was to be his wife, would dream of neglecting.

During the time of betrothal, how long so ever it may last, the young people are never suffered to be one moment alone, nor to say anything to each other which all the world does not hear. The man may go once a week to the girl’s house; where he seats himself at the corner of the room opposite to that where she is sitting; but he may not touch her hand nor speak to her below his breath. In the country, when they cannot marry for yet awhile, they engage themselves from year to year. But they are always kept apart and rigorously watched.

Formerly marriages were somewhat earlier than now. Now they are delayed until the young fellow has served his three years in the army. They used to be most general when he was twenty and she eighteen; and a proverb says that at eighteen a girl either marries or dies. The church did not sanction marriages earlier than these several ages, save in exceptional cases; and any one who assisted at the marriage of a girl below the age of eighteen, without the consent of her parents and guardians, was imprisoned for life and forfeited all he had. This law, however, was frequently broken in remote places, and especially about Palermo, where “the marriages of Monreale” have passed into a proverb. When a young girl, say of sixteen, marries and has a good childbirth, they say, “She has been to Monreale.”

May and August are unlucky months in which to be married. September and the following three months are the most propitious. The prejudice against May dates from old classic times; while June was considered as fit by the Romans as it is now by the Palermitans. Up to the end of the sixteenth century the day of days was St. John the Baptist’s. Two days in the week are unlucky for marriage – Tuesday and Friday:

“Nè di Venere nè di MarteNon si sposa nè si parte.”

Sunday is the best day of all; especially in country places, where it is evidently the most convenient.

If the bride or one of the bridal party slips by the way, if the ring or one of the candles on the altar falls in church, the young couple may look out for sorrow. If two sisters are married on the same day, ill will fare the younger. If one candle shines with less brilliancy than the other, or one of the kneeling spouses rises before the other, that one whose candle has not burnt as it should, or the one who has risen before the partner, will die first or die soon.

In Piano de’ Greci – the Greek Colony about twelve miles from Palermo – the young husband keeps his Phrygian cap on his head in church, as a sign that he too is now the head of a new family; and in olden times the bride used to come into church on horseback. In one place, Salaparuta, the bride enters in at the small door and goes out by the large; and she must perforce pass beneath the campanile, else she has not been married properly. In the Sicilian-Albanian colonies, after the wedding-rings – of gold for the man, of silver for the woman, as marking her inferior condition – have been placed on their fingers and the wedding crowns on their heads, the officiating priest puts a white veil on himself. He then steeps some bread in a glass of wine, and gives the young couple to eat three times; after which, invoking the name of the Lord, he dashes the glass to the ground. Then they all dance a certain dance, decorous, not to say lugubrious, consisting properly of only three turns made round and round as a kind of waltz, guided by the priest, with the accompaniment of two hymns, one to the Prophet Isaiah, and the other – Absit omen – to the Holy Martyrs. After the dance comes the Holy Kiss. The priest kisses the husband only, and he all the men and his bride. She kisses only all the women.

On their return from church “confetti” are thrown in the way before the newly-married couple; or if not, then boxes of sweetmeats – like the dragées of a French christening – are afterwards given to the parents and kinsfolk. In one place they throw dried peas, beans, almonds and corn – this last is the sign of plenty. Or they vary these with vegetables, bread and corn and salt mixed; or with corn and nuts; or “dolci” made of wheaten flour and honey. In Syracuse they throw salt and wheat – the former the symbol of wisdom, the latter of plenty. The Romans used to throw corn at their wedding feasts; and the nut-throwing of Sicily dates from the times when young Caius or Julius flung to his former companions those “nuces juglandes,” as a sign that he was no longer a boy ready to play as formerly with them all. In Avola, the nearest neighbor goes up to the bride with an apron full of orange leaves, which she flings in her face, saying, “Continence and boy-children!” then strews the remainder before the house-door. To this ceremony is added another as significant – breaking two hen’s eggs at the feet of the “sposi.” At one place they sprinkle the threshold with wine before entering. Another custom at Avola, as sacred as our wedding-cake, is to give each of the guests a spoonful of “ammilata, ” almonds pounded up with honey. At Piano de’ Greci, and in the other Sicilian-Greek colonies, the mother-in-law stands at the door of the house waiting for her daughter-in-law to give her a spoonful of honey as soon as she enters, to which are added “ciambelle” – small cakes in the form of a ring. The bride’s house is adorned with flowers, but it is a bad omen if two bits of wire get put by chance crosswise.

At dinner the bridegroom leaves the bride to go to his own home, but he returns in the middle of the meal to finish it with his bride; which seems a daft-like custom, serving no good purpose beyond the waste of time. They are very particular as to who shall sit on the right and who on the left of the bride, when, gayly dressed and set under a looking-glass, she sits like a doll to receive the congratulations of her friends. The first day of these receptions all the invitations are given by the mother of the bride; the second they are given by the mother of the bridegroom. There is good store of maccheroni and the like; and at Modica a plate is set to receive the contributions of the guests – like our Penny Weddings in the North. Some give money, some jewelry, etc., and the amount raised is generally of sufficient worth in view of the condition of the high contracting parties. In the evening they dance, when the “sposo” or “zitu,” cap in hand, makes a profound bow to the bride or “zita,” who rises joyously and dances “di tutta lena.” After a few turns the “zitu” makes another profound bow and sits down; when the bride dances once round the room alone, then selects first one partner then another. “Non prigari zita pr’ abballari.” Songs and dances finished, the mother-in-law accompanies the bride to the bride-chamber. In default of her, this time-honored office devolves on the bridegroom’s married sister or otherwise nearest relation. This is de rigueur; and there was an ugly affray at Palermo not so long ago on this very matter, which ended in the wounding and imprisonment of the bridegroom and his kinsfolk. Often all sorts of rude practical jokes are played, especially on old people or second marriages; some of which are horribly unseemly, and all are inconvenient. The bride stays eight days in the house receiving visits, and having a “good time” generally; after which she goes to church dressed all in white. In the marriage contract it is specified to what festas and amusements the husband shall take her during the year; and in olden times was added the number of dishes she was to have at her meals, the number of dresses she was to be allowed during the year, down to the most minute arrangements for her comfort and consideration.