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

(leader) Chi beddi cosci teni What beautiful legs she has
(choir) A signorina
(leader) Chi beddi cosci teni That young lady
(choir) A signorina
(leader) E Lina, Lina What beautiful legs she has
(choir) Lina, Lina
(leader) E ci la ramo o rais That young lady
(choir) A signorina
(leader) E ci la ramo o rais Lina, Lina
(choir) A signorina10
Lina, Lina
We’ll give her to the rais
That young lady
We’ll give her to the rais
That young lady

In Lina, Lina, after listing the details of the young lady’s beauty, often with reference to obscene particulars,

the cialumaturi and the other tunnaroti sardonically offer her to the rais, in total irreverence to his leadership: as
van Ginkel puts it, here “the singers can even poke fun at the rais – the only time his authority can be freely
mocked”(2010: 61). I claim here that this mockery has the precise aim of reasserting the leadership of the rais,

by urging the renovation of his authority before the most arduous and critical phase of the fishing: in this

context the cialumaturi acts as a decrowning double of the rais, as he initially usurps his role as leader of the

religious invocations, and then transfers the singing from a devotional domain into an obscene and derisive

domain.

Death and regeneration

In Bakhtin’s formulation of the carnivalesque, the decrowning double’s mockery of the authority is called “ritual
laughter”, and has the function of forcing the authority to renew itself: “Ritual laughter was always directed
toward something higher: the sun (the highest god), other gods, the highest earthly authorities were put to
shame and ridiculed to force them to renew themselves” (Bakhtin, 1984: 126-127).

Importantly, the authority in Bakhtin’s carnival is not only represented by the human leader, but also to more
abstract entities, and transposing this to the mattanza, one can argue that the renovation that takes place is closely
linked to the killing of the tuna: reporting an insight of anthropologist Serge Collet, van Ginkel suggests that
the blood of the tuna is a symbol of regeneration and reproduction (2010: 61), and then goes on to illustrate the
extreme respect and tie that links the fishermen with the tuna, despite the gruesome display of violence
embedded in the practice (2010: 62). In more general terms, thus, it could perhaps be argued that, apart from
mocking and reasserting the authority of the rais, the ritual laughter serves to exorcise and deny the gravity of
the imminent carnage: in support to this thesis, I can again resort to van Ginkel, who quotes rais Gioacchino
Cataldo who, in turn, minimises and denies the blood bath involved in the mattanza, claiming that the tunnaroti
only fish the tuna, and that they do not really kill it (Van Ginkel, 2010: 62).11

10 This transcription is a personal elaboration based on the transcription by Guggino (2008: 95) and on a recording taken by Mag gio
(Tonnaroti di Favignana, 1994b).
11 A similar mechanism of denial, employed by the tunnaroti of Favignana, but this time associated to the general decline of the
mattanza, has also been observed by Maggio (Marino & Maggio, 2005).

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