The debasement is quite intelligible, when one remembers what accumulated miseries these provinces have undergone. Memories of refinement were starved out of the inhabitants by centuries of misrule, when nothing was of interest or of value save what helped to fill the belly. The work of bestialization was carried on by the despotism of Spanish Viceroys and Bourbons. They, the Spaniards, fostered and perhaps imported the Camorra, that monster of many heads which has established itself in nearly every town of the south. Of the deterioration in taste coincident with this period, I lately came across this little bit of evidence, curious and conclusive:—In 1558 a number of the country-folk were captured in one of the usual Corsair raids; they were afterwards ransomed, and among the Christian names of the women I note: Livia, Fiula, Cassandra, Aurelia, Lucrezia, Verginia, Medea, Violanta, Galizia, Vittoria, Diamanta, etc. Where were these full-sounding noble names two centuries later—where are they nowadays? Do they not testify to a state of culture superior to that of the present time, when Maria, Lucia, and about four others of the most obvious catholic saints exhaust the list of all female Christian names hereabouts?
All this is changing once more; a higher standard of comfort is being evolved, though relics of this former state of insecurity may still be found; such as the absence, even in houses of good families, of clocks and watches, and convenient storage for clothes and domestic utensils; their habits of living in penury and of buying their daily food by farthings, as though one never knew what the next day might bring; their dread of going out of doors by night (they have a proverb which runs, di notte, non parlar forte; di giorno, guardati attorno], their lack of humour. For humour is essentially a product of ease, and nobody can be at ease in unquiet times. That is why so few poets are humorous; their restlessly querulous nature has the same effect on their outlook as an insecure environment.
But it will be long ere these superstitions are eradicated. The magic of south Italy deserves to be well studied, for the country is a cauldron of demonology wherein Oriental beliefs—imported direct from Egypt, the classic home of witchcraft—commingled with those of the West. A foreigner is at an unfortunate disadvantage; if he asks questions, he will only get answers dictated by suspicion or a deliberate desire to mislead—prudent answers; whoso accepts these explanations in good faith, might produce a wondrous contribution to ethnology.
Wise women and wizards abound, but they are not to be compared with that santa near Naples whom I used to visit in the nineties, and who was so successful in the magics that the Bishop of Pozzuoli, among hundreds of other clients, was wont to drive up to her door once a week for a consultation. These mostly occupy themselves with the manufacture of charms for gaining lucky lottery numbers, and for deluding fond women who wish to change their lovers.
The lore of herbs is not much studied. For bruises, a slice of the Opuntia is applied, or the cooling parietaria (known as “pareta” or “paretone”); the camomile and other common remedies are in vogue; the virtues of the male fern, the rue, sabina and (home-made) ergot of rye are well known but not employed to the extent they are in Russia, where a large progeny is a disaster. There is a certain respect for the legitimate unborn, and even in cases of illegitimacy some neighbouring foundling hospital, the house of the Madonna, is much more convenient. It is a true monk’s expedient; it avoids the risk of criminal prosecution; the only difference being that the Mother of God, and not the natural mother of the infant, becomes responsible for its prompt and almost inevitable destruction.[[3]]
[3] The scandals that occasionally arise in connection with that saintly institution, the Foundling Hospital at Naples, are enough to make humanity shudder. Of 856 children living under its motherly care during 1895, 853 “died” in the course of that one year—only three survived; a wholesale massacre. These 853 murdered children were carried forward in the books as still living, and the institution, which has a yearly revenue of over 600,000 francs, was debited with their maintenance, while 42 doctors (instead of the prescribed number of 19) continued to draw salaries for their services to these innocents that had meanwhile been starved and tortured to death. The official report on these horrors ends with the words: “There is no reason to think that these facts are peculiar to the year 1895.”
That the moon stands in sympathetic relations with living vegetation is a fixed article of faith among the peasantry. They will prune their plants only when the satellite is waxing—al sottile della luna, as they say. Altogether, the moon plays a considerable part in their lore, as might be expected in a country where she used to be worshipped under so many forms. The dusky markings on her surface are explained by saying that the moon used to be a woman and a baker of bread, her face gleaming with the reflection of the oven, but one day she annoyed her mother, who took up the brush they use for sweeping away the ashes, and smirched her face. . . .
Whoever reviews the religious observances of these people as a whole will find them a jumble of contradictions and incongruities, lightly held and as lightly dismissed. Theirs is the attitude of mind of little children—of those, I mean, who have been so saturated with Bible stories and fairy tales that they cease to care whether a thing be true or false, if it only amuses for the moment. That is what makes them an ideal prey for the quack physician. They will believe anything so long as it is strange and complicated; a straightforward doctor is not listened to; they want that mystery-making “priest-physician” concerning whom a French writer—I forget his name—has wisely discoursed. I once recommended a young woman who was bleeding at the nose to try the homely remedy of a cold key. I thought she would have died of laughing! The expedient was too absurdly simple to be efficacious.
The attitude of the clergy in regard to popular superstitions is the same here as elsewhere. They are too wise to believe them, and too shrewd to discourage the belief in others; these things can be turned to account for keeping the people at a conveniently low level of intelligence. For the rest, these priests are mostly good fellows of the live-and-let-live type, who would rather cultivate their own potatoes than quarrel about vestments or the Trinity. Violently acquisitive, of course, like most southerners. I know a parish priest, a son of poor parents, who, by dint of sheer energy, has amassed a fortune of half a million francs. He cannot endure idleness in any shape, and a fine mediæval scene may be witnessed when he suddenly appears round the corner and catches his workmen wasting their time and his money—
“Ha, loafers, rogues, villains, vermin and sons of bastardi cornuti! If God had not given me these garments and thereby closed my lips to all evil-speaking (seizing his cassock and displaying half a yard of purple stocking)—wouldn’t I just tell you, spawn of adulterous assassins, what I think of you!”