by Andrea Semplici
The oxen, in the early hours of Pentecost's Saturday morning, will begin to tow, on the edge of Montepiano wood, the forest of Accettura, the Lucanian Dolomites, the tree-groom, the Grande Cerro, the Maggio. A firecracker shot will be the signal that the party begins….
I survived the Maggio of Accettura. Happily survived. It has been four days of absolute joy, bacchanal euphoria, total surprise. Exciting days, over the top. I re-read, with amazement, what I said in a Lucanian newspaper: 'In my travels, it has never happened to me to live such an exciting and unreliable story as the Maggio of your town'. I will have been stunned by wine and zeppole, the pancakes offered in baskets by women, but I think I have told the truth. I remember very well when I spoke to Angelo Labbate, a journalist and anthropologist from Accettura: it was the night of the last day, the party did not want to end, we were exhausted and above us, well planted in the hole dug in the square-amphitheater of San Vito, a tall tree stood solitary, forty meters of vertigo, an oak and a holly married together, an exciting marriage of an arboreal rite. The bare tree, with an unreachable top of foliage, exceeded the bell tower of the church. And, illuminated by the colored lights of the stalls, he seemed to still enjoy the party, the festival, the music, the dances, the food, the wine. The low music, tambourines, trumpets, accordions and bagpipes, still played softly to woo the night: it was like a sweet lullaby for the spirits of Nature of Gallipoli-Cognato forests and Montepiano oak woods. They were finally falling asleep after the endless days of Cuccagna
I apologise, Maggio of Accettura is for me a moment of perfect happiness. The Lucanian spring is a resurrection. The winters here are hard and long. Accettura is at eight hundred meters above sea level, a sparrow hawk-town (this, perhaps, means its name in a forgotten Latin), a mountain village on the borders of the Lucanian Dolomites. Just over two thousand inhabitants. As many emigrants as after the war: especially in Nottingham, England, where at least a thousand Accettura dwellers settled down. Almost everyone returns for Pentecost, the days of the Maggio festival. End of the cold months, propitiatory event of fertility, Christian and pagan rituals at the same time. Great photographers, documentary makers (Dondero, Koudelka, Quilici), anthropologists (De Martino, Bronzini, Annabella Rossi) were speechless in front of the Maggio di Accettura. Unesco has included this ritual among the most beautiful festivals in the Mediterranean area.
People of this profound Lucania have always loved (and feared) woods and forests. For centuries, popular rebellions against feudal and noble powers began with the occupation of the lords' woods. The wood was work, survival, hiding place. Spring erases all fear, invites to return to trees. In this land, arboreal rites, perhaps heirs of Lombard cults, are the most important event of the year. With complex ceremonies and great effort, the trees must be married. A holly and an oak in Accettura (feast dedicated to the patron Saint Julian), beech trees in Rotonda, fir trunks in Viggianello. In Oliveto Lucano, less than twenty kilometers from Accettura, they have their Maggio (dedicated to Saint Cyprian) and the lumberjacks of the two towns supervise the hollies chosen for the wedding to avoid rudeness and theft. In Castelsaraceno the wedding ceremony (in honor of Saint Anthony) is infinite and, between the cutting of the two trees, transport and raising, it goes on for three Sundays in June. In Terranova di Pollino the tree-bride is adorned with colored ribbons. In Castelmezzano, September is expected to match oak and holly. In Pietrapertosa the tree is raised, by force of arms and ropes, from the aerial windows of the bell tower of an ancient church. In short, between these mountains and the wild Pollino massif, eight arboreal weddings are celebrated every year between spring and late summer. And, just beyond the regional border, on the Calabrian side of the Pollino, men of Alessandria del Carretto also carry the top and trunk of a colossal fir tree on their shoulders to reunite them in the town square. So you can spend the warm seasonal months in Lucania and enjoy an infinite wedding party. Not even the wedding of the royals of England is so grand and so perennial.
The four days of Accettura are unforgettable. They don't even stop in the rain. You have to be strong, tireless and have the gift of ubiquity during the feast. We should also have time, it is a slow ceremony during this town's may. Dilated over weeks. Eight days after Easter, the spouses are chosen. A holly from the Gallipoli-Cognato forest will be the Cima. Expert eyes have chosen the most beautiful and the most leafy. And for weeks the men of the woods have kept their choice secret. Nobody should know where the 'elected' tree is. On the same day, on another mountain, east of Accettura, in the Montepiano forest, on Ascension Day, other lumberjacks cut a 'perfect' oak with special axes and saws. Mighty like a Greek column, straight as a pillar, almost thirty meters high. He is the Maggio, the groom. Here comes Pentecost. Five weeks after Easter. The great day of the arboreal wedding. Dawn has just passed, but the youngest and most daring Accettura dwellers have already reached, with a festive procession, the forest of Gallipoli. They were brought to the 'top'. Lumberjacks fought over the hatchet to cut the large holly as if it were a ritual sacrifice. Then dozens and dozens of boys, excited ropes, lifted it, put it on their shoulders and, at a fast pace, descended the mountain. It was as if the whole forest was moving. A riot: the boys stumble, discard to the side, pass the trunk. The wine flows from miraculous small barrels. Women offer food from their baskets. Children stumble on every stone. It is a sort of tumultuous nativity scene. But there is also the peace of a mass on the sides of the road. There is time for an immense popular picnic in a meadow: tablecloths on the grass, salami, cheese, cod, omelettes. Jubilant screams from every corner of the woods. This ramshackle procession will walk for a whole day. The Salandrella valley will go down and up. It will arrive in the village in the early hours of the night. And there the holly bride will await its promise.
In the same hours when the holly was cut, in the Montepiano forest, around the great 'Maggio', the oak felled at Ascension, the massari gathered, the older farmers, the more experienced and wise lumberjacks. They are the maggiaioli. They wear waistcoats and moleskin pants. Mature and strong men who now seem to evaluate the fatigue that awaits them. From each clearing, pairs of oxen with a very white coat and immense bulk emerge. Between the horns they have tufts of broom and images of Saint Julian. The screams of the cattlemen push them towards the big oak. Which weighs at least thirty five quintals. And it will be up to these pairs of oxen to drag it to the village. The spirits of the vegetation, if you believe it, are hidden under the bark of the tree: they are, the Materan anthropologist Giovanni Battista Bronzini wrote, to grow wheat and multiply livestock. They make women fruitful, they give well-being to the community. They are the invisible protagonists of the Maggio festival.
The oxen are yoked to the trunk. Their hard work begins. They are no longer used to it. In the countryside of Accettura they are raised only for this special day. They snort, get stuck, suddenly give way, pull with an immense effort, the hooves slide into the moss: in the end the oak moves, reaches a mule track, then a dirt road. Men and boys (also girls with rubber in their hair, Nike shoes and fake Dolce and Gabbana pants), standing on the trunks, guide the march of the oxen as if they were on an indomitable chariot. Screams of incitement chase each other. Here too: rivers of wine, music that rolls to encourage, intoxication. The journey between Montepiano and the square of Accettura will last the whole day. There will be time to eat sheep and cheeses along the way. Oxen must take a breath. Only in the evening, well after sunset, will this procession also arrive in the town square. And here the Maggio, he will meet the Cima. The two trees meet before the wedding. And the boys, the drunken ropers, embrace the old cattlemen, the elderly male-growers. Music and dance until late at night.
On Monday, the day after Pentecost, major works for the wedding. The two trees will have to be united and raised. With a game of joints they must be grafted on each other. They will become a single, very high trunk. Winches and hoists are built. Neither cranes nor tractors can be used to raise the maggio. We work with chainsaw and iron wedges. The pavement of a corner of the square, in the middle of a sort of amphitheater, is dismantled. A large trench is excavated. Processions weave around the laborers: the images of Saints John and Paul come from the countryside of Valdienna. Even Saint Little Julian (Giulianicchio) appears, a playful representation of the patron's grandson. On Tuesdays, women will walk the streets of the town, dancing for devotion, carrying the cende on their heads, heavy constructions of candles, ribbons and flowers.
The Tuesday after Pentecost is the final act. Tension in the air since the morning. Sturdy ropes, strength of arms, effort of dozens of men, winches and hoists that creak. The tree, the two spouses joined together, is raised. Music rolls with frenzy. Saint Julian must give his 'consent' to the last tear. One last, frenetic effort. The tree now stands above the roofs of the houses. At forty meters high, its Cima di fronde swings slightly. Sudden silence. Like a breath. Now is the time for tightrope walkers, acrobats. The bravest young people (Antonio, Rocco, Leonardo) will climb the tree. Without protection. With hands and legs like hooks, they will rise along a smooth and vertical wood. They will dangle upside down in the void, rotate around the trunk. They will reach the Cima, enjoy the Cuccagna, and from up there they will look at the town square like authentic Kings of the Maggio. Then the boys come down quickly, return to the ground, are embraced. Intense and short triumph. Deep and joyful tiredness. The people of the village swarm towards the stalls, the fairground rides of the countryside, the open spaces where people sing and dance. The tree, the Maggio, finds peace and solitude. The men who built it look at it one last time. They go home. They will reappear in town main road an hour later. To stroll proudly. Dressed for the party.
