Mask of the "Picuraro" of Antillo
Area Culturale Comune Antillo
Antillo has a traditional carnival mask, the mask of the "Picuraru", the "shepherd".
It is a disguise that strongly recalls rural life. The man is partly man and partly beast: the dark colored hairy trousers recall the fur of the beasts, and contrast with the white tunic which represents the human part. The Picurari also wear u facial, i.e. a white cloth mask with two holes for the eyes and a mèusa, the traditional headgear. On their feet are scarp'i pilu, raw leather shoes held in place by leather straps crossed along the leg. From the reinforced belt hang all around the cowbells, a dozen or more, of various shapes and sizes which emphasize the figure of the goat and which have the ritual function of announcing the dreaded arrival of the masquerades and their transgressive actions. The disguise is completed by an embroidered towel with knotted fringes that falls from the left shoulder to the right side and a saddlebag containing old cheese on one side and a flint on the other. Finally, they carry a long stick, beautifully inlaid and decorated, made from a gnarled blackberry branch.
Once, to exorcise the anxieties and fears of everyday life, during the carnival period, the fearsome and mysterious masks of the pícurari gathered in groups of 8-10 and roamed the streets of Antillo, arousing, with their unpredictable and irreverent gestural and verbal raids, now hilarity and explosions of liberating laughter, now bewilderment and amazement.
The carnival ceremonial prescribed that from time to time the pícurari establish verbal contact with the people, consisting of a ritual exchange of obligatory jokes:
Picuraru, m'u duni um-mmostru i frummàggiu?< br>Shepherd, can you give me a piece of cheese?
Give me u cutedddu chitt'u tàgghju
Give me a knife and I'll cut it for you em>
If the interlocutor gave him the knife, u pícuraru pretended to want to sharpen it on the flint but, vo deliberately, it ruined the cut. However, the joke was rewarded with a piece of cheese offered as a gift to the victim. The incursion of the the picurari, respecting the ceremonial sequences, ended in the square where they joyfully intertwined contradanza dances with female masks. The final reconciliation dance sanctioned the triumph of Good, represented by the ladies, over Evil, symbolized by the semi-wild figures of the pícurari, and marked the end of the transgressive and carefree carnival interval and the return to usual daily life.
Today the mask of u picuraru lives again on the occasion of the carnival of Antillo.
