In this way I became compare of Michele Lombardo and padrino of Pietro, who is my figlioccio. Being Michele’s compare I am in a way related to all the family and, when I arrive at Trapani, Michele brings as many of his children as he can gather to salute me. Last time he brought five and said:
“Excuse my not bringing more.”
In calling Emanuele her compare, Carolina Greco was not speaking very strictly; the relationship exists between her father and Emanuele’s brother, whose child he held; but family relationships are so close in Sicily, and they speak so loosely about them, that a compare of one member of a family may be said to be compare of them all.
A compare is, however, primarily he who holds a child at its baptism, and this, no doubt, is why S. Giovanni Battista
is padrone of compari. Thus I am Compare di Battesimo of Peppino and Brancaccia at Castellinaria. It was the grandfather who actually held Ricuzzu at the baptism, but he did it as my deputy, and the spiritual relationship of compare which exists between Peppino and myself is closer than that of padrino and figlioccio which exists between Ricuzzu and myself.
The first step in establishing the relationship of Compare di Battesimo is usually taken at the wedding of the parents, when he who holds the cup or tazza containing the ring becomes Compare di Anello of the bride and bridegroom and also receives the privilege, or undertakes the obligation, of holding the first baby at its baptism. At Ignazio’s wedding someone held the tazza with the ring and handed it to the priest at the right moment, but I did not see this done because between the happy couple and myself the lady-guests interposed a forest of hats, but I saw the tazza among the wedding presents and thought it was an ash-tray till one of them corrected me. There must have been a Compare di Anello also at the wedding of S. Joachim and S. Anna, and this person, whoever he was, ought to have appeared, and perhaps did appear, in the Nascita as padrino of the Madonna at her baptism, but I did not visit a Nascita on the Day of the Sacred Name of Maria, so I did not see the baptism.
A fourth kind of compare is the Compare di Parentela; the name is used for those relationships by marriage which have no special name. The brother-in-law, for instance, though he may be a compare is not necessarily one, he is a cognato; but the parents of a husband and the parents of his wife are compari to one another, and the husband’s cugino, or cousin, is compare of the wife and so on.
There is yet a fifth kind—the Compare di San Giovanni. The first time I saw Turiddu Balistrieri after his escape from the earthquake at Messina (see Chapter XVII post) it seemed an occasion proper to be solemnised in some way, and we determined to become compari to one another, but
as there was no wedding and no baptism or cresima we did not know how to proceed. We consulted an expert in Catania, Peppino Fazio, who said it was an exceptional case. This did not alarm us because exceptional cases are treated tenderly in Sicily. Our expert took time to consider and in a day or two gave his opinion:—The relationship could be established by our going into the country on the 24th June, the day of S. Giovanni, and exchanging cucumbers or pots of basil. Nothing could be simpler, and accordingly on the 24th of June, 1910, Turiddu and I went into the country. He was in Catania, so he spent the day on the slopes of Etna. I was staying with friends at Bath, so I went for a walk on Lansdown. In choosing our tokens we had regard to the arrangements of the postal union; he sent me a few dried leaves of basil and an elaborate drawing of an emerald-green plant in a gamboge pot tied round with a vermilion ribbon as a sign of goodwill and friendship. He drew the design out of his own imagination and coloured it with paints which we had bought together in Naples. I might have sent him a volume of Keats containing a Pot of Basil in an equally transmissible form, but as he does not read English he would not have understood; so I sent him a young cucumber about three inches long. The ceremony was complete, and we are as good a pair of compari as any in the island.
Thus there are five kinds of compari, namely:—