Warning: Some Brief Scenes Are Graphic.
A village in the Southern Italian region of the Calabria area is the backdrop for an ancient ritual that is claimed to represent a people’s identity an identity that struggles to retain its tradition unaltered by means of time.
“Tradition is the pump that pushes the blood of identity”.
During the Holy Week prior the Easter celebrations, the village experiences an intense spiritual and practical preparation for a weekend ritual. The statue of the Virgin Mary is taken out from its shrine to take part in the ritual of Vattienti. These are flagellants who beat their legs with two pieces of cork, one of which has 13 fragments of glass in it, and represent the sufferings of Jesus, and who should endure the discomfort of religious mortification in the name of spiritual cleansing.
Ruben Salvadori is an Italian photographer, whose biography tells us that he’s to graduate with dual majors for a BA in International Relations and Anthropology/Sociology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He uses photography as an academic aid for his anthropological research, and mixes his academic background with a visual documentary-design method to obtain in-depth, empirical analysis results by means of his photos.
More details on the Vattienti:
This sacred popular custom centres about two figures the “Ecce Homo” and the “Vattiente”, barefoot and tied to one yet another with a rope about two and a half metres long. The initial wraps a cloth about his hips and holds a cross produced of wooden slats covered in red bandages, as a symbol of blood and martyrdom the other wears a black shirt with black shorts and a crown of barbed thorns on his head. As soon as they are dressed, the “Vattienti” rub and slap their calves and thighs with the “rosa”, a cork disk soaked in a warm rosemary infusion, in order to make the blood rise to their capillaries. They then use the “cardo”, one more cork disk with 13 glass shards embedded in it, to beat the reddened elements of their skin. Rivulets of blood run down their legs, even though red wine is poured onto their wounds to disinfect them and stop rapidly clotting. As soon as they have marked the door of their residence and these of their pals and relatives, as a token of good luck, every Vattiente goes to meet the Madonna Addolorata. This is the final climax of the rite when the flagellation reaches its height and becomes even far more agitated and dramatic. (From Tour Calabria).
