CHIAVARI,
Italy –If there is one thing I know it is that it is difficult to change the
habits of a lifetime. I’m talking about Thanksgiving. For me, it’s hard to get
into the spirit of Christmas until I’ve had Thanksgiving. But here in Italy,
where they love holidays that fall on Thursday and extend into Friday and even
Monday if they can get away with it, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.
It’s not that they aren’t fascinated by the idea of giving thanks for
what you have, but what do they have to be thankful for they ask. For those of
us looking in from the outside, we have to think they are kidding, right?
They’re not.
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| A Pox on Your Play |
It’s
not that they don’t think life is good, Italy is beautiful, or the food isn’t
the best in the world. They actually do. But not being too happy about
something is part and parcel of the Italian DNA. If you are too happy
about something, no, I take that back, if you show that you are too happy about
something, you risk putting a jinx – the malocchio or Evil Eye - on the
very thing you are happy about.
The
Evil Eye is best described as a curse that can be triggered by something as
simple as a compliment. For example, if someone tells you your baby is
beautiful, beware! The fates have been tempted. You must immediately make the
sign of the horn to protect your child from the dreaded Evil Eye.
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| Let's See, It's Heel Here and Then Three Turns to the Right |
When
I first moved to Italy, a Genovese lawyer told me that if I wanted to succeed
in Italy, I would have to stop smiling so much. And not only that, but if
someone asked me how I was, the answer should never be –‘great.’ A better,
safer answer, he counseled, would be “in somma.” Which loosely translated
means, “I’m doing the best I can but it’s a struggle.” Truth is, at that time
“in somma” was closer to my reality than “great,” so I had no problem adopting
the more “Evil Eye” proof response.
Superstition
has been part of Italian life since the dawn of time. Using your fingers
to make what is called in Italy “the horns” is in reality a version of a
crescent moon shape which is representative of various Moon Goddesses worshiped
in days of old. Interestingly, the finger horn can also be a sign that your wife
is cheating on you - evidently a cheating wife is considered one of the worse curses of all.
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| Extra Added Protection |
A few years ago, when I found out that here in Italy having a bird in the
house – either as a pet or by accident – is considered bad luck, it triggered a
memory of something that happened years ago. I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. I was with my Grandmother in
her kitchen, watching her cook. Out of nowhere a white pigeon landed on the
windowsill and walked the few inches of the window sill and came inside the
kitchen.
When my Grandmother saw the bird she became visibly
upset. She stopped cooking and went out
into the hallway and sat down in the chair that was always by the door. I
remember her hands were in the fabric of her apron and she was squeezing them
together. A nervous gesture. I stood
next to her and waited to see what was going to happen next. Then she turned to me and said, “my brother
is dead.” That was all she said. And her
brother, who was in the Italian army serving in Ethiopia, had indeed been
killed in battle. Like I said, I was
only a kid so I filed it away along
with all the other strange things grownups do and say and didn’t think about it
again, until now. I read somewhere that the bird in the house is a very old superstition, but I wasn't able to find out how it got started.
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| Bye Bye Birdie |
Then
there is that old habit of saying Bless You, when someone sneezes. That
simple saying is a carry-over from the days of the Roman Empire when sneezing
was a sign that you had a dreaded disease. When someone sneezed the Romans
thought it best to offer up a short prayer to the king of the Gods, Jupiter. A “long
may you live,” or “may you enjoy good health,” or a simple “Jupiter, help me” would
usually do the trick. Whichever one you chose brought hope that Jupiter would
protect you if from whatever the other person was sneezing out. For the
unfortunate sneezer, the hope was that Jupiter would help them expel the
disease within and keep them healthy.
Contrary
to popular belief, it’s not just in southern Italian thing. In Milan they take
the Evil Eye and other superstitions very seriously. The worn out nether parts
of the mosaic bull on the pavement in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in
downtown Milan is proof of that. Even those who claim to be non-believers can’t
resist the Milanese tradition of twirling around three times on the bull’s
dangling bits in the hope that it will keep the evil spirits at bay and bring them luck. So the next time you are in Milan make sure you visit the Galleria
Vittorio Emanuele and give it a twirl. You won’t have any problem finding the
bull mosaic, there is always a crowd of people waiting there to take their
turn.
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| A Cimaruta |
If
you are the nervous type and don’t want to wait until you get to Milan, you
might want to wear a cimaruta around your neck. Some even hang this Italian charm
on their babies cribs to protect them from the Evil Eye. After all, there’s no
point in tempting fate. At least with the protection of a cimaruta, you’ll gain
favor with the Goddess Diana, Queen of the Italian witches, and that can only
be a good thing. I know I’m going to get one and hang it on my computer. Better
safe than sorry, no?
So
while we Americans have no problem roasting up a turkey and brazenly give
thanks for all we have, the wary Italians prefer to go about their business of
living large and enjoying life by pretending they are suffering through it all.
So now that you know the rules, cross your fingers, touch wood, and make the
sign of the horn because I am going to wish you all a Very Happy Thanksgiving.
ON ANOTHER NOTE
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