The Gardeners of Salemi
The Gardeners wear a nineteenth-century velvet dress, on their heads they have a straw hat with numerous long multicolored ribbons, symbol of the chromatic variety of the products of the earth, and they carry in their hands a pantograph tool which, extending reaches a length of about five meters. A hook is fixed to the top of the instrument which once allowed mandarins and lemons to be handed to the public, today replaced by candies and various sweets.
This masquerade arrived in Salemi from Palermo, where we find, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the carnival figure of the scalittaru.
The mask of the Gardeners is very common, and still today during the celebrations of the Carnival of Salemi it is customary to wait on the balconies for their arrival to receive a gift which is accompanied up to the first floor of the houses.
In this way a of the most widespread ritual forms of carnival, namely that of giving, as a propitiatory form of well-being and abundance.
