IL GUAIO DELLA MADONNA
Ancient rites and folk traditions survive almost everywhere. Until a few decades ago in Noci ( a municipality in the province of Bari ) the propitiatory rite to heal childhood hernia, called in the local vernacular : u guè da Madonne
( Il guaio della Madonna – Our Lady’s trouble ).
Nature , often , sets rhythms linked to traditions and rituals that are lost in the ocean of memory . A contact with natural elements not always manageable or explainable in the 21st century . I introduce you to a ritual by which , between the mystical and the profane, people sought to ward off illness for newborn babies .
We are in Noci , province of Bari , Apulia . Southern Italy .
May 3 , the religious feast day for Our Lady of the Cross, is the day when for children, usually born a few months and suffering from inguinal, umbilical or other hernias, they seek healing not by normal surgical means but through a divine “grace” which, however, is nothing more than an ancient legacy of popular traditions and superstitions.
The children, therefore, early in the morning , are taken to the shrine of the Madonan of the Cross before whose effigy the parents, grandparents and godfather pray , precisely , to ask for the “grace” of their healing before subjecting them to a quite unique therapy.
At the end of the Mass , the group of relatives moves to the grove adjacent to the shrine to practice , on behalf of the child , an unusual therapeutic treatment reminiscent of real ancient magical rites. The ceremony lasts about 20 minutes. One climbs a large oak tree , chooses a young and thin branch – a so-called gentle branch – along which the father , aided by the child’s godfather carves , a penknife , a longitudinal cut of about forty centimeters. Particular care is taken to secure well the two ends of the produced slit , so as to prevent , in the course of the operation , the branch may break .
Having finished this first part of the operation, the mother, aided by other relatives , passes the infant , after kissing it , to the godfather who stands on the oak tree in an uncomfortable position. The father , then , widens to the maximum the opening of the branch produced by the cut through which the godfather , supported by a third person makes the little patient pass three consecutive times, with the head turned back to the ground first to the sky afterward. During the passage, the baby’s relatives present at the ceremony recite prayers to invoke the grace of healing.
Once the second part of the ritual is over, all the relatives present kiss the baby. Now begins, the most delicate part of the operation on which the outcome then depends. The three men , who are still on the oak, immediately close up with the utmost care, the crack in the twig, according to the most common technique of grafting, wrapping it with sheets of strong paper and tying it with raffia threads. They glue, then, a card bearing the particulars of the little infirm. It is the signal for when , after a year , they return to check the outcome of the original cure: if the slender sapling, despite the long cut made, resumes vegetating, the child is to be considered cured. On the contrary, if in the course of the year it loses vitality , then the child, in order to recover needs another operation … to be carried out, however, this time , in a hospital .
This unique therapy of folk medicine is practiced , in Apulia, only in Noci. Hence can be inferred the large number of families who come even from the distant urban centers of the region . Not for nothing else , it is a rite handed down from very ancient times . Local historian Peter Joy records it as already ancient in 1842 . With the passage of time , better , with civil and cultural progress it can be considered , in our times , now completely in disuse .
THE CHURCH DOES NOT WANT TO
The Church disputes this pagan practice because it is associated with religious services .
Indeed , there is greater certainty of cure if the passage of the herniated child through
the severed branch occurs during the celebration of the morning Mass on May 3.
Why do you pass the child through the gap in the branch ?
Perhaps , because , passing through the tender twig , it is believed to magically leave its infirmity to the tree. According to a theory that is always magical , a direct relationship would be created between the life of a severed plant and that of a living being affected by hernia. A sympathetic relationship would arise between the two sick beings as a result of magic : the life of the little human being would depend on that of an inanimate being . That is , why the most delicate part of the rite is to carefully bring the two severed parts of the branch together again so that , well cared for , it can continue to vegetate , failing which the herniated little one will not be cured .
In any case , all considerations about the effect of this curious folk therapy are useless : not even those who practice it can give an explanation . If for the mother of that blond babe with a hint of hernia , the superstitious rite is only hope for healing , if for the Church it is a deplorable pagan practice , for so many , the therapy of Our Lady’s trouble in the oak grove on May 3 is carried out a simple and ancient folk tradition .
Tradition that now , in its mixture of the sacred and the profane is increasingly losing its importance.
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