In the popular Aeolian tradition the name of Alicudi has always been associated with fantastic and mysterious stories: 'mahare'(witches) who fly to Palermo or even Africa, human beings who turn into animals, fishermen who know magic formulas to' cut 'the sea trumpets, fortune tellers, oracles and other enigmatic presences.
di Maximilian Palmesano
Originally posted on Microsphere, the Author's blog
Alicudi is one of the smallest and wildest islands of the Aeolian volcanic archipelago together with Filicudi, its twin. In Aeolian folklore the name of Alicudi has always been associated with fantastic and mysterious stories:ย mahareย (witches) who fly to Palermo or even Africa, human beings who turn into animals, fishermen who know magic formulas to 'cut' the sea trumpets, fortune tellers, oracles and other mysterious presences.
The Aeolian Islands still retain an aura of mystery and magic today. Inhabited since prehistoric times, then Greek colonies, over the millennia the islands of the archipelago have been the scene of fantastic events and the cradle of legends and myths. According to tradition Liparo, one of the three sons of the Campania king Ausone and nephew of Ulysses, following a quarrel with his brothers he was forced to leave Campania together with his warriors and found shelter in the Aeolian Islands where he founded a colony on the largest of the islands which since then took the his name is Lipari. The myth has it that the god of winds Aeolus one day he arrived with his entourage on the island, here he met Liparo with whom he became friends. The exiled sovereign then asked the god for help to be able to return to his native land: in exchange he would offer dominion over the internal archipelago and the hand of his daughter Ciane. Aeolus agreed and made sure that Liparo could return to the continent where he founded a new colony near the Sorrento peninsula. Since then the god hid his wineskin in the rocky ravines of the island that contained and guarded the winds that were released whenever their destructive power was needed.
Also to Lipari, which is the largest and most populous of the islands, ancient beliefs and legends still stand. In the hamlet of Quattropani, along mountain roads with breathtaking views over the entire archipelago, it is not difficult to see dry pumpkins placed to protect the doors of the houses: in fact, it is said that the plant is an excellent remedy to keep away theย mahare; always in Quattropani someone swears they saw it in the middle of the night three women, dressed in black, wandering around as if hallucinating between the hairpin bends and the suspended vegetable gardens overlooking the sea. Liparots also believe that a tiny being called a fairy 'u fuddittu 'ย (the elf), or also 'u cappidduzzu 'ย (little hat), is sighted while with big leaps he jumps from one peak of the island's mountains to the other. His apparitions are feared because they are a harbinger of ambivalent events: the elf can both dispense rich gifts and spite and malice. For this reason the islanders prefer not to meet him and, in case the sprite shows up to them, they are precise please to pronounce in order not to incur his wrath.
The island of the storm cutters
If in Lipari, which is the most touristic and populated island, these traditions and legends have been preserved, alicudi precisely because of its extreme periphery it is a treasure chest where ancient beliefs and extraordinary stories remain intact. The island has always been sparsely populated: there is talk of a maximum of 1500 inhabitants between the end of the 800th century and the beginning of the 900th century, figures then collapsed following the massive wave of twentieth-century emigration, especially towards Australia. Today the inhabitants are about a hundred. Small and peripheral, wild and mysterious, inhabited by fishermen and farmers, Alicudi can be considered to all intents and purposes a magical and mysterious land, a fairy place between reality and fairytale.ย
Here, through family lineages whose origin is lost in the mists of time, it is handed down the ancient rite, with an attached formula, to 'cut' the sea trumpets and storms crashing into the fishermen's boats. Many on the island claim to know the ritual and to have practiced it several times successfully, managing to save themselves from the dangers of the waves. The old fishermen explain that when on the horizon you can glimpse a sea trumpet or a great storm heading towards the boat, the 'cutter' positions himself firmly in the bow and begins to whisper the formula accompanying the words with a precise series of hand movements. All those who have had the opportunity to witness a 'cut' affirm that the storm as it approaches the boat fades more and more until it becomes a thread that, a few centimeters from the fisherman's hands, breaks into two parts leaving the crew unharmed; still today the small fleets of fishermen never go too far from the coasts if not with a 'cutter' on board.
The tradition of the 'cutters' suggests a link with the mythical founding substratum of the island and seems to be a kind of power that the lord of the archipelago, the god of the winds Aeolus, has given to its inhabitants: the connection between Aeolus and the ability to "cut" storms is in all probability direct. A very close bond of the islanders with the wind that also characterizes the numerous tales about a true and proper showers of pumice stones whose cause is attributed, according to the beliefs, to theย fuddittuย or sometimes even to the devil.
Women and boats flying
But more than anything else, Alicudi, whom the Greeks calledย Erikussa, that is, rich in heather, is the island of women who fly and extraordinary visions. Theย mahareย arch, as the inhabitants of Alicudi are called, according to popular tales they were able to transform into crows and cats, to cast the evil eye and to cast powerful spells, but above all they mastered the power to fly up to reach Palermo, where they went to take part in the busy life of one of the most important Mediterranean capitals, or even Tunisia and other places on the African coast, places from which flying women returned carrying with them extraordinary objects and clothes that no one had ever seen on the island.
The arcudare witches were capable of levitating in the air, to ride brooms like their continental 'colleagues', but also to take off at the helm of the small fishing boats that many swore to sight as they sailed the skies during the starry nights and full moon. Often theย mahareย that at night they flew towards the open sea were the wives of fishermen engaged in long and dangerous fishing trips: for this reason the witches flew in search of their husbands in order to protect them from the dangers of the sea, propitiate their fishing and supervise their return home.
I conferences ofย mahareย by Alicudi they were held on the beaches, where festive and joyful groups of men and women prepared tables full of every delicacy. Fishermen spotted these conferences from the boats offshore which, according to the stories, were held on strips of beach inaccessible from the land and hidden by cliffs. Many seem to have reached the shore to take part in the banquets, paying close attention to the respect of a taboo that imposed, once welcomed by the witches at their table, not to complain about the quality of the food and drinks offered, often bitter, on pain of being beaten and thrown into the sea.
Today the few arcudari who populate the island claim to have seen nothing for some time, but all firmly believe in the veracity of these extraordinary visions. A story, very common on the island, tells of three women dressed in black (as in the case of Lipari) who were spotted on the beach intent on preparation of a magic potion with water in a bowl as they recited secret formulas. The potion was sometimes used byย mahareย to take flight, at other times it was offered to fishermen by opening the doors of fantastic realms.
Water as a magical element also characterizes the stories handed down by women capable of turn into birds, in particular in crows: these poured water into a basin in which they soaked their feet, in a few minutes they turned into birds and they flew away to distant places. Alicudi is practically full of these fantastic stories that pass on supernatural visions and powersโฆ but how come the island still holds these beliefs? Above all, why are arcudar women capable of flying?
Psychedelic baking
According to some hypotheses, the cause of these extraordinary visions is to be attributed to consumption of bread made with infested ryeย claviceps purpurea, a parasitic fungus of grasses, also known by the name ofย lug, in French 'spur', due to the horn-shaped sclerotia that grow on the spikes of the plant from which the name derives 'ergot' with which it is known in popular tradition. L'lugย it has powerful hallucinatory and psychedelic properties and was used by the scientist Albert Hoffman during his experiments which led to the discovery ofLSD, lysergic acid, one of the most powerful known hallucinogens. Intake of large amounts of the mushroom causes gangrenous ergotism, also known as "Fire of St. Anthony", "Sacred Fire", or "Evil of the ardent", at lower doses, on the other hand, the parasite causes very strong hallucinations and profound visionary states.
There are two different hypotheses on the presence of ergot in Alicudi: for some the cereal came from foodstuffs that were brought to the island from Palermo and Messina, for others it was the small local crops that were affected by the parasite. In any case, the arcudari seem to have consumed mass bread made with a mixture of various cereals, including rye affected by thelugย and to have therefore been the protagonists of collective hallucinations that lasted for years to produce the vast array of tales and fantastic stories.
It seems that the story can be placed in a well limited time span, that is between 1902 and 1905, a period in which famine, emigration and poverty had forced the islanders to make bread with rye products affected by thelug.ย Perhaps precisely as a consequence of the hunger produced by famines, many tales hand down stories of lavish banquets and beach parties full of every delicacy. On the other hand, the European Middle Ages are full of episodes in which entire communities were affected by mass hallucinatory phenomena due to the consumption of bread produced with ergot.
One of the most accredited theories therefore sees the arcudari as a sort of unaware forerunners of theย hippiesย of the psychedelic revolution which would have flared up only 60/70 years later. With a substantial difference: the unconscious intake of a substance that produces hallucinatory effects leads to deeper, inexplicable and above all uncontrollable experiences compared to those of those who consciously assume a substance aware of its visionary properties.
According to this perspective, in those three years the islanders had to deal with one expanded perception of reality, they had to get used to altered states of consciousness, they ultimately had to familiarize themselves with the visions to the point of believing them to be real. The hypothesis relating to the consumption of bread produced with cereals affected bylugย today it seems to be the most accredited also by some islanders as can be seen also thanks to the testimonies released in Belgium documentary The analog island (2007) by Francesco Giuseppe Raganato [attached in the appendix], in which the paradigm of the beliefs and spirituality of the inhabitants of Alicudi is very well represented.
Shamanic roots and mystery hypotheses
However, there are some elements that raise questions about this version of the facts, that is, about the relationship between arcudari and ergot. First of all it seems strange that a wealth of beliefs and tales so widespread, widespread and inserted in narrative schemes that follow formally phylogic trajectories between them, could have been produced in just 3 years; it must be clearly considered that we are referring to events of extraordinary importance that must have profoundly influenced the whole community of the island, the protagonist of the visions, but only three years seem few. Too few to be able to explain such detailed stories, repeating paradigms, experiences and scenarios that are always similar to each other. It is probable that the episodes may have occurred within just the three years in question, but just as plausible may be the conjecture on a possible conscious and cultural use of the plant, a legacy of ancient religious practices.
In fact, witches, in the whole European tradition and in that of southern Italy in particular, are among other things expertsย dominae herbarum,ย visionary herbalists capable of producing ointments and potions capable of leading those who take them into magical and supernatural dimensions, as indeed is handed down very clearly in the legend of the witches of Benevento. It cannot therefore be ruled out that theย mahareย of Alicudi knew well thelugย and its visionary properties and used it for ritual purposes. It should be emphasized that the arcudari know the parasite very well, so much so that they have coined a specific name to indicate the ears of rye affected by the fungus which on the island are calledย ember,ย by their characteristic color reminiscent of coal and by the dirtying process that produces a dark smoke-like dust.
It should also be considered that there are numerous stories in which we speak of preparations with the use of water, as in the case of the three women or the raven-woman, or of bitter water, the one that was offered to banquets of witches. Bowls and glasses probably contained a mixture of elements that caused visionary states, an element that can also be deduced from the detail relating to the bitter water served during banquets: it is well known that most of the deliriums and psychotropic agents contained in the plants used by witches in their recipes are characterized by a strong bitter taste.
According to this perspective, the flying women of Alicudi fit into the vast field of European witchcraft and its close relationship with magical ointments that allowed to fly 'in spirit' and to reach remote places, a prerogative with profound shamanic connotations which, in the case of arcudare women, also comes to light in their ability to interact with the animal world through transformations into ravens. There persistence of an ancient shamanic paradigm would therefore pose the use ofย lugย no longer as eventual, casual and chronologically circumscribed, but as a consolidated key element of the ecstatic knowledge of flying women. A fascinating prospect but which, especially in Italy, seems to find a lot of resistance in the academic field.
In truth this is only part of the conjecture: the presence of theย claviceps purpureaย within this story it cannot fail to suggest the possibility of the legacy of an archaic bond that the arcudari have preserved with their Greek origins and in particular with the mystery rituals that were held in Eleusis in honor of Demeter in ancient Greece. The Eleusinian Mysteries were characterized by secret rituals to which only initiates were admitted and their foundation seems to date back to at least 1500 years before Christ, long before the Greeks colonized southern Italy and the Aeolian Islands, also bringing with them traditions and beliefs religious. It is possible that the mystery cult, as it also happened in other places including Rome, was also introduced among the inhabitants of the Aeolian archipelago. And thelug? What does it have to do with all this?
The mysteries provided for rituals that allowed initiates to participate in the divine dimension which was almost certainly accessed thanks to the substances contained in a ritual drink calledย Kikeon.ย The composition of the Ciceone has long been debated: the drink could contain both opium poppies, often depicted along with the ears of corn as attributes of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, either psychotropic mushrooms of the genusย psylocybe, as it seems to be represented on the so-called bas-relief of Pharsalus, on which mother and daughter are represented intent on exchanging mushrooms. Clearly, the use ofย claviceps purpureaย for the preparation of theย Kikeon, as has been widely emphasized for years by George Samorini, an internationally renowned ethnobotanist, who has produced several essays on the archeology of the Eleusinian Mysteries and on the intoxicated hypotheses ofย Kikeon.
The witches of Alicudi most likely therefore hand down a millenary mystery knowledge, as ancient as the Aeolian Islands and its inhabitants, or perhaps they are just unwitting visionaries capable of influencing local tradition to the point of confuse real and fantastic. But one thing is certain: even if you will not be lucky enough to spot women and boats flying in the starry sky of the Aeolian summers, the tiny island of Alicudi will captivate you with its mystery and transform reality into a fantastic vision.
Bibliography:
E. Albrile, Entheogenic Pythagorica - The psychoactive hypotheses on the ancient mystery universe, 2010ย
St. Bernocco, The Eleusinian Mysteries, Loescher, 1880
GG Buti G. Devoto, Prehistory and history of the Italian regionsSansoni, 1974
AL Cantelmi, Herbaria and plants to flyin Somewhere else, Nautilus, 2002
G. Cardone, Rites and rituals - In Naples, Campania and southern Italy, Publishing Perspective, 2019
IP Couliano, Journeys of the soul - Dreams, visions, ecstasyMondadori, 1991
M. Eliade, Shamanism and the techniques of ecstasy, Mediterranean Editions, 2005
G. Giannelli, Cults and Myths of Magna Graecia, Bemporad, 1924
C. Ginzburg, Nocturnal History - A deciphering of the Sabbath, Adelphi, 2019
P.Lombardi, Witches, ghosts and werewolves - The "cursed art" in Europe between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Utet, 2008
E. Malice, Witches Cookbook - Spells, sexual wonders and poisons, Mediterranean Editions, 2003
MA Murray, The god of witches, Ubaldini publisher, 1972
G. Samorini, Hypothesis on Eleusinian intoxicants, Samorini.it
G. Samorini, The Eleusinian Mysteries, Samorini.it
G. Samorini, The Eleusinian Ciceone, Samorini.it
G. Samorini, Archeology of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Samorini.it
G. Samorini, The use of psychoactive substances in the Eleusinian Mysteries, in Men, plants and animals in the dimension of the sacred, Edipuglia, 2008
G. Samorini, Hallucinogens, grasses and ergots, Samorini.it
V. German, Inquisition, heresy and magic in the late Middle Ages, Sailing, 2020
P. Warren, The evil plants - Hallucinogens, shamanism and altered states of consciousness in traditional cultures, Savelli publisher, 1982
3 comments on โThe witches of Alicudi: notes of Aeolian folklore"