Litany to the Dead from Naples, Italy

In a previous post, we examined several accounts of the cult of the Holy Souls in Purgatory at Fontanelle Cemetery in Naples. Fontanelle Cemetery is an ossuary occupied Anime Pezzentelle, that is, “lost” souls, or souls without living descendents to perform official indulgences on their behalf. Many of them lost their lives during the great plagues of the 17th century, a time during which the city struggled to keep up with the task of burying large numbers of recently deceased citizens. The Anime Pezzentelle are said to suffer from the heat and pains of Purgatory, where their only solace are the prayers and refreshment provided by the living. Refreshment or refrische can take many forms: cool water, sacramentals such as rosary beads or saint cards, and oil lamps or candles are all common forms of refreshment. The goal of these devotional practices is to establish a bond through which soul can establish contact through dreams. Once this intimate relationship is in place, the soul may reveal more details about who they were in life, divine the future (including lottery numbers), or be petitioned to perform miracles.

The prayer below, originally in Neapolitan and translated into English, may be said by groups or individuals who wish to gain the favor of Anime Pezzentelle, specifically the souls of plague victims. It is traditionally said while in the ossuary, although we might speculate that all cemeteries belongs to the same kingdom. The opening prayer is repeated for the names of all the deceased being invoked. (Anime Pezzentelle are usually said to reveal their names in dream early in the relationship, and often some details about who they were in life such as their gender and occupation.) The closing prayer is said before departing from the ossuary or cemetery.

There are a few traditional elements worth noting. For one, we see mentions of the beatings and nails of the Crucifixion which were also present in the Sicilian rosary for the dead we saw previously. Furthermore, in addition to invocations to Jesus and the Holy Trinity, we also see a powerful image of the female divine in this prayer: an entreaty to “come in the name of Jesus Christ, Saint Anne, and Maria”; a request vindicated “by the tears of the Sorrowful Mother”; and the line “pray to your divine redeemer (the Madonna)”, where the word “redeemer” is unmistakbly feminine in the original text. It is worth noting that in Naples, work with the lost souls is predominantly, perhaps exclusively, considered to be “women’s work”. The gendering is reinforced in the language of the work, which speaks of “adopting” skulls, as well as the objects commonly used in these devotions, which include handmade embroidery and rosary beads. The practitioner quite literally becomes the mother of a lost soul.

Napulitano

(opening prayer)

Guida: Guè, pè l’anema ‘e (name of deceased). Coro: Requia materna. (repeat as needed)

(prayer for the plague victims) Io ve chiammo aneme tutte, Aneme appestate cchiù de tutte; Mò che nnante a Dio state A me mischinu scunzulatu E nun ve ne scurdate. Pregate alla nostra divina clemenza, Arapitece ‘e porte de la santa divina clemenza pruverenza: Pregate alla vostra divina Redentora, Ce favorite il nostro ‘ntenzione; Mille e tanta vote Reque, refrische, repuose, sullievo e pace A chest’ aneme appestate mie rilette; Venite a casa mia ca v’aspetto; E paura nun me ne metto. Venite co lu nomme ‘e Giesù Cristo, Sant’Anna e Maria; ‘E case noste cuntente e cunzulate sia. Pe lu nomme de la Santissima Ternità Tutt’e ppene, tutte ‘e turmiente Tutt’e guaie nc’adda acquietà. Pe li voste battitore Fance grazia vosto Signore; Pe tre chiove trapassate Refrische e sullievo a chell’aneme sante appestate.

Gesù mio misericordia; Gesù mio misericordia; P’e lacreme ‘e Mamm’ Addulurata Refrische all’aneme de l’appestate.

(closing prayer)

Requia materna, erona romine, sparpetua lucia ‘nterna schiatte in pace. Amen.

English

(opening prayer)

Guide: Hail to the soul of (name of deceased). Chorus: Eternal peace. (repeat as needed)

(prayer for the plague victims)

I call you, all souls, Plague victims above all other souls, I pray that near to God you be. Do not forget me, I, a disconsolate wretch. Pray to our divine mercy, Open the doors of holy, divine, merciful providence: Pray to your divine redeemer (the Madonna), That she favor our intentions; Thousands of times Calm, refreshment, rest, solace, and peace To these plague victims’ souls, my beloveds; Come to my home where I await you; Because I have no fear. Come in the name of Jesus Christ, Saint Anne, and Maria; And let our homes be content and consoling. By the name of the Divine Trinity All troubles must be calmed. By your beatings Do us grace, oh Lord. By the three nails, Refreshment and solace to the holy souls of plague victims.

My Jesus, mercy; My Jesus, mercy; By the tears of the Sorrowful Mother, Refreshment to the souls of the plague victims.  

(closing prayer)

Eternal peace give them O Lord, shine eternal light, may they rest in peace. Amen.

(Source: Luciano Sola – “Il Camposanto delle Fontanelle. Storia e costumi di Napoli”)

“Fimmene, Fimmene”: A song for the distaff line

I have a friend whose family tree has been traced back a thousand years, but no women exist on it. She just discovered that she herself did not exist, but here brothers did. Her mother did not exist, and nor did her father's mother. Or her mother's father. There were no grandmothers. Fathers have sons and grandsons and so the lineage goes, with the name passed on... Eliminate your mother, then your two grandmothers, then your four great-grandmothers. Go back more generations and hundreds, then thousands disappear. Mothers vanish, and the fathers and mothers of those mothers. Ever more lives disappear as if unlived until you have narrowed a forest down to a tree, a web down to a line. This is what it takes to construct a linear narrative of blood or influence or meaning.

Rebecca Solnit, "Grandmother Spider". From Men Explain Things to Me. 

I have long associated “Fimmene, Fimmene” with my ancestral practice, and with my female ancestors in particular. I remember the first time I heard it, at a ritual/play performed by Alessandra Belloni and I Giullari di Piazza on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul 2016. I remember hearing Emanuele Licci from CGS play it as a solo during a concert on the second anniversary of my grandmother’s death. My husband, who was not familiar with the song or its personal importance, turned to me with a tear in his eye and said, “That man is very connected to his female ancestors.”

“Fimmene, Fimmene” is a song for and about women. It is an unabashedly political critique of working conditions and sexual assault. When singing or listening to the song, the heart is moved, the eyes water, the connection to the womb and ancestral memory becomes activated in the body. Women are born with all the ova they will ever produce in their lifetimes, so the ova that became you was alive within your mother, when she was still in your grandmother’s womb! This is a special relationship that we all have with our female ancestors, regardless of our gender.  

It’s also an excellent song for people who are new to Southern Italian musical traditions, or who think they can’t incorporate music into their personal devotions because they don’t have formal training. The rhythm is simple and slow enough to tap out even if you’ve never held a tamburello before. The lyrics in the video below are slow and well-articulated, so you can pick them up easily with practice. And, with the invocation at the end to Saint Paul, patron of tarantella, you’ll be singing and dancing in no time!

Salentino

Fimmene fimmene ca sciati allu tabbaccu, 'nde sciati ddoi e ne turnati quattru!

Ci bbu la dice cu chiantati lu tabbaccu? Lu sule è forte e bbe lu sicca tuttu.

Fimmene fimmene ca sciati a vinnimiare e sutta a lu ceppune bbu la faciti fare.

Ue santu Paulu miu de Galatina famme 'nde cuntentà 'sta signurina

Ue santu Paulu miu de le tarante pizzechi le caruse mmienzu'll'anche!

Ue santu Paulu miu de li scurzuni pizzeche li carusi alli cujuni.

English

Women, women who go to the tobacco, They walk out at two and return at four.

Who told you to plant the tobacco? The sun is strong and dries you all out!

Women, women who go to harvest And under the vine you have it done to yourselves.

My Saint Paul of Galatina, Work a miracle for this young woman.

My Saint Paul of the spiders, Bite the girls between their thighs.

My Saint Paul of the snakes, Bite the boys on their balls.

Women's prominence in devotion

"Women outnumbered men in the devotion since the time of the earliest available documents, although they were not included in its organizational life. They have always been the primary economic support of the devotion. With only about two exceptions, women wrote in to report the graces granted by the Madonna even when the grace had been bestowed on a man. Women were also the central figures in the life of the church.... "Women felt a profound sense of identity and a special closeness to the Madonna, as they reveal in their letters to her requesting graces or thanking her for favors granted. When their sufferings as mothers and wives were most intense, as these women tell their stories, when they felt that no one else could understand their particular agonies, they turned to the one who long ago had appealed to the masses of Europe because of her evident participation in humanity's trials. The mothers and grandmothers of the women of Italian Harlem had contributed to the evolution and popularity of this image, which now found an urban restatement. The Madonna to whom these women were so attached was not a distant, asexual figure, but a woman like themselves who had suffered for and with her child. Her power was located precisely in those areas where the power of Italian women, in all its complexity, was located: the domus. Like Italian women, the Madonna was expected to hold families together. She was also asked to forgive and to protect, suggesting a complex and considerable power--and one that could be wielded capriciously."

Robert Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street, pp. 205-206.

The sense-world of the festa

"The festa of the Madonna of Mount Carmel recreated the primary and traditional environments of the Italians--the preverbal environment, on the one hand, and the remembered environment of Italy, on the other--in the presence of a quasi-omnipotent mother who healed or did not heal, depending on the behavior of the individual. For the older immigrants and their Italian-born children, the sense world of the festa was the sense world of their southern Italian childhoods; for the later generations in East Harlem, the sense world of the festa recalled the smells, sounds, and tastes of life in the domus. In both cases, the festa and the domus, the sense world was shaped and presided over by a powerful woman. The religious experience of July 16 had the power to evoke memories that were extraordinarily basic: the people seemed to be returning not only to their paese but, more profoundly, to their mothers. The festa was a time of regression, in other words, and the smells, tastes, and sounds of it helped to precipitate and sustain this regression. The devotion summoned people into the sacral domus and surrounded them with familiar tastes, smells, sounds, colors, and textures; in this way, in the presence of their 'mamma,' the people returned to the world in which they had first learned, from their mothers, what reality was, what was good and what bad, what their basic values were and the values of their community. The festa and the long-passed intimate moments of moral formation smelled, tasted, and sounded the same." [emphasis added] Robert Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street, pp. 171-172.