Mafia and Funerals. Representations, Stereotypes and Identity
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DIEGO GAVINI Mafia and Funerals. Representations, Stereotypes and Identity. The U.S. Case* Each community tends to invest its own cultural resources in the cel- ebration of its dead. In particular, this happens when those who have died assume a significant role in the collective imagination, due either to the role they played during their life, or to the circumstances that determined their death. Through public commemoration, a community is able to con- struct symbolic models to represent its own constituent elements, trace a line of continuity with past generations, or transmit particular values.1 The collective elaboration of mourning gives a meaning to loss, especially when it is least acceptable (as in the case of violent or premature death), by raising it into an integral part of its own system of myths and symbols.2 The role it plays may be internal within the community that expresses it, and/or external, in relation to outsiders to whom to address particular mes- sages. The cult of the dead not only expresses the link with the memory of the deceased, but may come to play a wider role: a means of legitimizing social groups or single individuals and of expressing the rivalry between those who aspire to assume a leading role in the community. * Translated by Peter Spring. 1. Of particular importance among the studies that have been devoted to this question: G. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars, New York 1990 and G. Schwarz, Tu mi devi seppellir. Riti funebri e culto nazionale alle origini della Repubbli- ca, Torino 2010. 2. With regard to these mythical and symbolic aspects of the question I cannot but refer to such classics as B. Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion: and other essay, Garden City 1948; E. De Martino, Morte e pianto rituale: dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di Maria, Torino 1958; and eds. M. Bloch, J. Parry, Death and the Regeneration of Life, Cambridge 1982. 288 Diego Gavini The funeral itself not only represents an integral part of the commem- orative process, but often assumes the most pregnant moment within it. This is not only because the funerary rite takes place in the immediate aftermath of the death, and thus in the period when it is most deeply felt or at any rate has a greatest resonance, but also because it alludes to a phase of transition, the passage from this life to the life to come; and this assumes a quite particular significance when what’s at stake is leadership within the community. Groups of those we label as Mafiosi, irrespective of the specific -na ture of the individual association, are by no means alien to such proc- esses of the commemoration of the dead. This ought not to come as any surprise, given that the peculiarity of a so-called Mafioso group consists in the fact that it represents a community that is recognized as such and plays an active role in it, such as to make it identifiable in the wider com- munity and draw new recruits from it.3 Each association of Mafiosi, to be defined as such, must in fact possess its own system of language and myths such as to give rise to a specific subculture: «Our Tradition», as it was proudly defined by Joseph Bonanno;4 or the ideals of justice cited by Tommaso Buscetta.5 The acceptance of such a subculture by the indi- vidual members of Mafia groups may be expedient or self-serving or su- perficial, but this is of little significance. What matters is that the appeal to this subculture is essential in the internal regulation of the balance of power within the group, as also in the transmission of messages to other 3. For discussion of the characteristics of the Mafioso model see the introduction of E. Ciconte, F. Forgione and I. Sales in the book of Mafia studies they edited: Atlante delle mafie: storia, economia, società, cultura, I, Soveria Mannelli 2012. See also M. Catino, L’organizzazione del segreto nelle associazioni mafiose, in «Rassegna italiana di sociolo- gia», 2 (2014), pp. 259-302. 4. Joseph Bonanno – nicknamed “Joe Bananas” – was born at Castellammare del Golfo (Campania) in 1905. Son of Salvatore, a leading figure in the Mafia of Castellam- mare, he ended up by imposing his own stature in New York as a leading protagonist of the organization of Cosa nostra. He is the author of an autobiography: A Man of Honor: the Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, New York 1983. The Italian edition, edited by S. Lalli, is Uomo d’onore, Milano 1985. See also G. Talese, Honor Thy Father, New York 1971, a book based on the memories of Joseph Bonanno’s son, Salvatore. 5. Several books have been devoted to the testimony of this well-known Sicilian Ma- fioso turned state’s evidence: E. Biagi,Il boss è solo, Milano 1986; P. Arlacchi, Addio Cosa nostra: la vita di Tommaso Buscetta, Milano 1994; S. Lodato, La mafia ha vinto: intervista con Tommaso Buscetta, Milano 1999. Mafia and Funerals 289 criminal associations, social groups that are considered sympathetic to it, and, more widely, in its relation to politics, to the institutions and/or so-called civil society. Each Mafioso group, therefore, as community, celebrates its own dead and does so in the full consciousness of the wider publicity that such a commemorative event may have in society at large. In the subtle balance of forces in which such associations move, torn between the need to conceal their own structure and activities and the concurrent need to be externally recognizable as such, the recourse to symbolic representations becomes an essential prerequisite. The elaboration of the funerary rite responds to this need. It conforms to canons that have their own implicit symbolic value, and that are aimed at expressing whatever is necessary. Nell’economia generale delle relazioni sociali che un funerale è chiamato a rappresentare, elementi importanti di valutazione sono il numero dei parte- cipanti al corteo funebre, la presenza o meno di fiori e ghirlande, l’atmosfera complessiva di stima e affetto che si stringe intorno ai congiunti e ai parenti più prossimi, l’attenzione più o meno forte manifestata dal contesto in cui il defunto e la sua famiglia hanno operato. […] Più importante ancora del cor- teo e dell’apparato scenico che vi fa da contorno è, in alcuni casi, la cerimo- nia religiosa celebrata in chiesa; perché la liturgia in ricordo della dipartita di un affiliato alla consorteria mafiosa può diventare il pretesto per riaffermare il rapporto privilegiato di questi con Dio – unica entità cui viene riconosciuta autorità e legittimità di giudizio – e, dunque, può essere utile per giustificare attraverso un ministro del culto – più o meno consapevole dell’obiettivo – il rifiuto netto e deciso di aderire ai canoni e alle prescrizioni della giustizia terrena.6 6. «In the general economy of the social relations that a funeral is called to represent, important elements by which it can be evaluated include the number of participants in the funeral procession, the presence or not of flowers and wreaths, the overall atmosphere of affection and esteem by which the dead man’s nearest and dearest are surrounded, and the degree of attention manifested by the context in which the deceased and his family have operated. […] Even more important than the procession and the scenic apparatus by which it is surrounded is, in some cases, the religious ceremony celebrated in church; because the liturgy in commemoration of the deceased member of a Mafia association may become the pretext to reaffirm its privileged relation with God – the only entity to which authority and legitimacy of judgment is recognized – and, hence, may be useful to justify through a minister of the church – whether conscious of the objective or not – the clear and decided rejection of the canons and prescriptions of earthly justice». A Dino, La mafia devota. Chie- sa, religione, Cosa Nostra, Bari-Roma 2010, pp. 92-94. 290 Diego Gavini With this observation, Alessandra Dino reminds us both of some of the roles that a Mafia funeral is called to play, and of those scenic con- ventions that usually accompany it and that can be combined to express possible variations on the theme. Various studies, moreover, have under- lined the centrality of the funerary rite in the life of members of Mafia associations as an indisputable fact and one by which the Mafia is char- acterized.7 According to these studies, the funerary liturgy itself is a way of emphasizing the constant need to mark the Mafia group’s own pres- ence on the territory. Through funerals Mafiosi can celebrate its father figures, gauge the strength of its internal balances and the involvement of the public authorities, and exemplify its relation with religious faith. These are all elements that we find in essentially similar form in other ritual events, such as baptism and marriage, which also play a central role in the forging of criminal alliances and strategies.8 In contrast to these, however, funerals have an added value, in that they involve delicate implications concerning the succession to power, which become even more complex when we are faced by a violent death, whether as a single episode or as part of an open conflict. The funerary rite itself becomes the first moment in which necessary contacts are forged and preliminary evaluations made. The scenic apparatus of the ceremony thus becomes of crucial importance in the construction of non-verbal but no less eloquent messages; it assumes a key role in the mediation that the death of the Mafia member has precipitated.