Spooky Week

As a kid, I loved Halloween to the extent that any kid loves free candy and below freezing temperatures. I have a lot of fond memories of dressing up and filling our pillow cases. My favourite Halloween memories are Jody and I counting and trading our bounty and me often getting tricked into trading Tootsie Rolls for Reeces. Va bene. 

As a teenager I grew to enjoy Halloween less and as an adult I'm pretty "meh" about the entire season. I enjoyed watching students get creative and have some innocent fun (although I disliked one of the worst teachings days of the year which was the day after Halloween.) But I learned to loath the social pressure of dressing "sexy" if going out and the badgering question of "what are you?" I also don't enjoy being scared or spooked so I just couldn't connect with the day. I don't even love Halloween candy which is just regular miniaturized candy unlike Easter that boasts it's own unique candy like the always delicious mini eggs. There have been a lot of homesick moments but being away on Halloween was not one of them (unless we are counting the tears that welled up seeing pictures of Kiniiya and Luka dressed up for the day!)

Here in Italy, Halloween isn't really a thing. There isn't a culture of kids being princess, super heroes, ghosts, and witches. Of going door to door and asking for candy. Of black out drunk adult parties. Or of pumpkin carving. The impact of cultural diffusion is slowly being seen as some stores have Halloween decorations and, despite being advised it wouldn't happen, our apartment did see a small gaggle of trick-or-treaters! I had a certain amount of respect for these kids! I remember my brother plotting our night so we could hit the best houses in the best neighbourhoods to maximize candy haul. For these kids it was the joy of the hunt 🤣 Up and down the street they went hitting every condo buzzer along the way like we use to do in elevators. Trick-or-treating here is going to be challenging if it ever catches simply due to architectural differences. I knew someone in our complex was welcoming trick-or-treaters since they were buzzed through our gate but I wasn't sure who. I told them so in broken Italian and they were excited to practice some English. They gleefully went to every condo in our complex and came back with a little. They were unbothered and laughing and happy. Next year I will definitely have a stash. 

For the few Italians that participate in dressing up, the occasion calls for only spooky costumes: witches, devils, bats, ghosts, zombies. We will only see super heroes, Barbies, cowboys, and princesses if we go to a base sponsored Halloween celebration. Leading up to the end of Lent, Italians have "Carnevale" where dressing up in all kinds of costumes takes place. Although even then, sexy zombie or whatever are still not a thing!

While the Spooky Season has been very different, the Italians have two of their own holidays this week in Tutti i Santi (All Saints Day) and Giorno dei Morti(All Souls Day) on Nov 1st and 2nd. These holidays appear to be fairly personal so we didn't experience them first hand. 

Tutti i Santi is a Catholic holiday and a federal day off in Italy. November 1st is a day to honour all the saints and martyrs of Christendom. Tradition calls for you to put a candle in a window which will invite the souls of any of the dead stuck in purgatory to visit. Now, I have a lot to learn about theology and my knowledge of purgatory comes from teaching about the Catholic sale of indulgences during the Reformation while focusing on Martin Luther and King Henry VIII, so it's cursory at best. From a believers perspective, this is beautiful! What an opportunity to reunite with the departed even if just for a night. From a skeptical historical perspective, it is a brilliant way to calm the masses looking for eternal salvation and fearing purgatory. Either way, we didn't see any candles but the wind has been atrocious and I'm sure there are more modern ways to welcome them home. A traditional cookie is usually made called a pan di morti (bread of the dead) that is like a dense, chewy, fig cookie. The symbolism is extensive, with the use of otherwise unused cookies symbolizing a transformation and cocoa to make the cookie look like burial soil. I didn't find any but I know to watch for them next year. 

Pane di Morti cookies. Next year I'll seek some out

November 2nd is not a federal holiday but many businesses, especially in smaller towns, are closed. Giorno dei Morti is very similar but is a day to remember those who have died. Families will often go to family graves and clean them up with a tradition of making sure unattended grave sites also get attention. In reading and watching videos, it seems that the distinction of the two days is blurry and the spooky connections to Halloween evident. Ultimately it sounds like All Saints Day is a joyous occasion and All Souls Day is a somber one. Pope's placed these days near the Pagan holiday in a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of effort.

The local group of foreign nationals here in Pozzuoli went to explore some of the spookier sides of Napoli including a church dedicated to the souls in Purgatory and the Torture Museum. I may not like spooky per say but when it involves architecture, culture, and history, I'm in! 

Skulls adorn all parts of the church

In 1656 a second wave of the Bubonic Plague struck Naples, killing 150,000 people or about half of the population. With a staggering number of dead, many were buried in under ground crips but were not given proper Catholic burials. Traditionally, this would mean that their souls would be stuck in purgatory. A uniquely Neapolitan tradition was born of adopting skulls to pray over, and shower in gifts, in order to expedite their way out of purgatory. The Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco continues to host many of these remains. Certain skulls gained cult like followings who believed their souls were closer to god than the living and thus could offer favour to the living after prayer. The most famous is the Virgin Bride whom people often leave wedding veils and tiaras for as they pray for marital guidance. In 1969 the Cardinal of Naples declared the practice as superstitious heresy. The underground cemetery with tens of thousands of skulls was closed and the church was turned into a tourist attraction. The hope was with the addition of entrance fees and the striping of the title as an official church might deter the believers, but it has not and many still believe it to be a legit form of Catholic prayer. 

Now closed Fontanelle Cemetery well below Napoli

The Virgin Bride remains

Crypts and remains below the church. Personal pictures are prohibited

Literally down the narrow road from where the faithful of Naples pray over the skulls of the dead is a museum dedicated to the practice of torture. The irony was not lost on our group: here we pray for those we don't even know and here we commit acts of human depravity often in the name of religion. History is weird. 

Walking through the torture museum was really interesting to me! I kept smiling which I'm sure was off putting for the people in our group! I just kept thinking about teaching this gruesome topic to high schoolers. When I looked at the display for rat barrel torture I busted up laughing thinking about that time I demo'd it with a trash can that was unknowingly full of lumpy smoothie. As it slowly ran down my leg a kid said "No idea how you are staying so calm right now Snider" and I replied "it's nothing compared to the rat that's about to scurry into my guts!" I'm not sure if that memory is as prolific for them but man, teaching is wild. When I got out of my own memories, and thought about Europe from the Middle Ages through the Reformation, the reality of what humans are capable of doing to other humans really permeated as I read the descriptions. Also reflecting on some contemporary practices that are disturbingly similar to the museum displays. 

 

A spooky week has concluded and now to focus on a very different looking holiday season here in bella Italia...or in our case in Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland  ✈️

Napoli special uniforms for the game this week

In Jef Spaleta's words, "please let this be real"