Page 4 - Quadrivium

QDV 6 (2015) ISSN 1989-8851 Identity, Dialogism and Liminality… Marcello Messina

The mattanza as an identarian practice

The mattanza2 is a traditional tuna fishing practice, which has been spread for centuries in the Mediterranean, and
especially in Sicily, Malta and Sardinia,3 and has almost disappeared due to the unequal competition of industrial
fishing (Giarelli, 1998: 132).4 The fishing is based on a trap (tunnara), composed of a series of open chambers
delimited by net edges, which lead to a last chamber (coppu), the only one with a net base: the tunas are gradually
herded through the various chambers and then assembled and killed in the coppu by the fishermen of the crew
(tunnaroti) directed by the crew leader (rais). Although the practice is characterised by a spectacular display of
violence and blood, the structure of the mattanza actually allowed for a sustainable selection of the biggest and
oldest tunas, which let younger individuals escape the trap in order to reproduce and repopulate the
Mediterranean (Addis et al 2012; Salvatori, 2009: 27).

As well as referring to the trap, the word tunnara also denotes the buildings where the fish was stocked and
canned: by advocating the architectural importance of these buildings, Lentini claims the existence of an
important identarian function attached to the whole phenomenology of the mattanza (2011). The consciousness
of this relevance in terms of identity and heritage preservation is certainly reflected in many other works on the
mattanza, such as Giarelli’s essay (1998), or Theresa Maggio’s reportage (2000). These two authors in particular,
implicitly suggest that the perception of the identarianness is not only shared by the observers, but is actively
felt and explicitly by the fishermen themselves: both authors report the words of the last two rais, Salvatore
Spataro and Gioacchino Cataldo, the former declaring that the tunnaroti are not “barbarians”, in proud defence
of the dignity of their practice (Maggio, 2000: 18,21); the latter arguing that the tunnara should not die (Giarelli,
1998: 132), or even lucidly talking about the tunnara as a Sicilian and Italian “national patrimony” (Maggio,
2000:248). Maggio’s work also illustrates how rais Cataldo, at the end of the 1990s, proudly took control of the
tunnara in Favignana despite the fact that the crew was let down by the previous rais and by the owner of the
tunnara, and tried to continue practicing the mattanza regardless of its unprofitability, by running the tunnara as a
cooperative (Maggio, 2000: 246-257).5

In commenting this last fact, van Ginkel argues that the “identity matters” became, in the last stage of the
history of Favignana’s mattanza, the only reason why it was still practiced: “[by] performing the mattanza, the
Favignanesi recreate[d] their sense of selves” (Van Ginkel, 2010: 52).

2 This term, generally translatable as “killing”, is of Spanish origin, and replaced the original Sicilian term accisa in the 19th century
(Ravazza, 2010: 68). Incidentally, in contemporary Sicilian and Italian, the term mattanza is often used to refer figuratively to human
massacres.
3 In this work I will mainly focus on Sicily and in particular on the island of Favignana, where I also conducted some fragmented
fieldwork: after an initial trip in May 2013, I visited the island again for a short period in May 2014, and met some of the last tunnaroti
still living in the island, such as the last rais Gioacchino Cataldo (who authorised me to use his name and report the main point of our
personal conversation) and other members of the last crew. In particular, in a personal conversation Cataldo stressed on a few main
points, such as the idea that the rais is not necessarily the soloist, as normally the most endowed singer among the tunnaroti takes on
the role of cialumatori, initiates and leads the songs, while the rais normally directs spoken prayers and invocations, which have a dialogic
form as well; he also pointed out the abundance of obscene songs alongside the religious invocations; importantly, he then highlighted
the importance of conceiving the role of the rais as a promoter of cooperation between the tunnaroti, as opposed to an authoritarian
leader; finally, he said that the cialomi are normally sung up until the first 60 metres of the coppu, as later the fishing becomes too
frenetic and challenging to allow for the distraction of singing.
4 The mattanza is still practiced in Carloforte, in the island of San Pietro, in Southern Sardinia (Johnston, 2014).
5 The events in Maggio’s report stop in 1999, Cataldo managed to keep the tunnara active until 2007, the year of the last mattanza in
Favignana.

QUADRÍVIUM- Revista Digital de Musicologia 2015