The Past and Present Society

Mourning Becomes Eclectic: Ritual Lament and the Problem of Continuity

Author(s): James S. Amelang
Source: Past & Present, No. 187 (May, 2005), pp. 3-31
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC:
RITUAL LAMENT AND THE PROBLEM
OF CONTINUITY*
I
In July1935 the artist,physicianand activistCarlo Levi was
sentenced toconfino,orinternalexile,forhisanti-Fascist
activities
in Turin. The nine monthshe spentin Grassano,a townin
thesouthernregionof Lucania (now Basilicata),and laterin
thenearbyvillageofAlianoprovidedthematerialforone ofthe
more remarkableand widelyread books of twentieth-century
Europe,ChristStoppedat Eboli,publishedin 1945. This highly
originalcombination ofautobiography and literaryethnography
wonimmediate and lastingsuccessas an outsider's
unsentimental
explorationof the impoverished undersideof Mediterranean
rurallife.' Levi saw the peasants as subject to an eternally
repeatedcycleof exploitationthatdated back to pagan anti-
quity.In his view,theywere the unwillingprotagonists of a
collectivetragedywhosestagewas a timelessuniverseofmisery
withoutend. Forced residencein a South utterly unknownto
him providedan unexpectedopportunity to 'discoverhistory
beyondhistory, timeoutoftime'.2The lessonthatLevi learned
therewas a predictably harshone: thatthevillagerswerecon-
demnedto live out theirlivesin 'a historyoutsidethe frame-
work of time . . . changeless and eternal, in other words, a
mythology'.3
ofagrarian
Thattherepetitiveness lifemakesforan unchan-
timeless
ging, is
existence a commonly
presumption madeabout
*
A versionof this paper was deliveredat the April 2003 conference'Braudel
Revisited:CulturalTransmissionin the MediterraneanWorld, 1600-1800', spon-
soredbythe CenterforSeventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies,UCLA. I am
gratefulto the organizersand fellowparticipants,along withBill Christian,Natalie
Davis, Carlos Eire, Tony Grafton,Marcy Norton, Lou Rose, Helena Rot6s and
ScottTaylor,fortheirthoughtful suggestionsand comments.
1 Carlo Levi, ChristStoppedat Eboli: The Storyofa Year,trans.Frances Frenaye
(1947; New York, 1965).
2 Ibid.,p. vi.
3Ibid., 119.

no. 187 (May 2005)

PastandPresent, ? The Pastand PresentSociety,Oxford,2005
doi:10.1093/pastj/gti0
11

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4 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

ruralcultures.It is also one oftheleadingmotifsin centuries of

writing about the Mediterranean, which has often been depicted
as a territory
subjectto continuities so deep as to placethemlit-
erallybeyondtimeand history. Levi,likemanyotherobservers,
evokedcontinuity in myriadways.Even passingdescriptions of
local customsraised,ifindirectly, theproblemofthepersistence
ofthepast in thepresent,and itsimplications forunderstand-
ingpeasantculture.
Towardsthe end of his stayin Aliano,Levi was summoned
in his capacityas doctorto examinea farmer whohad fallenill.
As was so oftenthecase, treatment came too late to repairthe
ravagesofmalnutrition and a lifeofbrutalpoverty, and thesick
mandiedshortly after hisarrival.His accountofwhatfollowed -
the sudden eruptioninto franticmourningby the women
present- is one ofthemorememorablepassagesofthebook:
He had hardlyfinisheddyingwhen the women pulled the lids down
over his staringeyes and began theirlament ... They tore theirveils,
pulled their clothingout of place, scratchedtheirfaces until blood
came and began to dance with long steps around the room, beating
theirheads against the wall and singingon one high note the death
story.From time to time theyput theirheads out the windows,still
cryingout on the same singlenote, as ifto announce the death to the
countrysideand to the world; thentheydrewback into the room and
went on withthe wailingand dancing,which were to last forty-eight
hours withoutstopping,until the funeral.This single note was long-
drawn-out,repetitiousand agonizing.It was impossibleto listento it
withoutbeing overcomeby an irresistiblefeelingof physicalanguish;
it broughta lump to the throatof the hearerand made itsway straight
to the pit of his stomach.To avoid burstinginto tearsI hurriedlytook
leave.
One can cometo understand
howLevireactedto thisand similar
bycomparing
experiences histextwiththefollowingdescription
ofthesameritualoflament:
The actual moment of death electrifiesthe mourners,even though
some of the women lapse into a trance and are senseless until they
reawakenand take up the mourningagain. They flingopen the win-
dows to let the dead man's spiritout and open the doors to invite
people in; thentheysettledown forthe harrowinghours of the watch
while the women chant,one singingthe virtuesof the dead man, the
otherswailing the chorus. They embrace his head and scratchtheir
facesuntiltheirnails growbloodyfromthe wounds and theirfaces [are
turned]intoblood and rawflesh.Then a wailingthrongofpeople, amid
cries of anguishand pain, dance about, twistingand turningback and
forthnow to one side, now to the other,swayingto the ceaselessflowof

4Ibid., 191-2.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 5
thetearful untilthemoment
refrain whentheytakethebodyaway.The
reachesnewpeaksofintensity
grieving as peoplethrowthemselves over
thedead person,hugging himand crying outto himin theirpainthe
songreserved forthedead.Theirendless,horrible criesofgriefarethe
same,a constantoffering,daybyday:'Sorrow,sorrow, sorrow!Cryyou
mothers whohavechildren, crywithall yourpain!Alas,mybrother!
Death has come up to our windows,it has enteredour house!The
worldis darkening!It has lostitslight!Ourhouseis black!'The special
pitchand quaveringof thevoice,moreexaggerated thanin singing,
alongwiththeweepingandsobbingthataccompany it,makethisheart-
rending.
I hastento informthereaderthatthissecondpassagewas never
writtenas such.Rather,itis a collationofphrasesfromthefol-
lowingtexts,listedin chronologicalorder:
- thelamentforHectorat theclose of TheIliad;s
- fourplaysbyEuripides: Andromache (1197-8),Electra(147-8),
Hecabe(651-3) and TheTrojanWomen(115-18);6
- twoversesfromtheOld Testament, Jeremiah 9:21 and 22:18;
- theentryon funeraldirgesin theleadingdictionary ofearly
modem Spain, Sebastiande Covarrubias'sTreasury of the
CastilianLanguage;7
- a descriptionofthedeathlamentsofMoroccanwomenfrom
an accountof an 1803 tripthroughnorthern Africaby the
Catalanadventurer Domingo Badia Leblich(1767-1818);8
- thetranscriptionofan earlytwentieth-centuryfunerary lament
fromtheGalicianvillageofSalcedo (Pontevedra);9
- a referencetotraditional
mourning ina midtwentieth-
practices
centurystudyofSephardic Jewsin Salonika,Greece;10
- twoethnographic accountsofrituallamentsfromvillagesin
Lucania, the same regionin southernItalythatLevi had
writtenaboutin Eboli;11

usedhereis TheIliad, ed. Bernard

5 Homer, TheIliad, xxiv. 838-9. The version
Knox,trans.RobertFagles(NewYork,1998),611.
6Euripides,Electraand OtherPlays, ed. RichardRutherford, trans.JohnDavie
(London, 1998).
7 Sebastiin de Covarrubias,Tesorode la lenguacastellanao espaitola(1611), ed.
Martinde Riquer (Barcelona, 1943), 516-17, s.v. 'Endechas'.
8 Domingo Badia Leblich, 'Ali Bey', ViajesporMarruecos, ed. and trans.Salvador
BarberaFraguas (Barcelona, 1997), 164.
9jos6 FilgueiraValverde,'El "planto" en la historiay en la literaturagallega',
Cuadernosde estudiosgallegos,iv (1945), 604-5.
10Michael Molho, Usosycostumbres de Sal6nica(Madrid,1950), 174.
delossefardies
11Ernestode Martino,Mortee piantorituale:dal lamento funebreanticoal piantodi
Maria, ed. Clara Gallini (Turin, 2000), 79; Ann Cornelisen,Torregreca:A Worldin
Southern Italy(1969; London, 1980), 143.

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6 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

- the screenplayby Pier Paolo Pasolinito Stendali(1960), a

remarkable documentary filmon ritualmourning in a nearby
of
area Italy directed by Cecilia Mangini;12 and
- two recentanthropological monographs, one of a villagein
northern Greeceandtheotherofa Bedouinsocietyin Egypt's
WesternDesert.13
The purposeof constructing such a hybridpassage,and then
it
setting alongside Levi's own eyewitness description,is to make
a simple but tellingpoint about culturalcontinuities in the
Mediterranean. The seamlessness ofthestitchingbespeaksthree
different typesofcontinuity: thatofchronology, as revealedby
thejuxtaposition ofancienttextswiththosefromlaterperiods;
thatofgeography, as shownbythewaytheindividualpassages
slip withease fromone end of the Mediterranean to another;
and thatofprovenanceor genre,through theinterchange oflit-
eraryand ethnographic textsand documentsofactualhistorical
experience.
One linkin thischainofreferences waswritten,at leastin part,
withCarlo Levi and his book critically in mind: Ernestode
Martino'sDeath and RitualMourning, one of the two ethno-
graphies of Lucania citedabove. The anguisheddramaofcollect-
ivemourning uncovered firstby an amateur and thenexploredin
detailbya professional anthropologist posed theproblemofcon-
tinuitywithin popular culture in a uniquely forcefulway.While
mostresponsesto thischallengeendedup separating anthropol-
ogyand history, de Martinoseizedtheopportunity to bringthe
twodisciplines together. The highly suigeneris
eclectic, historicism
thatresultedinvolveda riskygamble:thatthebizarrelamentsof
southern Italianwomenin thepresent providedthekeyto under-
standing mourning intheMediterranean worldofthedistant past.
Followinghis lead, thisessaytraceshow the studyof death
ritualsraisessignificant issues of historicalmethod,above all
how to deal withthepuzzle of survivalsthatso intrigued early
12 Pier Paolo Pasolini,Per il cinema,ed. WalterSiti and Franco Zabagli (Milan,
2001), 2099-2100. The filmdepictsmourningfora deceased childin thevillageof
Martanoin theSalentinepeninsula.Maria Josedel Rio kindlybroughtthisfilmto my
attention, whilePieroVenturaand Letizia Cortinimanagedto put me in touchwith
its directorCecilia Mangini,to whomI am deeplyindebtedfora seriesof thought-
provokingletterscommenting on herfilmand on thecontextin whichshe made it.
13LoringM. Danforth,TheDeath RitualsofRuralGreece(Princeton,1982); Lila
Abu-Lughod, VeiledSentiments: Honorand Poetryin a BedouinSociety(Berkeleyand
Los Angeles,1986), 198.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 7

modem antiquarians,and then evolutionary biologistsin the

nineteenth century, along with theiryoungercolleagueswithin
anthropology. De Martino's unusual responseto the challenge
ofexplaining long-term continuitiesrestedon a sharpifincom-
pletebreakwiththeFrazerianapproachthathad dominateda
previousgenerationof thisnascentculturalscience.His dual
focus on Antiquityand the ethnographicpresent- both
momentsof enactmentof ritual,whichwas his principalcon-
cern- leftunansweredthe crucialquestionsofhow and why
so deeplyrooteda culturalpracticecame to an end. A closer
look at the evolutionof deathlamentin thelaterMiddle Ages
and earlymodem periodprovidessome clues. Evidencefrom
one cornerof the Mediterranean, Spain, will be examinedin
orderto identify changes in the interpretationand especiallyin
thelocationofcollectivemourning. this
Charting trajectory will
showthatthestriking resilienceofthecontentsofthisritualdid
not extendto its contexts.The centuries-long declineand fall
of lamentinvolvedfewifanyalterations in itsrepertoryofges-
turesand speech.Its ill-fatedentryintohistorymeantinstead
its effectivedisplacementfromculturaland geographicalcen-
tresto theirequivalentperipheries - a fatethatended up by
embracingvirtuallyall categoriesof 'paganism'in a Europe
increasingly subjectto thedisciplinesofreform.

II
In early1952 de Martinodelivereda lecturein Florenceon his
recentstudiesof Lucania. This containedsome ofhis earliest
on the cultureof the southernpeasantry.Lucania
reflections
was an area he knewnot onlyfromearliervisitsforethno-
graphicpurposes,but also fromhis organizingeffortsforleftist
unionsand theSocialistand Communistparties.'4Much ofhis
stronglyautobiographicalaccount directlyconcernedLevi's
book. Afterreadingaloud fromthe firstpage of Eboli, de
Martinoaddressedhead-on the visionof the South whichit
presented.For Levi, he stated,'peasantLucania is essentially

14For these and other details regardingde Martino (Naples, 1908 - Rome,
1965), see the year-to-year biographicalsummaryin Cesare Bermani,'Le date di
una vita', in Tra furoree valore:Ernestode Martino(special issue of II de Martino:
Bollettino Ernestode Martino,v-vi, 1996). My thanksto Giovanni Levi
dell'Istituto
forprovidingme witha copy ofthis.

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8 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

the countryofmyth,the countrywhoseexperiencehas always

takenplace outsidethe grandcurrentsof history'15 - but in
that,Levi was mistaken.De Martinothencitedotherpassages
fromthe book, and wenton to affirm thatengagingand dis-
agreeingwithLevi had pushedhimtowardsa moreanthropo-
logicalapproachto thepeasantry - fromwhichhe had come
to recognizethat'the historicalworldof my peasants,to the
extentthatit is archaicand "backward",is thesame as thatof
theprimitive peoplesofethnology'.16 This led himto formulate
an ambitiousaim: to carryout 'ethnographic expeditions'to
gatherdocumentary material for a work on the 'anguishof
that
history, is,concerning the forms ofculturallifethat areborn
ofthisanguish'.17Shortly afterthelecture, intheautumnof1952,
de Martinoundertookthe firstof theseresearchtrips,at the
head of an interdisciplinaryteamincludinga musicologist and
a photographer as wellas fellowanthropologists. It was during
thecourseoftheseshortbutintenseboutsoffieldwork thatrit-
ual mourningcaughthis eye as a uniquelymovingexampleof
themeetingofancientand modernformsofanguish.18
Littleis knownof the originsand preciseevolutionof de
Martino'sinterestin Mediterraneanfunerallaments.19 One
hint,however,is foundin thefollowing recollection byMichele
Gandin, a film-maker who in 1953 made Lamentofunebre, a
shortand incomplete documentary on ritualmourning forwhich
de Martinoservedas a consultant. According to Gandin,during
filming in a
Pisticci, town in Lucania, de Martino
paced back and forthcontinuallytormentedby whatmeaningto giveto
thesereligiousfacts,to thesepopulardisplayswe werefilming.I myself,
while I was making this brief documentaryabout funerallaments,

15Ernesto de Martino,L'opera a cui lavoro:apparatocriticoe documentario

alla
in Lucania, ed. Clara Gallini (Lecce, 1996), 15.
'Spedizioneetnologica'
'6Ibid., 16.
17Ibid., 18.
version
is thepublished
18The bestsourcefortheautumn1952expedition ofthe
de Palmawhilein thefield:
notestakenbyde Martinoand hiscolleagueVittoria
see Ernestode Martino,Notedi campo:spedizionein Lucania, 30 sett.-31ott.1952,
ed. ClaraGallini(Lecce, 1995). For theextraordinary
photographs takenduring
hisfirst,
prospectiveroundoffieldwork inLucania(inApril1952),seeClaraGallini
di
and Francesco Faeta (eds.), I viagginel Sud di ErnestoDe Martino:fotografie
ArturoZavattini,FrancoI'inna e Ando Gilardi(Turin, 1999).
19De Martino'sfieldnotesfromhisautumn1952expedition includea number
ofreferences to funeral 62-3, 102),someofwhichwould
laments(Notedi campo,
turnup againin severalshortarticles inthefollowing
published years.Fora listof
see ibid.,70-1.
thesetitles,

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 9
gettingtoknow forthefirsttimethisaspect ofsouthern saidto
life,
myself:'It'sfascinating,
beautiful,butwhatdoesitmean? Itmoves us,
butwhat isitsproper (ragionamento)?'20
interpretation
De Martino continued tograpple withthisquestion intheyears
thatfollowed. In 1958he published a full-lengthbook,Death
andRitualMourning intheAncient World: FromPaganLament to
theMourning ofMary.21 Aninstant popularsuccess,itwasgreeted
withthunderous silenceby fellowacademics, whichsuggests
thatprofessional colleaguessaw it as, amongotherthings, a
perplexing and largely unclassifiable study.22 The argument,
whilelaboured,was straightforward enough:thatthefuneral
laments foundamongmarginal sectorsofthesouthern Italian
-
peasantry aged, female and impoverished inhabitants ofiso-
latedvillages - represented thefinalvestiges ofthemourning
ritesofAntiquity, andthatstudyofcontemporary ritualscould
shedsignificant lightupon their ancientforerunners throughout
theMediterranean. De Martinodescribed in detailtheactual
practice oflamentation, whichhe sawas a dramatic mixture of
word,gesture and music that moderated by ritualmeans the
'crisisofpresence' ortendency todisintegrationthatthreatened
persons inmoments ofextreme mental danger, suchas theafter-
mathofthedeathofa closerelation. The patterned, collective
workof mourning offered a curefortheformsof madness
posedbythiscrisis,ranging fromexplosive aggression against
theselfto surrender to a stateofstupororbodilyimmobility.
Withritualization serving as a sortofphysical andpsychological
protection, thetechnique oflament putan endtocrisisthrough

20I.S.R.E. [IstitutoSuperioreRegionaleEtnografico], Attidelconvegno nazionale

'Cinema,fotografia in Italia', Nuoro,27-30 ottobre
e videotapenellaricercaetnografica
1977,ed. Paolo Piquereddu(Nuoro,1983). I am gratefulto CeciliaManginifor
thisreference mewitha copyofthePasoliniscreenplay
andforfurnishing citedin
n. 12 above.De MartinoincludedtwostillsfromGandin'sfilmin the'Figurative
AtlasofMourning' at theendofhisMorteepiantorituale.
21Ernestode Martino,Mortee piantoritualenelmondoantico:dal lamento
paganoal
piantodiMaria(Turin,1958).I quotebelowfrom the2000edition(published under
different
a slightly andcitedinn. 11 above),whichcontains
title, a valuableprefatory
studybyde Martino'sstudent ClaraGallini.See alsothecritical
and collaborator
assessment nelmondoantico
inMariaSerenaMirto,'La mortee i vivi:il cordoglio
secondoErnestode Martino',inRiccardoDi Donato(ed.),La contraddizionefelice?
Ernestode Martinoe gli altri(Pisa, 1990).
22Thispuzzledsilencehasextended
tointernational
audiences. Alexiou
Margaret
cites but does not discuss de Martinoin her The RitualLamentin GreekTradition
1974);hisworkappearsnowhere
(Cambridge, DeathRitualsofRural
in Danforth,
Greece,nor in RobertGarland, The GreekWayofDeath (Ithaca, 1985).

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10 PASTANDPRESENT NUMBER
187
the culturalreintegration of themourner.At the same timeit
gave thedeceased a 'second culturaldeath'that(re-)established
thebondsofalliancebetweenthelivingand thedead.
De Martinothenfollowedthelamentin twodirections. First
he movedoutwards.Withthe help of comparative folklorehe
reconstructed a wide-ranging geography ofmourning practices,
drawingon ethnographic data fromCorsica, Sicily,Sardinia
and elsewherein centraland southernItaly,as wellas northern
Africa,the Middle East, Romania and modernGreece - in
short,whathe referred to as the'Euromediterranean' heartland
of rituallament.He also tracedthelamentbackwardsin time,
to ancient Egypt,the Middle East and especiallyclassical
Greece,whereit became a centraltopos in tragicdrama.The
lamentitselfenteredinto crisiswiththe rise of Christianity.
Christians rejectedritualmourning notforitssumptuary excesses
orlapsesintoparoxysm - theobjectsofcriticism byPlato,Cicero
and others- but because it was groundedin an ideologyof
deathincompatible withthenew faith'semphasison salvation
in theafterlife.
Unlikeotherelementsofpagancultureforwhich
itssyncretistembracefounda place, ritualmourningmetwith
littleaccommodationfromthe Church,whichtoleratedsuch
displaysonlywhereitwas unableto repressthem.The Lucanian
funerallamentreturnedthe favour.It containedvirtually no
references to Christiandoctrine,and thuscontinuedto repro-
duce the essentially pagan mythicframework in whichit had
developed.The sole exceptionto thishistory ofstarkopposition
was themedievalfigureoftheMaterDolorosa,in whichMary
assumedin silencethepostureofpaganlamentwhilearticulating
an exemplary Christianmessageofpatienceand hope. Finally,
thebookclosedwithone ofitsmoreunusualfeatures: a 'figurative
atlasofmourning'. This visualappendixcombinedfolklore with
ancientand medievalartto emphasizetheelementofmimicry in
ancientgesturesand thepsychological stateofmodernmourn-
ers,bothaspectsrarelyfoundin literary or folkloric
studiesof
laments.23

23While Aby
Warburg'sname is not mentionedat any point,this atlas of ges-
tures bears a strongresemblanceto his unfinished'Mnemosyne' project. It is
equally impossibleto overlookthe many othersimilaritiesbetweende Martino's
cultural historyand Warburg's, rangingfrom the emphasis on the long-term
culturalcontinuities(includingritualaspects) fromancientto modem timesto the
(cont.onp. 11)

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 11

It is one thingto summarizethe contentsof thisadmittedly

singularbook. It is anothermatteraltogetherto finda labelfor
the sortof historicalanthropology de Martinofoundhimself
practising.24In 1941 he describedhimselfas an 'ethnologist
andcultivator He wasinadditiona classicist,
ofKulturgeschichte'.25
a historianofreligion,and a studentofcomparative folklore,as
wellas beingwellreadinphilosophy. The breadthofde Martino's
backgroundand interests was immediately revealedin his first
significantbook, The WorldofMagic,publishedin 1948.26 This
pioneering studyoffered a sophisticated
and deliberatelyicono-
clasticcriticismof scientific
theoriesof popularmagic,which
de Martinotook to taskfortheirinability to comprehendthe
importantpsycho-socialrole magic played in reconstituting

(n. 23 cont.)
parallelbetweenthenotionsofde Martino's 'crisisofpresence'
andWarburg's 'loss
ofself',thelatterexperiencedbyactorsin ancientdramasandbymodernartists.
On thespecificconnections
between them,seeGallini'sintroduction
to de Martino,
Mortee piantorituale,
p. xxxii;GiovanniAgostiandMaurizioSciuto,'L'Atlantedel
piantodi Ernestode Martino', inDi Donato(ed.),La contraddizione 185-6;
felice?,
Riccardo Di Donato, I Greciselvaggi:antropologia
storicadi Ernestode Martino
(Rome,1999),41-4. Moregenerally
on theseissues,see LouisRose,TheSurvival
ofImages:ArtHistorians, and theAncients(Detroit,2001), 55-64.
Psychoanalysts,
24Despitehisstatusas a founder
ofItaliananthropology, thereis relatively
little
by or on de Martinoin English,apartfromversions ofhis 1948bookon magic
published(undervarioustitles)bypressesspecializing
in esoterica.
For a succinct
introductionthatstressesthemultiple waysin whichhisworkanticipates many
oftheconcernsofpresent-day anthropology,see GeorgeR. Saunders,'"Critical
Ethnocentrism"andtheEthnology ofErnestoDe Martino', Amer.Anthropologist,
xcv(1993). A somewhat morescepticalpresentation,albeitstronglyin sympathy
withde Martino'saims,canbe foundinAnnalisaDi Nola,'How CriticalWas De
Martino's"CriticalEthnocentrism" in SouthernItaly?',in JaneSchneider(ed.),
Italy's 'SouthernQuestion':Orientalism
in One Country(Oxford, 1998); see also
GeorgeR. Saunders, 'The MagicoftheSouth:PopularReligion andEliteCatholi-
cismin ItalianEthnology',ibid.On theotherhand,thereis a rapidlygrowing
bibliographyon de Martinoin Italianand French.Apartfromtheworkslistedin
thesenotes,see GiuseppeGalasso,Croce,Gramscie altristorici
(Milan,1969),esp.
222-335; Paolo Cherchi and Maria Cherchi,ErnestoDe Martino:dalla crisidella
alla comuniti
presenza umana(Naples,1987),themostextensive ofseveralstudies
of de Martinoby theseauthors;Clara Galliniand MarcelloMassenzio(eds.),
Ernestode Martinonellaculturaeuropea(Naples, 1997); Di Donato, I Greciselvaggi,
whichcontainsa bibliography of his writings drawnup by Mario
(originally
Gandini)on pp. 211-28. See also GiordanaCharutyand Carlo Severi(eds.),
'Dossier:Ernestode Martino',Gradhiva,
xxvi(1999).
25Cited in Carlo Ginzburg,'Momigliano e de Martino', Rivistastoricaitaliana,
c (1988),405.
26Ernestode Martino,II mondomagico:prolegomeni
a una storiadelmagismo(1948;
Turin,1997).The 1997revisededition,
whichI haveused,includesan excellent
introduction
byCesareCases.

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12 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

identitiesthreatened by the 'crisisof presence'broughton by

death,harmand otherexternal threats.In thiswork,de Martino
not only establishedhis reputationas a broad-ranging and
giftedscholarbut he also placed whatwas seen as a marginal
topic- magicand othermanifestations ofpopularreligion-
at thecentreofa researchagendaprecisely at a momentofwide-
spread social unrestand sharp intellectualand politicaldebate
overthestudyofpopularculture.This exchangebecame even
more livelyfollowingthe publicationin 1949 of his article
'Concerning theHistoryoftheSubalternPopularWorld'.In this
briefbutsharppolemic,de Martino,whowouldeventually join
theCommunist party,expressedseriousreservations aboutcon-
temporary - 'progressive'
interpretations as wellas Crocean- of
folkculture.27At thisjuncturehe began to see directworkin
the fieldas thepropersolutionto the problemof deciphering
popularbeliefsand behaviour.Thus beganhis transformation
fromarmchairanthropologist to Malinowskianman ofaction.
Duringthe decade of the 1950s de Martino'sinterpretative
framework evolvedfurther towardsa matureeclecticismthat
graftedinsightsfrompsychoanalysis and Marxismonto his
strongbase in philosophyand religion.Predictably, he sub-
jectedboththeseinfluences to his own idiosyncraticreadings.
Withregardto psychoanalysis, his interestswentconsiderably
beyondFreud to embraceMelanie Klein's universalist under-
of
standing mourning as a process whose uncertain outcome
was determinedlargelyby the resolutionof the persecutory
fearsof infancy.As forMarxism,de Martinowas alwaysa
somewhatisolatedfigurein theItalianLeft.This can be attrib-
uted in largemeasureto the factthathe drankmore deeply
than most of his contemporaries fromthe well of Antonio
Gramsci, whose PrisonNotebooks (publishedfrom1948 onwards)

27Ernestode Martino, 'Intorno a una storia del mondo popolare subalterno',

originallypublishedin Societi, v (1949) and now available in a collectionof texts
fromthe debate thatfollowedin PietroAngelini(ed.), Dibattitosulla culturadelle
1949-50 (Rome, 1977). See also Carla Pasquinelli (ed.), Antro-
classesubalterne,
pologiaculturalee questionemeridionale:Ernestode Martinoe il dibattitosul mondo
popolaresubalterno neglianni 1948-1955 (Florence, 1977). There is a summaryof
this controversy in Stephen Gundle, BetweenHollywoodand Moscow: The Italian
Communists and theChallengeofMass Culture,1943-1991 (Durham, NC, 2000),
58-61; and a moredetailedexaminationin ValerioSalvatoreSeverino,'Ernestode
Martinonel PCI deglianni cinquantatrareligionee politicaculturale',Studistorici,
xliv(2003).

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 13

were beginningto draw attentionto the specifically cultural

dimensionsof class relations,to the 'SouthernQuestion',and
to the studyof folklorein particular.De Martino'svisible
departurefromthecombinationofmaterialist reductivism and
approvalof Croceanidealismthenin voguein Left
lip-service
circlesmetwithconsiderablesuspicionamongthosehigherup
in the Party,includingits leader PalmiroTogliatti,who dis-
missedhisinterest in magicas redolentofspiritualism.28 More-
over,thathe co-edited(withCesare Pavese) forthe Einaudi
publishinghouse a collectionofworkson thehistory ofreligion
and popularculturewhose authorsincludedJung,Eliade and
Ker6nyidid littleto ward offchargesof irrationalism, eclecti-
cismand worse.29
As one mightexpectfroma followerof Croce, historyand
werecentralcategoriesin de Martino'sapproachto
historicity
culturalphenomena.His 'criticalethnocentrism' combineda
profound beliefin determinism
historical with a to
sensitivity
of the observer'scategoriesof analysis.
the culturalspecificity
At the same time, in parallelwith Gramsci,it broke with
Croce's focuson politicaland culturalelites,and aimedinstead
at a historyin whichboth primitive peoples and peasantsin
modernsocietieswereseen as participants.30To be sure,one
shouldavoid overstating de Martino'scommitment to history,
or ratherto whatwas seen as normalhistoricalpracticeat the
time. None of his major ethnographies of southernpopular
cultureand religion- thebook on ritualmourning, TheSouth
and Magic (1959) and The Land of Remorse(1961), nor the
posthumously publishedThe End oftheWorld(1977) - pre-
senteda straightforward,orderlyexpositionoftheevolutionof
the diverseculturalbeliefsand practicesunder study,which
includedmagic,tarantism or ritualhealingthroughmusicand
dance, and apocalyptic movements.31 However,theyall had an

28Cited in Bermani, 'Le date di una

vita', 21. See also Di Donato, I Greci
selvaggi,165.
29Details in the introductionto Cesare Pavese and Emesto de Martino, La
collanaviola: lettere,
1945-1950, ed. PietroAngelini(Turin, 1991).
3oHere I followtheusefulsummaryin Di Nola, 'How CriticalWas De Martino's
"CriticalEthnocentrism" in SouthernItaly?',164-7.
31Ernestode Martino,Sud e
magia (Milan, 1959); Ernestode Martino,La terra
delrimorso:contributo delSud (Milan, 1961); Ernestode Martino,
a una storiareligiosa
La fine del mondo:contributo all'analisi delleapocalissiculturali,ed. Clara Gallini
(Turin, 1977).

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14 PASTANDPRESENT NUMBER187

important historical component. De Martinosawattention to

thepastandtopatterns ofchangeovertimeas a sourceofana-
lyticalas wellas chronological depthforhissoundings in the
field.Andwhileit didnotdisplacefromthecentrethehard-
wontoolsofhisother - aboveallphilological,
trades philosoph-
icalandpsychological speculation - thesearchforparallels in
cultures and contexts farremoved in timefromhis cornerof
theMediterranean distinguished his workfromthatofmost
otheranthropologists.
In the end,whatmatters is thatdespitethecomplexities
involved, de Martinobelievedthattherewasa taskofhistory
waitingto be undertaken. The ambivalence withwhichhe
regarded this task differedlittle in kind from his attitude to
Levi'sbook.De Martinoreturned to Eboliseveraltimesin his
work.He evenused Levi'spassageon thewomen'slament
citedaboveto think outhisowninterpretation ofmourning as
an instance ofa 'festive rule'ofthe'peasants'world':the'peri-
odicsuspension oforderontheoccasionofcritical moments of
existence, or
[suchas] death,hunger pain'.32 And in one ofhis
laterworks, LandofRemorse, de Martino continued toacknow-
ledgea collective debtto Levi'sfundamental contribution to
knowledge ofsouthern culture.33Eboliwas clearly a sourceof
inspiration forde Martino.It was justas clearlya sourceof
irritation.RejectionofLevi's'image. . . oftheworldofthe
southern peasantry ... [which] seesitas resignedandsuffering
within itshistoricalimmobility' ledtheanthropologist to affirm
his (partial)roleas historian ofthecultural expressions ofthe
subaltern classes.34Andin thistaskhe foundno greater chal-
lengethanto accountforcontinuities ofa literallymillennial
scale.

32 Ernestode Martino,'La mortein piazza', an undatedtextfromthe early1950s

now publishedin his L'opera a cui lavoro,19-22, quotationat p. 20. Levi was not
cited in Mortee piantorituale.Gallini's introductionto de Martino,Note di campo,
esp. 32-7, providesthe best summaryto date of the cordialif conflictive relations
betweende Martinoand Levi.
33Levi returnedthe compliment.Afterde Martino's death he contributedto
D. Carpitellaet al., 'Ricordo di ErnestoDe Martino', in Pietro Clemente,Maria
Luisa Meoni and Massimo Squillacciotti(eds.), II dibattitosul folklorein Italia
(Milan, 1976). Levi also spoke ('a lay lament') at de Martino'sfuneralin Rome in
1965: ibid.,360.
34De Martino,L'opera a cui lavoro,15; see also his La terradelrimorso,28.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 15

III
The balanceofcontinuity versuschangeis notonlya classic
issuein historiography.It is also a classicalone,in thatuntil
recently,culturalhistoryandanthropology owedmuchoftheir
forward movement to theirendlessgrappling withthepeculiar
problem ofhow to understand ancient or 'pagan'survivals in
laterEuropean cultures. A goodpart of the prehistoryofboth
disciplinescould be written withthissingle,and singularly
vexed,question inmind.35
Partoftheintellectual background ofde Martino's owncon-
tributioninvolvestheunusually prominent rolethathisnative
cityofNaplesplayedinthiscenturies-old debate.36 Apartfrom
thepioneering worksofVico,twomilestones intheemergence
of comparative ethnology via the studyof Antiquity are of
particularrelevance.The first involved the'discovery' in 1781
ofphallus-shaped ex-votos in Isernia(Molise)bySirWilliam
Hamilton, whosewritings onthesubjectbrought themtointer-
nationalattention.37
The other wasAndreadeJorio's La mimica
nelgestire
degliantichiinvestigata (1832), a pioneering
napoletano
workin thehistoryofgestureby a local cleric.38In bothcases
puzzles withincontemporary popular culture- the strange
cult of Sts Cosmas and Damian thatinvolvedphallicvotive
offeringsby sterilewomen,and theexquisitely elaboratecoded
languageof Neapolitangesture- weresolvedby recourseto
antiquarian research.The pastthusservedto explainthepresent
in whichit was stillembedded,and whiledoingso it brought
thetentative ofcultural
disciplines andethnology
history together
ina common approachtothestudyofculture.

35To myknowledge,thishistoryhas yetto be written, althougha fairamountof

thepreliminary workhas been done. Two recentcommentariesfromverydifferent
perspectivesare: Joaode Pina-Cabral,'The Gods oftheGentilesAre Demons: The
Problemof Pagan Survivalsin European Culture',in KirstenHastrup (ed.), Other
Histories(London, 1992); Francis Haskell, Historyand itsImages:Artand theInter-
pretationofthePast (New Haven, 1993).
36 For an overview,see Alain Schnapp, 'AntiquarianStudiesin Naples at theEnd
of the EighteenthCentury:From ComparativeArchaeologyto ComparativeReli-
gion', in Girolamo Imbruglia(ed.), Naples in theEighteenthCentury:The Birthand
Death ofa NationState(Cambridge,2000).
37Details in Giancarlo Carabelli,In theImageofPriapus(London, 1996).
38Andrea de Jorio'stexthas recentlybeen translatedas Gesturein Naples and
Gesturein ClassicalAntiquity,ed. and trans.Adam Kendon (Bloomington,2000).
De Martinocitedthisbook towardsthe end ofhis Mortee piantorituale,336-7.

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16 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

By thelaternineteenth century theflirtation betweenMedi-

terraneanantiquity and theadolescentscienceofanthropology
had becomea full-blown affair.
The crucialfigureat thisstage
was JamesG. Frazer,and itis to himthatone can turnto geta
senseoftheoriginality ofde Martino'sworks.At firstsight,the
parallels betweenFrazer transfixedbytheenigmaofthepriest-
hood at Nemi and de Martinotransfixed bytheritualmourners
of Lucania seem extremely close. To solve theirriddlesboth
turnedto anthropology (whichtheycalled ethnography) while
it stillworethelooselyfitting garments ofcomparative folklore
and philology.De Martino,however,endedup as a ratherdis-
creetadmirerof Frazerwho rejectednot so muchhis findings
as hismethods.
Relatingcontemporary Mediterranean rituallamentsto their
ancientantecedentswas a taskof trulyFrazeriandimensions.
And,at firstsight,hisbook maywellhavestruckreadersin the
1950s as a step backwardstowardsFrazer'sbrand of wide-
rangingcomparative folkloreand historyofreligion.Therewas,
afterall, thesame back and forthbetweenformsofritualprac-
tice drawnfromwidelydifferent historicaland geographical
contexts, the same pan-Mediterranean focus and the same
insistenceon pressingancientevidenceinto servicefordeci-
pheringsuchbizarrelatter-day phenomenaas ritualmourning.
Yet such a readingoverlooksde Martino'sstrongcommitment
to methodological cautionin relationto the questionof long-
termhistoricalcontinuities. Above all, it failsto registerhis
mainachievement. De Martino'smainoriginality did notlie in
his bringinga historicaldimensionto the practiceof anthro-
pology.Rather,his contribution was to use anthropology to
interpret history.
ArnaldoMomiglianoonce wrotethatde Martino'presented
himselfas thefirst Italianhistoricist
who appropriated themore
moderntechniqueof anthropological researchforthestudyof
theancientand modernworld'.39Whileall hisworkshad a sig-
nificant historicaldimension,Deathand RitualMourning came
closestto meetinghis goal of employingfieldethnography to
explaintheritualsevokedin classicaltexts.De Martinoreferred

39ArnaldoMomigliano, 'Per la storiadelle religioninell'Italia contemporanea:

AntonioBanfied Ernestode Martinotrapersonae apocalissi',in Di Donato (ed.),
La contraddizionefelice?,
32.

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 MOURNINGBECOMESECLECTIC 17
tocontemporary as'fragments
practices
mourning ofa submerged
Closestudyand controlled
Atlantis'.40 conjectureallowedthe
ofthelostworldpriorto thecataclysm.
reconstruction Signifi-
cantly,he was quiteattachedto theterm'relicts'.4'That itwas a
constantpresencein hisworkshardlycomesas a surprise;relitti
evokednot onlysurvivalsfromthepast,but also theFreudian
lexiconfromwhichhe borrowedso heavily.Yet de Martino
handledtheseshardsofcontinuity gingerly.He mentionedbut
refusedto pronounceon whythe exact same wordsuttered
by Hecabe inEuripides'TrojanWomen, 110-12- 'Whatshould
I leave unsaid, what should I tell the world?What should
I lament?'- later appeared in the ritualcries of modern
Sardinianand Lucanianwomen.42 'Survivalsorsimilarities?'
was
a questionhe did hisbestto avoid.
Instead,de Martinoadopted a different tactic.He realized
that his proposalto analyseancientdocumentation through
modernfieldwork was an exceptional approachrequiring excep-
tionaljustification.
Its advantagelayin hisconviction thatobser-
vationof present-day mourningas a 'ritein action' provided
'irreplaceable
opportunities foranalysis'.43Onlytheincautious,
he hastenedto say,wouldbelievethatthepresent-day laments
could be considered'direct documents'or 'testimonies'of
ancientcustoms.44 Their'territorial he warned,should
vicinity',
notlead one to overlookthe'extremely complexinterplay ofhis-
toricalevents',theimpactofnew culturalinfluences overtime,
and, moreimportantly, thereplacement ofthe'mythicuniverse
ofdeathand theafterlife' in whichtheyoriginally developedby
twomillennia ofChristianity and Islam.Nevertheless,
funeral
althoughfolkloric lamenthas lostitsorganicconnection
with
the greatquestions of the religiouscivilizationsof the ancientworld,
and evenifitsmythic horizonsare [now]particularlynarrowand frag-
mented,it can stillfurnish,
at leastin theareaswhereit is bestpre-
usefulindications
served, forreconstructingtheritualexperiencethatin
theancientworldservedto protectagainstunlimited crisis[through]
reinsertion
intotheworldofculture.45

40De Martino,Mortee
piantorituale,308.
41See Ginzburg,'Momiglianoe de Martino',406, forde Martino'scharacterization
of metapsychologicalphenomenaas 'a relict... of a magicalcivilization'.For exam-
ples,see hisMortee piantorituale,
56-7, 225, 308; and his Terradelrimorso,
13, 26.
42De Martino,Mortee piantorituale,45.
43 Ibid., 56.
44Ibid.,57.
45Ibid.,58.

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18 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

As thispassage suggests,de Martino'soverriding interestin

contemporary lament was in itsritual
aspects.Attention to ritual
revealedwhatstudyoftheformalpoeticand musicalqualities
of ancientlamentscould not: the actualspectacleof the crisis
of mourningin the ancientworld.By facilitating the 'recon-
structionof analogousrelation[s]amongthe ancientreligious
civilizationsoftheMediterranean', ethnography becamein his
hands a high road to a 'historicalunderstanding of ancient
funerallament'.46
De Martinowas of courseawarethatthisspot- the junc-
tureof ancientritualand modernfolkpractice- is wherehe
came closestto Frazer.On the wholehe seemedquite deter-
minedto holdFrazerat arm'slengththroughout thebook,and
thuskepthis references to The GoldenBoughto a minimum.
Still, he generouslyremarkedin a footnotethat, while he
rejectedmanyofFrazer'stheses,he did notwishto indulgein
'all too facilecriticismof an authorwho renderedsuch signal
servicesto science'. He wenton to suggestthatthe problem
withFrazer was not his bringingtogetherculturalmaterials
fromsuch different contexts,but his failureto submitthemto
properanalysis.'Frazerdevotesin factalmostthirty pages to
expounding the data . . . but only one - and this almost
againsthis will - to the problemof the religiouscauses at
issue'.47 Despite the overlap in subject matter- the death of
the corn god of vegetationoccupied a centralplace in both
works- onlythedullestonlookerwouldfailto distinguish de
Martino's insistentlyanalyticaleffortfromFrazer's equally
relentless
pilingup ofexamples.48
WhencomparedwithFrazer,whatstandsoutin de Martino's
approachis notonlyitsausterity,but also his usingthepresent
to explainthe past ratherthanvice versa,as Frazerdid. The
factthatto de Martino'anthropology' meantfieldwork in the
senseofdirectparticipant observationalso suggestshow much

46Ibid., 67-8.
47Ibid.,252 n.
48This was an all too familiarcriticismof Frazer's methodology.For other
instances,see RobertAckerman, J. G. Frazer.His Lifeand Work(Cambridge,1990),
passim. In de Martino's view, at least two other 'Frazerian' mistakeswere to be
avoided - evolutionism,and its opposite, that is, overlookingthe differences
between ancient and modern by collapsingtextstogether:see his Mortee pianto
rituale,11, 36-7, 43.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 19

waterhad flowedunderthebridgesincethepublicationofthe
GoldenBough.Ethnologywas now a much changeddiscipline
de Martinowas virtually
and, significantly, thelastofitsfound-
ing fathersto have received - like Frazer - his trainingelse-
where,in classics.
The forestat Aricciaon Lake Nemi was a locus ofepiphany
for Frazer, much as the Capitoline had been for Gibbon.
Frazer closed the firsteditionof the GoldenBoughwiththe
claimthatfromNemi - a 'place [that]has changedbut little
since Diana receivedthe homage of her worshippersin the
sacred grove' - he could hear in the distancethe bells of
Rome. As theytolled the call forAngelus,he exclaimedthe
famouslast words,'Le roiestmort,vivele roi!Ave Maria!'49
Few readersare likelyto forgetsuch a passage. Fewer still
could overlookthe artfulway in whichFrazerdrewa line of
directcontinuitybetweenritualin the distantpast and its
descendantswithinmodernity. In theend,bytakingthiscon-
for
tinuity granted, Frazer placed it out of time.De Martino,
drawnto verymuchthesame subjectsyetdepartingfromdif-
ferentpremisesand employingdifferent methods,moved in
the otherdirection.In so doing,he soughtto restoreculture
to therealmofhistory.

IV
Carlo Levi presentedritualmourningas one practiceamong
manywithinthebroaderculturaluniverseofthesouthernpeas-
antrythatstoodoutsidetime.De Martino,on theotherhand,
realizedthatit was a relicfroma distantpast thatwas nearing
theend ofitsexistence.Froma familiar stanceofethnographic
melancholy, a
temperedby Marxist-inspired hope in imminent
collectiveliberation,he saw itsdeathas thepassingawayofone
ofthelastremaining vestigesofpeasantarchaism.De Martino
recordedmourning's trajectoryfromancientplenitudethrough
medievalchallengeto modernirrelevance. Whatdistinguished
his studyfroman obituary,however,was not onlythe close
attention he devotedto thefinalsurviving remainsoftheprac-
tice. It was also the absence of a postmortem. How and why

49Sir James George Frazer, The New GoldenBough, ed. Theodor H. Gaster
(1890; abridgedand revised,New York, 1964), 741-2.

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20 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

ritualwas enactedwerethemainconcernsofde Martino'sbook.

He devotedmuchlessattention to how,whenand wherefuneral
lamentfounditselfsteppingevercloserto theprecipice.
De Martino'sculturalhistorybegan in the present,moved
fromthereto Antiquity, and thenfinishedin theMiddleAges.
It had virtuallynothingto say about the earlymodernera, a
periodnowwidelyregardedas havingwitnessedmajorchanges
in mortuary customsthroughout As a construct,
Europe.50so the
modernization of mourningfitscomfortably withintwo highly
influential
interpretativeframeworks:the'domesticationofdeath'
thatPhilippeAriesidentified as thecentreofitslong-term his-
tory,and NorbertElias's insertionofpost-ReformationEurope's
'reformof manners'into a moregeneraldisciplining of senti-
mentthatincludedtheprivatization ofemotionalexpression.51
Neitherschema would have troublein accommodatingthe
latermedievaland earlymodernperiodsas theeffective divid-
ingpoint between ancient and as
primitive opposed to modern
modes of mourning.The emergenceof the latterinvolvedthe
effectiveruralizationofpubliclament,whichwas expelledfrom
the urbansphereby a combinationof ecclesiasticaland civic
legislationthatreflected thegrowingdisapprovalofbothcleri-
cal and lay elites.In thisreading,ritualmourningwas one of
thoseculturalpractices,such as vendetta,thatwas slowlyrele-
gatedto theouterfringes wherethecivilizing
processtooklonger
to becomeestablished.
These twoindependent yetremarkablycomplementary frame-
workswere originallyarticulated"i la Weber to explain the
historicaldevelopment of northernEurope. The experienceof
late medievaland earlymodernSpain sheds some interesting

50See the studies in Ralph Houlbrooke (ed.), Death, Ritual, and Bereavement
(London, 1989); Ralph Houlbrooke,'The PuritanDeath-Bed, c.1560-c.1660', in
ChristopherDurston and JacquelineEales (eds.), TheCultureofEnglishPuritanism,
1560-1700 (London, 1996); and esp. Ralph Houlbrooke, 'Civility and Civil
Observancesin theEarlyModem EnglishFuneral',in PeterBurke,BrianHarrison
and Paul Slack (eds.), Civil Histories:
EssaysPresentedtoSir KeithThomas(Oxford,
2000). See also Bruce Gordon and Peter Marshall (eds.), The Place of theDead:
Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early ModernEurope(Cambridge,
2000); Craig M. Koslofsky,TheReformation oftheDead: Death and Ritualin Early
Modern Germany,1450-1700 (Basingstoke, 2000); Jean Balsamo (ed.), Les
Funiraillesa la Renaissance(Geneva, 2002).
51PhilippeAries,TheHour ofourDeath,trans.Helen Weaver(New York, 1981);
NorbertElias, The CivilizingProcess,trans.Edmund Jephcott,2 vols. (New York,
1978-82).

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 21

comparativelight,and shows thattheycan also be applied,

albeitwithcaution,to the southas well. Iberia has in facta
centralpartto playin thisstory.This was not onlybecause of
the recognizedstrengthof its manymovementsof religious
reform. It was also because Spain was one ofthefewplaces in
the westernhalf of the Mediterraneanwhere Christianand
diversenon-Christian mourningpracticeslived side by side,
and thuscould be contrasteddirectly. In fact,thelands ofthe
SpanishMonarchyconstituted a meeting-place forChristians
and fornotone,butthreetypesof'pagans':Jews,untiltheirexile
in 1492, along with conversos or convertedJews and their
descendantsthereafter; Muslims,again untilthe last of their
forcedconversions, in 1526, and in its wake morisco converts
until1609, whentheytoo wereexpelled;and indigenouspeo-
ples fromoutsideEurope.The firsttwo categorieshad existed
longin thepast,onlyto diminishin theearlymodernera,while
theranksofthethirdgroupgrewdramatically withtheexpan-
sionofoverseasempire.Significantly, all threecollectivities
shel-
teredmourningpracticesthat visibly- and audibly- differed
fromChristiancustoms,themselves in thethroesofchange.52
Prospectionin a handfulof contemporary sourcessuggests
fourminimal hypotheses:
a) Thathereas elsewhere,theCatholicChurchfirmly associated
lament
funeral with behaviour
non-Christian
Spain,however,seemsto have been distinctivein further
link-
ingtheserituals
with behaviour.
anti-Christian The existenceof
separatemourningpractices that included collective
laments
was notonlya stapleoflatemedievaland earlymodernSpanish
writingabout - and invariablyagainst- theJews.It also showed
up as actual criminalchargesin Inquisitiontrials.Duringthe
1485persecution ofconvertedJewsinGuadalupe(Extremadura),
forexample, 'New or convertswere identifiedas
Christians'
hereticson thebasis ofa widerangeofcustomsinherited from
theirJudaicpast. Amongtheseweremourningrituals.These
includedthe habit of throwingout all the standingwaterin

52The best introductionis stillFilgueira,'El "planto" en la historiay en la lite-

in the introduction
raturagallega'. See also the briefhistoricalreferences to Manuel
Alvar,Endechasjudeo-espahiolas, 2nd edn (Madrid, 1969); Carlos M. N. Eire, From
MadridtoPurgatory: TheArtand CraftofDyingin Sixteenth-Century Spain (New York,
1995), esp. 151-67.

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22 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

a house followingthe burialof a member,and special shiva

mealsduringthenextninedays.Significantly, at leastone trial
specifiedthatwomensangendechas or mourningchantsforthe
deceased.53
Muchthesamecouldbe documented forthenextfewdecades.
In the early1520s a maidservant accused the conversaIsabel
GarciafromHita, a townnorthofGuadalajara,ofhavinggone
withotherwomen
to the home of a certaindeceased person,[wherethey]climbedon top
of thebed ofthe said deceased and sang and criedand wailed,praying,
raisingand loweringtheirheads, clapping theirhands, and a certain
person called out the songs and then the said Isabel and the others
continued the singingand cried and prayed and walked around the
deceased.54
Such testimonies were,to be sure,strictly limitedto theearly
of
period fairly overtcrypto-Judaism. By the end ofthesixteenth
the
century remaining funeral practicesassociated withJudaism
did notincludeanything as likelyto attracttheattentionofthe
Inquisition as rituallament.55 Still,keeninglingered as a
on
sign of both paganism and Judaism.As theSevillianhumanist
Juan de Mal Lara put it in 1568,loud funeralprocessions'were
abolished by the Inquisitionfor smackingof [ser colorde]
pagans [gentiles]and Jewsand as a matterthatlittlebenefited
the soul'.56In Spain,therefore, thepracticeof certaintypesof
funeralritualby certaincategoriesof people had much more
seriousconsequencesthanelsewhere. Whatwas seenas 'pagan'

53 GretchenD. Starr-Lebeau,In theShadow oftheVirgin: Friars,and

Inquisitors,
Conversosin Guadalupe,Spain (Princeton,2003), 77-81.
54Rende Levine Melammed, Hereticsor Daughtersof Israel? The Crypto-Jewish
Women ofCastile(NewYorkandOxford, 1999),90.
55In conversocommunitiesin seventeenth-century forexample,
Extremadura,
laments hadlargelybeenreplacedbyfasts,although
thehabitofwashing
thebody
persisted:see Pilar Huerga Criado, En la raya de Portugal:solidaridadytensiones
en
la comunidadjudeoconversa
(Salamanca,1994),157,179-80,194.DavidM. Gitlitz,
Secrecyand Deceit:TheReligionoftheCrypto-fews (Philadelphia,1996), ch. 11, pro-
vides a systematicdescriptionof the funeraland burial customs of earlymodem
SpanishJewsand conversos:
see pp. 299-300 forlamentsin particular.
Detailed
references
fromAragoncan be foundin Encarnaci6n MarinPadilla,'Relaci6n
durante
judeoconversa la segundamitaddel sigloXV en Arag6n:enfermedades y
muertes',Sefarad,xliii (1983). For the broader contextof earlymodernJewish
mourningcustoms,see Sylvie-AnneGoldberg,Crossing theJabbok:Illnessand Death
in AshkenaziJudaismin Sixteenth- throughNineteenth-Century Prague,trans.Carol
Cosman (Berkeleyand Los Angeles,1996), esp. 120-8.
56Juande Mal Lara, La philosophiavulgar(Seville, 1568), cent6nIX, refrin31,
citedinFilgueira,
'El "planto"en la historia
yen la literatura
gallega',522.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 23

and thus needingreformin most of Christendomcould be

viewedas heresyin theex-multicultural societyofearlymodem
Iberia,whose Inquisitorsshowed stronginterestin whatthey
suspected were outward tokens ofinner deviance.
b) Thatsomepagansweremorepaganthanothers
Two such distinctions can be readilyidentified. The firstcon-
trastedJewswithMuslims.The 'Edicts of Faith', or listsof
signsofheresydrawnup bytheInquisitionin orderto getOld
Christiansto denouncecrypto-Jews or crypto-Muslims, con-
tained essentiallythe same seriesof mortuaryritesforboth
faiths:washingthebodywithhotwater,wrappingit in shrouds
madefromunusedcloth,andburialin unturned earth.However,
endechas, or chanted dirges, were mentioned onlyin reference
to converted Jews.57
The second distinction involvedthe differences amongthe
variousnon-EuropeanpeopleswithwhomSpaniardsand other
Europeanscame intocontact.Amongthemanydescriptions of
theirbehaviourwritten by earlymodem Spaniards- and one
should keep in mind that this corpus constitutedthe most
extensiveas well as innovativeethnographic projectof the
sixteenthcentury - funeraland burialcustomsreceivedcon-
siderableemphasis.It is thustellingthatrituallamentsofthesort
educatedhumanists - oftenprecisely thesortofpeoplewriting
theseethnographies - wouldhaveidentified withthoseofclassi-
cal Antiquity werelocatedless amongthesettledpeoplesofthe
Americasthanamongtheevenless 'civilized'inhabitants ofthe
fringesof the for
empire.Contrast, example, the learnedphysi-
cian Francisco Hernandez'sdescription(writtenduringthe
1570s) ofthecalm,tranquilwayin whichMexicanIndiansmet
theirdeathsandwereburied,witha slightly laterreferenceto the
of
people Guinea, 'altogether wild,rough,and uncivill',who

57 [Undated] 'Edicto de fe', in Miguel Jim'nez Monteserin(ed.), Introduccidna

la Inquisici6nespailola:documentos bdsicospara el estudiodel Santo Oficio(Madrid,
1980), 510, 513. Note the lack of referenceto ritual laments in the standard
descriptionof crypto-Islamicpracticesby moriscoconverts:Pedro Longis, Vida
religiosade los moriscos
(1915), 2nd edn, ed. Dario Cabanelas Rodriguez(Granada,
1998), ch. 17. See also Miguel del Arbol Navarro, SpanischesFuneralbrauchtum
unterBeriicksichtigung islamischerEinfliisse:Zur Volkskundeund vergleichenden
Reli-
gionswissenschaft (Berne and Frankfurt,1974), foran overviewof Islamic funeral
customsin medievaland earlymodem Spain.

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24 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

displayedtheirgriefhowlingand crying.58The latterclosely

resembledthe Tupi Indians describedby the Huguenotmis-
sionaryJeande LUryin the 1550s. He carefully noted that,
whendeathoccurredamongtheTupi, 'itis amazingto hearthe
criesofthewomen,as loud as thehowlingofdogs and wolves,
wailingtheselamentations These and similar
and responses'.59
remarkssuggestthatmourningcustomscould helpEuropeans
distinguishbetweenprimitivism and savagery,and that the
lamentsofancientGreecemaywellhavebeen classified among
thelatter.
c) Thattherejection
ofritualmourning wentbeyond itsassociation
withpaganismtoinvolveother decorum
issues,especially
byan intriguing
Thisis suggested passagein theentryon laments
in Covarrubias'sdictionary:
forthedead was foundin all Spain,as women
This modeof crying
went behind their husbands' bodies, their hair dishevelled, and
daughtersbehind those of theirfathers,pullingtheirhair and scream-
ing so much that in the churchtheydid not let the priestssay mass,
and thus the women were orderednot to go there.But untiltheytake
the body out to the streettheyare in the house lamenting,and they
lean out ofthewindowsto yellwhentheytakethebodyaway,sincethey
are not allowed to go with it, and theysay a thousand impertinent
things.60
The problemherewas obviouslynotone ofheresy,but ofper-
missible behaviour,especially inside the church building.
Much the same reasondrovethe townofficialsof Guadalupe
to petitionin 1553 thatfemalemourningbe confinedto the
interiorof houses and banned from funeralprocessions,
'because ... womenwho cryforthedead ... go aboutsaying
many thingsthat are oftenheard and are laughed at and

58 Francisco 'The Antiquities

Hernmndez, ofNew Spain',bk 1, ch. 15: 'Death,
ofDr FranciscoHernandez,
Souls and Burial',in TheMexican Treasury:The Writings
ed. SimonVarey,trans.RafaelChabrin,Cynthia L. ChamberlinandSimonVarey
(Stanford,2000), 69-71. The Guineaquotationcomesfroman accountgathered
bySamuelPurchasandcitedinHoulbrooke, inthe
andCivilObservances
'Civility
EarlyModemEnglishFuneral',71.
-59Lry wenton toremark oftheselaments
uponthesimilarity tothosefromcon-
temporary BeamandGascony,andevenquotedsomephrasesinBasque:seeJean
de LUry,Historyofa Voyageto theLand ofBrazil, otherwise
CalledAmerica,trans.
and intro.JanetWhatley
(Berkeley and Los Angeles,1992), 173. Thisintriguing
passageservesto remind
us notto overdraw thedistinction
betweensouthern and
northernEurope.The lattertoo had its darkcomersof mourning, suchas the
PyreneesorIreland.Mediterranean arediscussed
parallels below.
ed. de Riquer,516.
60 Covarrubias,Tesorode la lenguacastellanao espahiola,

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 25

distractfromdivineserviceand manyotherinconvenient things

happen'.61
Similarconcernwithpropercomportment can be foundin
the advice to recentwidowson how to behave,in JuanLuis
Vives's TheEducationofa ChristianWoman(originally written
c.1523). In book threeof thisinfluential treatisethehumanist
reformer chastisedthosewomenwho 'filltheairwithunceasing
lamentsovertheirrecentbereavement and throwall intocon-
fusion,tearingtheirhair,beatingtheirbreast,laceratingtheir
cheeks,striking theirhead againstthewall,dashingthemselves
upon theground,and prolonging theirgriefs to greatlengths'.62
Predictably, Vivesrecommended insteadobservanceofmodesty
and measurein grief, and avoidanceofexcessessuchas 'cry[ing]
out or afflict[ing]
herselfbybeatingherhandstogether or with
blowsto herlimbsorherbody'.Once again,heterodoxy wasnot
theissuehere:appropriate comportment was.
So was sincerity.Many observersover time (de Martino
included)werestruck bythepotential gapbetweentheanguished
extroversion ofcollectivepractice,and theintimate emotionsof
individualparticipants. Ritualization dischargedsentiment, but
it could justas easilydisguiseit (or itsabsence).By providing a
fixedrepertory ofspeechand actionalongwithexpectations for
its use, it could allow the merriestof widows to advertise
sorrowsnotfeltin theirheartofhearts.The professionalization
ofmourning - thepaymentofpersonsfortheirwailing,which
has been documentedthroughout its history- ended up by
puttingthe questionof authenticity intoan evenharsherlight.
It suggestedto some thatthismode of mourningwas less the
expressionof emotionalcrisisthan a formof dissimulation.
Moreover,thisdissembling was not requiredby theexigencies
ofpoliticalsurvival withincourtsand otherearlymodernvenues
in whichit foundincreasingly explicitjustification. Rather,rit-
ual lamentcouldbe readas condoningdissimulation in thetwo
strategic contexts in which it was least likelyto meet with
approval, those of religiousbeliefon the one hand, and conju-
gal and kinrelationson theother.It was preciselythisoverlap

61 Cited in Starr-Lebeau,ShadowoftheVirgin, 79-80 n. See also theprohibitions

fromlate eighteenth-century Galicia transcribedin Filgueira,'El "planto" en la
historiay en la literaturagallega', 600-1.
62Juan Luis Vives, The Educationof a ChristianWoman:A Sixteenth-Century
Manual (1538), ed. and trans.CharlesFantazzi (Chicago, 2000), 303.

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26 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

that attractedthe disapprovalof civilizingreformerssuch as

Vives, whose guidelinesforideal behaviour includedsincerity
as wellas moderationin bothfeelingand behaviour.63
d) That Vives's'Christian
education'targetedwomenmuchmore
thanmenbringsup a finaldimension of thecampaignto reform
mourning whichde Martinonotedyetdid notinvestigate
practices
- thatofgender
further
The leading,and oftenexclusive,rolewomenplayedin keen-
ing - perhaps its single most universal characteristic- is
somethingmostscholarshave takenforgranted.However,it
is by no means self-evident exactlywhyit was thatwomen
should do the mourning,or that men should be lamented
morethanwomen,whichwas often(althoughnot always)the
case. Durkheim'spassingremarkthatwomenmournedbecause
theywere of lesser social value is obviouslynot a sufficient
explanation,althoughitdoes introduce whatwas certainly a key
consideration, thewayin whichrituallamentationcontrasted
(whilebringingtogether)participants fromdifferent levelsof
social and genderhierarchies.64 That it incorporatedunmis-
takablesignsof subordinationalso helps accountforthe fact
thatlate medievalSpanishlegislationdesignedto limitpublic
lamentsspecifically exceptedmourningby vassals for their
lords.65
Thereis in facta sensein whichmourningcan be seen as an
femaleceremony,
explicitly a sortof cross-cultural
carnivalof
womenwithitsown licencewithregardto sex,foodand other
formsof indulgenceassociatedwithkeening.This findscon-
firmationin thetendencyofclericalattempts to reform funeral
and burialpracticesby substituting one genderforthe other.
One evocativecampaignwas the effort to transform liturgical

63Ibid.,301. For background,see

JohnMartin'ssuggestiveoverview,'Inventing
Sincerity,RefashioningPrudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renais-
sance Europe', Amer.Hist.Rev., cii (1997).
64 imileDurkheim,TheElementary FormsoftheReligiousLife,trans.JosephWard
Swain (New York, 1965), 447; see pp. 434-55 forhis more generalexplorationof
'piacularrites'linkedto misfortune and expiation.
65 See Fernando Martinez Gil, La muertevivida: muerte y sociedaden Castilla
durantela Baja Edad Media (Toledo, 1996), 105, forthe 1258 law of the Cortes
(parliamentary session) of Valladolid ordering'that no knightgrievenor scratch
[his face] except forhis lord'. For examples of mass rituallament permittedat
funeralsof membersof the royalfamilyas late as the sixteenthcentury,see Eire,
FromMadrid toPurgatory, 157-8.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 27

musicforfunerals, includingthepolyphonicpresentations that

weresuch a distinctive featureof the Spanishand earlyLatin
Americantraditions.66 Reforminvolvednot abolishingthisset-
ting,but reworking older,vernacularlaments,manyof which
incorporated theelementofchoralresponseto a leadingvoice-
a standardfeatureof ritualmourningin Greektragedy.The
outcomewas the replacementof femaleprotagonism in vocal
lamentby strictly male choirs.It had a further
corollaryin the
growingrestriction of womenmournersto specificspaces -
above all thehouse ofthedead, and in a fewcases theproces-
sionfromthehouse to thechurch- and theirseparationfrom
the areas of greatermale and clericalcontrol,the churchand
cemetery.

V
These fourhypotheses are notmutuallyexclusive.In fact,they
thanksto theirrootsin a specificIberian
shareclose affinities,
historyof imperialexpansionand (failed)religiouspluralism.
On balance,Spain sheltereda numberofsignificant variations
on the themeof the reformof mourning.Yet, seen froma
broaderperspective,its path followedthe generalEuropean
so muchso thatitcould serveas a convincing
trajectory, substi-
tuteforthe lengthystage- roughlyfromthefifteenth to the
midtwentieth centuries- omittedfromde Martino'ssketchof
thesubjectforItaly.In bothpeninsulastheprofusion oficono-
graphicreferences to or
plahiideras (and
'specialist' often paid)
mournerscharacteristic ofthelaterMiddleAgesseemsto have
turnedintoa dearthduringthesixteenth century. This, and the
everscarcermentionin synodalconstitutions ofritualmourn-
ing practicesneedingreform, pointto an obviousconclusion:
thatas faras the chronologyof the disciplining of mourning
is
practices concerned, in mostplaces the deed was done well
beforetheimposition ofTridentinenorms.Indeed,mostofthe
hard work of reformmay have ended earlier.This would
explainwhyErasmus,in his dialogue on mortuarycustoms
publishedin 1526, contrastedthe simple,Christiandeathand
burialhe upheldas a modelnotwithritualmourning, butwith

66GraysonWagstaff, 'Music forthe Dead and the Controlof Ritual Behaviorin

Spain, 1450-1550', Musical Quart.,lxxxii(1998).

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28 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

the excessiveluxuryoftherich.67Funerallamentswereby his

timealreadyassociatedwiththe social margins,especiallythe
rural lower classes, and not just in northernEurope. This
demeaning association,moreover, playeda majorrolein facilitat-
ing the reforming pretensions elites,as the emphasisthat
of
Vivesand othersplaced on decorumsuggests.
It was neverthelesshere, with respectto the survivalof
laments,whereone particularly visiblegap openedup between
northand south.Apartfroma handfulofexceptions, in north-
ern Europe ritualmourningdisappearedaltogether.In the
Mediterranean, on theotherhand,it lingeredon, albeitonlyin
certainvenues and in the hands of certainprotagonists. In
Spain and Italy,forexample,rituallamentcontinuedto exist
undersufferance in the darkcornersof the land, thatis, the
fringes ofruralsettlement isolatedfromurbaninfluence. A lim-
itedsamplingofreturnsfromthemostextensiveethnographic
surveyof modernSpain - the so-calledAteneoquestionnaire
of 1901-2 - confirmsthis centrifugal move. Data fromthe
of
provinces Badajoz and Ciceres (Extremadura),and from
Salamanca(Old Castile),containsampletestimony to theprac-
tice of rituallamentby plai~ideras, Iloronas,and other familiar
figures.However, these laments occupy a rathermodest space
withinthe preparations forburial,are firmly integrated intoa
broadercycle of orthodoxreligiouspracticessuch as rosary
prayer,and arefoundin veryout-of-the-way places- so much
so thatevenreadersfromthattimewouldhaveregardedthem
as archaic.68
Ritualmourningalso persistedamong a second, and truly
unique cast of characterswithinSpanishculture.It lived on
among- ironyofironies- SephardicJews.The ironyis actu-
allydouble.First,exilefreedJewsfromChristian pressure against
'pagan' attitudesto deathand the afterlife. Theywereable not
onlyto continuetopractisefuneral laments, butalso to developa
richbodyofmusically setendechas or plaints.Moreover,as they
did so theymanagedto preserve traditions oflamentsthatwere

67Erasmus, 'The Funeral' (1526), in Ten Colloquies,ed. and trans. Craig R.

Thompson (Indianapolis,1957).
68 Details in JavierMarcos Ar6valo,Nacer,viviry morir en Extremadura: creencias
y pricticasen tornoal ciclode la vida a principios
de siglo(Badajoz, 1997), 218-23;
and Juan Francisco Blanco (ed.), Usosy costumbres de nacimiento,matrimonioy
muerte en Salamanca (Salamanca, 1999), 180-9.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 29

notexclusively Judaicin origin,buthad also been widelyshared

withotherSpaniards.Hence, the survivalof late medievaland
earlymodemIberianmourning textsowesmuchto thedescend-
ants of the of
exiles 1492, as well as to the efforts of those
Romancephilologists who tookpains to trackdown and tran-
scribethesesongsforwhattheycouldrevealabouttheevolution
of Spanishlanguageand literature.69 Not surprisingly,
thelead-
ingstudentofthisform,thephilologist ManuelAlvar,was con-
vincedthatin hisNorthAfrican fieldwork(1949-51) he had by
chancecome intocontactwiththeverylastgeneration ofritual
mourners. In theintroduction to thesecond(1969) editionofhis
study,Alvarwrotethat'it was as ifdeath[oftheSpanish-Jewish
community and languageofMorocco],so oftenannounced,had
delayed its arrivalto allowus to save thelastremains'.70It was
hardly a coincidence thatde Martinohad believedexactlythe
samethingabouthisownethnographic research.71

VI
The disappearanceofritualmourning in southernEuropethus
tookplace in two stages.The first,whichcoveredroughlythe
periodfromthefourteenth to thesixteenth sawdiverse
centuries,
pressurescombiningto relegatelamentfromcityto country,
thetruehomeofpaganism.Whatchangedherewas itscontext;
the languageand gesturesof collectivemourningapparently
weatheredthe shiftlargelyuntouched.The second phase can
be morepreciselydatedto themiddleand laterdecades ofthe
twentiethcentury.Duringa relatively briefperiodof timethe
ofvillagelifeinthemargins
'modernization' oftheMediterranean

69See esp. Alvar, Endechasjudeo-espa"iolas.Molho, Usos y costumbres de los

sefardiesde Sal6nica, ch. 6, commentson customsregardingdeath and mourning
among SephardicJewsin Salonika. Note thatGitlitz,Secrecyand Deceit,299, refers
to a 1952 reportofritualmourningamongcrypto-Jews (!) in Mogadouro,Portugal.
70Alvar,Endechasjudeo-espatiolas, p. xiii.
71As did Cecilia Mangini. Commentingon Stendali,her 1960 documentary film
on ritualmourning,she writes:'I was aware thatforbetteror worse,I was filming
an eventthatwas about to disappear,thatI was filmingin zona Cesarini.That's a
slangexpressionreferring to the soccerplayerCesariniwho alwaysscoredthewin-
ninggoal duringthe last 30 seconds beforethegame ended, and itsliteralmeaning
is "barely,but barelyin time". The women of the lamentwere also convincedthat
thistraditionwould end withthem' (personalcommunication,28 Aug. 2002). For
de Martino'scommentson the imminentdisappearanceofritualmourning,see his
Mortee piantorituale,13, 74, 319.

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30 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 187

brought to a definitive
endcultural as wellas socialandeconomic
of
practices profoundchronologicaldepth,mourningamong
them.
This fatefulmomentalso witnessedthe encounterof Carlo
Levi and Ernestode Martino.Their meetingnot onlyconsti-
tutes an episode in modernItalian intellectualhistorythat
deservesto be betterknownbutitalso bringsto theforeseveral
staple problematicsin the widerworldof historicalthought,
above all the classic'dog in thenight'questionaboutwhether
changeor itsabsencecountsmostin thelengthy haulfrompast
to present.Not surprisingly, theproblemofcontinuity has long
hauntedhistoricalanalysisof the Mediterranean. It pervades
theworkofitsmostfamousstudent,FernandBraudel,as well
as recentcounter-thrusts in a moreculturaldirection,such as
PeregrineHordenand NicholasPurcell'sTheCorrupting Sea.72
Few subjectsevokethe problemof millennialcontinuities as
vividlyas does ritual
lament. Discovery in the of
villages southern
Italyin themidtwentieth centuryofpreciselythesame words,
gestures and protagonists as thosedocumented in ancientEgypt,
Judaea, Greece and Rome understandably led observers to place
overriding emphasis on the role the common Mediterranean
contextplayedin rituallament'scapacityto persist.
Levi locatedmourning and otherpopularpracticesin theter-
rainofmyth;de Martinostruggled to restorethemto history.
Profoundly struckbythesimilitudes betweenAntiquity and the
ethnographic present,de Martinoexposedthedeeperaffinities
amonglamentsacrossa sweepingrangeoftimeand place. Yet
he also beganto charttheshiftsand departures in register,per-
formanceand function.The outcomewas a unique,if provi-
sional,performance ofhis own. Deathand RitualMourning is a
workrichin empathy,learningand analyticalimagination. By
applyingthesame modelto contextstoo numerousand varied
to bear its weight,it nevertheless ends up by subordinating
historyto a psychologicalreductionismthat forcesancient

72PeregrineHorden and Nicholas

Purcell,The Corrupting
Sea: A StudyofMedi-
terraneanHistory(Oxford,2000). For moreon thisquestion,see JamesS. Amelang,
'Braudel and the Cultural Historyof the Mediterranean:Anthropologyand Les
in Gabi Piterberg,Teo Ruiz and GeoffreySymcox (eds.), Braudel
lieuxd'histoire',
Revisited:TheMediterranean World,1600-1800, Univ. ofToronto Press,forthcom-
ing,a companionpiece whichhad its originsin the same conferencementionedin
the introductory note.

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 MOURNING BECOMES ECLECTIC 31

texts,and indeed evidenceof all sorts,into a singleinterpre-

tativepatternof personalcrisisand resolution.73 At the same
de
time, Martino, drawn as he was to the urgenttask ofdocu-
mentingand deciphering the finalact of a millennialformof
villagetheatre,deliveredonlya roughsketchofitshistory. The
fragmentary but suggestivedata fromearly modem Spain
opensup forbroaderinspectiontheuncompletedtaskofdisci-
plineto whichlay and especiallyclericalauthorities submitted
rituallament.They also bringto the foresome of the specific
logic by whichcollectivemourningwas banishedto the side-
linesofpopularas wellas eliteculturalpractice.Furthersteps
in the directionofhistoricalcomparisonpromiseto shed light
on othercruciallinksin thispeculiarchainofculturalcontinu-
ity.In westernEurope today,evenin itsmostdistantcorners,
rituallamentno longerhas a present.The taskofethnography
has nowshifted to itspast.Thereitjoinshistory in ponderinga
chorusof sorrowsthatfadedfromviewwithfewmournersof
itsown.

Universidad Madrid
Aut6noma, JamesS. Amelang

73 Mirto, 'La morte acuteon thispoint.See also Pietro

e i vivi',is particularly
Clemente,'Mortee piantorituale:riflessioni su un lavorodi E. De Martino',
AnnalidellaFacolthdiLetteree Filosofia, diSiena,iv(1983).
Universitd

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