There is a still holier place further to the south of our track, the Monte Santo, and I think its lofty summit, with a small chapel scarcely visible amid the dark verdure of the surrounding woods, was pointed out to us. It overhangs the village of Logo Santo, well described as the “Mecca of the Gallurese.” The sanctity of the place was established in the thirteenth century, the tradition being that the relics of St. Nicholas and St. Trano, anchorites and martyrs here a.d. 362, were discovered on the spot by two Franciscan monks, led to Sardinia by a vision of the Virgin Mary at Jerusalem. A village grew up round the three churches then erected in honour of the Saints and the Blessed Virgin, with a Franciscan convent, long stripped of its endowments, and fallen to ruin.
On the occurrence of the festivals celebrated at these holy places, the people of the neighbouring parishes assemble in multitudes, marching in procession, with their banners at their head; and the sacred flag of Tempio, surmounted by a silver cross, is brought by the canons of the cathedral and planted on the spot. The devotions are accompanied by feasting, dancing, music, and sports, the people prolonging the revels into the night, as many of them come from far, and the festivals occupy more than one day.
That Christian rites were, from very early times, blended with festivities accordant to the national habits of the new converts, with even some alloy of pagan usages, is understood to have been a policy adopted by the founders of the faith among semi-barbarous nations—a concession to the weakness of their neophytes. Our own village wakes and fairs, with their green boughs and flags, cakes and ale, originally held in the precincts of the church on the feast-day of the patron saint, partook of a similar character as the festivals of the Gallurese; but with us the religious element has been long extinct.
The festivals are not confined to the Gallura; they have their stations throughout the island, every district having some shrine of peculiar sanctity. Their celebration is distinguished by some peculiarities, which, in common with many other customs of the Sardes, and numerous existing monuments and remains, leave no doubt of Sardinia having been early colonised from the East. Traces may also be found in the customs of the Sardes of similarity with the Greek life and manners, derived indeed by the Greeks from the same common source.
Thus the usages of the Sardes afford, in a variety of instances, a living commentary, perhaps the best still existing, on the modes of life and thought recorded in Homer and the Bible. This they owe to their insular position, their slight admixture with other races, and the consequent tenacity with which they have adhered to their primitive traditions.
Of some of these indications of origin we may take occasion to treat hereafter, as they fall in our way. For our present purpose may we not refer to the worship in “high places” and in “groves,” to which the Sardes are so zealously addicted, as a relic of practices often denounced in the Old Testament, when the sacrifice was offered to idols? They appear also to have been common and legitimate in the patriarchal age and the earlier times of the Israelitish commonwealth, Jehovah alone being the object of worship. What more biblical, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, than the idea that worship and prayer are more acceptable to the Almighty when offered on certain spots, holy ground, remote, perhaps, from the usual haunts of the worshipper! What a living picture we have in the festivities of the religious assemblies at Logo Santo and Santa Maria di Arsachena, of the feasting and music, the songs and dances accompanying the rites of Israelitish worship in common with those of other eastern nations; not to speak of the festive character of Greek solemnities, derived, indeed, from the same source, vestiges of which, left by the Hellenic colonies, may also be traced.
However contrary these ideas and practices may be to the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, they are so inherent in the genius and traditions of the Sarde people, that I have heard it asserted that these festas give, at the present day, almost the only vitality to the ecclesiastical system established in the island. Their religious character has almost entirely evaporated, though the forms remain. The “solemn meetings,” instead of merely ending in innocent merriment, have degenerated into scenes of riot, and often of bloodshed.
I was informed by the same person who made the remark that the festas were the main prop of the priesthood in Sardinia—and a more competent observer could not be found—that, from his own observation, men of the most sober habits of life lost all command of themselves, became absolutely frantic when tempted by the force of example, and led by what may be called an instinctive national passion to participate in these religious orgies. And Captain Smyth, r.n., who gives an interesting account of one of these feasts, at which he was present[44], after mentioning that “prayers, dances, poems, dinner, and supper concluded [occupied] the day,” remarks, “that the feast of Santa Maria di Arsachena has seldom been celebrated without the sacrifice of three or four lives.” “The year preceding my visit,” he states, “two of the carabiniere reale had been killed; and I was shown a young man who, on the same occasion, received a ball through the breast, but having thus satisfied his foe according to the Sarde code of honour, and fortunately recovering, was, with his wife and a beautiful child, now enjoying the gaieties of the day.”
Captain Smyth adds:—“I could not learn why there were no carabineers in attendance on this anniversary; but the consequence was a numerous concourse of banditti from the circumjacent fastnesses, notwithstanding the presence of a great many ‘barancelli,’[45] who, it is known, will not arrest a man that is only an assassin.”
The themes suggested by wayside objects have led us away from our track, and we have still a long and rugged road to Tempio. We shall be in the saddle for hours after sunset. Let us devote another chapter to the continuation of our journey.