Old Calabria by Norman Douglas
page 250 of 451 (55%)
page 250 of 451 (55%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
and pass through the streets with song and chorus, since, soon enough,
America will have put an end to such customs. The old Albanian guitar of nine strings has already died out, and the double tibia--_biforem dat tibia cantum--_will presently follow suit. This instrument, familiar from classical sculpture and lore, and still used in Sicily and Sardinia, was once a favourite with the Sila shepherds, who called it "fischietto a pariglia." But some years ago I vainly sought it in the central Sila; the answer to my enquiries was everywhere the same: they knew it quite well; so and so used to play it; certain persons in certain villages still made it--they described it accurately enough, but could not produce a specimen. Single pipes, yes; and bagpipes galore; but the _tibia: pares_ were "out of fashion" wherever I asked for them. Here, in the Greek Sila, I was more fortunate. A boy at the village of Macchia possessed a pair which he obligingly gave me, after first playing a song--a farewell song--a plaintive ditty that required, none the less, an excellent pair of lungs, on account of the two mouthpieces. Melodies on this double flageolet are played principally at Christmas time. The two reeds are about twenty-five centimetres in length, and made of hollow cane; in my specimen, the left hand controls four, the other six holes; the Albanian name of the instrument is "fiscarol." From a gentleman at Vaccarizza I received a still more valuable present--two neolithic celts (aenolithic, I should be inclined to call them) wrought in close-grained quartzite, and found not far from that village. These implements must be rare in the uplands of Calabria, as I have never come across them before, though they have been found, to my knowledge, at Savelli in the central Sila. At Vaccarizza they call such relics "pic"--they are supposed, as usual, to be thunderbolts, and I am also told that a piece of string tied to one of them cannot be burnt in |
|