The Indigenous Healing Tradition in Calabria, Italy
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NeuroQuantology | June 2016 | Volume 14 | Issue 2 | Page 193-212 | doi: 10.14704/nq.2016.14.2.937 193 Bova et al., Healing tradition in Calabria, Italy The Indigenous Healing Tradition in Calabria, Italy Michael Bova*, Stanley Krippner †, Ashwin Budden ‡, Roberto Galante § ABSTRACT In 2003, the four of us spent several weeks in Calabria, Italy. We interviewed local people about folk healing remedies, attended a Feast Day honoring St. Cosma and St. Damian, and paid two visits to the Shrine of Madonna dello Scoglio, where we interviewed its founder, Fratel Cosimo. In this essay, we have provided our impressions of Calabria. Although it is one of the poorest areas in Italy, Calabria is one of the richest in its folk traditions and alternative modes of healing. Key Words: Calabria, Roma, indigenous, healing, religious, saint, tarantella, ex voto, transpersonal DOI Number: 10.14704/nq.2016.14.2.937 NeuroQuantology 2016; 2:193-212* Introduction1 In April 1995, before it became the Center for Americans spend approximately 17 billion Alternative and Complimentary Medicine, the dollars per year on CAM practices, many of which Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) of the can be classified as traditional medicine, or United States National Institutes of Health held a ethnomedicine (Traditional, 2003; Freeman, conference on research methodology. The 2004). objective of the conference was to evaluate the The OAM panel on definition and need for research in the field of complementary description accepted a dual charge: To establish a and alternative medicine (CAM), which they definition of the field of complementary and designed several working groups to address with alternative medicine for the purposes of consensus statements on a variety of essential identification and research, and to identify topics. Given that most of the world’s population factors critical to a thorough and unbiased uses and spends 60 billion dollars a year on CAM, description of CAM systems; one that would the OAM recognized the demand for its study. support both quantitative and qualitative research. The panel defined CAM as follows: Complementary and alternative medicine Corresponding author: Michael Bova, MPS, ATR (CAM) is a broad domain of healing Address: Michael Bova, MPS, ATR, 506 Garden Street, Mount Holly, resources that encompasses all health NJ 08060. Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Saybrook University, 475 14th Street, 9th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612. Ashwin Budden, Ph.D. 1545 NW systems, modalities, and practices and Market St Seattle, Washington 98107. Roberto Galante, via della their accompanying theories and beliefs, Villa 3 50065 Pontassieve, Firenze, Italy. other than those intrinsic to the politically Phone: 888.388.0032 e-mail [email protected] Relevant conflicts of interest/financial disclosures: This dominant health system of a particular investigation was supported by the Chair for the Study of society or culture in a given historical Consciousness, Saybrook University Oakland, California. Received: 29 February 2016; Revised: 13 March 2016; period. CAM includes all such practices Accepted: 13 March 2016 eISSN 1303-5150 www.neuroquantology.com NeuroQuantology | June 2016 | Volume 14 | Issue 2 | Page 193-212 | doi: 10.14704/nq.2016.14.2.937 194 Bova et al., Healing tradition in Calabria, Italy and ideas self-defined by their users as A Brief History of Calabria preventing or treating illness or Calabria is renowned for its Mediterranean promoting health and well being. climate and history of conquest and settlement, Boundaries within CAM and between the reaching back to antiquity. This narrow strip of CAM domain and the domain of the land in Southern Italy is located between the dominant system are not always sharp or Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas, or the “toe” of Italy’s fixed (O'Conner et al., 1997). “boot.” Human presence in the area dates back to The panel’s second goal was to establish a list of the Paleolithic Age (as determined by the graffito parameters for obtaining thorough descriptions in Cosenza), and artifacts of Homo erectus from of CAM systems. The list consisted of 13 about 700,000 years B.C.E. have been recovered categories first conceptualized by Hufford in coastal areas. Researchers have discovered (1995): remnants of the Copper Age and Bronze Age, 1. Lexicon: What are the specialized terms in the often in caves, as well as from the Iron Age (e.g., system? tombs in Cassano Ionio). When the Neolithic replaced the Paleolithic age, hunters converted to 2. Taxonomy: What classes of health and sickness farming and founded the first villages roughly do the system recognize and address? 3500 B.C.E. (Douglas, 1915/2001). 3. Epistemology: How was the body of knowledge Calabria prehistory ended with derived? colonization about 2000 B.C.E. The term “Italy” 4. Theories: What are the key mechanisms was derived from King Italo of the Enotrians or understood to be? Arcadians, the first colonizers, and the name eventually spread to the entire peninsula. 5. Goals for Interventions: What are the primary Beginning about 720 B.C.E., various city-states goals of the system? from Greece established rich and colorful 6. Outcome Measures: What constitutes a colonies meriting the name Magna Graecia (i.e., successful intervention? “Greater Greece,” a name that conveyed the 7. Social Organization: Who uses and who comparatively small size of the mother country). practices the system? Magna Graecia was well reputed for the health of its people, which was the result of proper 8. Specific Activities: What do the practitioners territorial management and ecological balance. In do? What do they use? those days, Calabria was known for its fertile 9. Responsibilities: What are the responsibilities farmlands, as well as its precious minerals and of the practitioners, patients, families, and silks. Bronze tablets, unearthed in 1732, community members? described how the Greek colonists were obliged to replace wind-swept or dead trees, and initiate 10. Scope: How extensive are the system’s land reclamation works. applications? Roman occupation brought with it a 11. Analysis of Benefits and Barriers: What are disregard for traditional ways of life, tilled fields the risks and costs of the system? instead pastures, and a diminishing population. 12. Views of Suffering and Death: How does the Malaria casualties took farmers away from their system view suffering and death? plots, and the uncultivated land produced 13. Comparison and Interaction with Dominant marshes that compounded the spread of malaria System: What does this system provide that the (Danubio, Piro and Tagarelli, 1999). In time, Italy dominant system does not? How does this system became the center of the Roman Empire, which interact with the dominant system? began its conquest of Calabria in about 275 B.C.E., defeating most of the Calabrian tribes within a th A 14 category was provided for few years. Many of these tribes supported researchers, listing critical procedures for formal Hannibal during the Second Punic War, but when investigations of CAM systems. As this article is a Hannibal withdrew from Italy, he murdered his descriptive account of Calabrian healers and Calabrian allies to protect himself against facing healing practices, and not a formal assessment of them in battle should they defect to Rome. When their efficacy, we omit consideration of this final the threat of Hannibal and Carthage ended, the guideline. Roman conquest of Calabria was completed in eISSN 1303-5150 www.neuroquantology.com NeuroQuantology | June 2016 | Volume 14 | Issue 2 | Page 193-212 | doi: 10.14704/nq.2016.14.2.937 195 Bova et al., Healing tradition in Calabria, Italy 211 B.C.E. The mass deforestation initiated by Another instance of gross intolerance the Romans marked the first serious occurred under Spanish rule in 1571, whereby environmental challenge to the area. Such the Waldenses were massacred for their deforestation practices expanded marshy areas allegiance to the Protestant movement in Europe. ideal for mosquitoes, and consequently malaria. During the era of Islamic expansion, there were Goths and Visigoths invaded the area, periodic forays by Muslims. Bourbon rule was sacked towns, and destroyed much of Calabria’s interrupted by French domination from 1805 to Greek and Roman legacy. After the fall of Rome in 1816, and then resumed until Garibaldi unified th the 4th century C.E., Byzantines dominated the Italy in the middle of the 19 century. area and named it “Calabria” in the 7th century In the meantime, disastrous agricultural C.E. Eastern Orthodox monks came with the practices had transformed the pristine coastlands Byzantine rulers, establishing monasteries and into marshy and malarial swamps. Much of the building shrines in the secluded mountains. Their population withdrew inland to avoid both rule lasted until the 11th century C.E. and was malaria and pirate raids, primarily by the followed by the Normans, who arrived about Saracens and the Turks from 1100 to 1800. 1050 C.E., creating the Kingdom of the South. The Chapels and churches constructed by Roman Swabians conquered the Normans in 1194 and Catholic monks helped preserve Calabria’s cultivated one of the most civilized nations in that culture. However, a major earthquake in 1783 part of the world, the so-called “Kingdom of the destroyed many of those buildings and cultural Sun,” in which people of different religious artifacts. persuasions (e.g., Islamic, Greek Orthodox) lived In the early 19th century Secret societies as peaceful neighbors. This kingdom was abounded, working to help Garibaldi unify what followed by others, specifically Anjou in 1266 and is now Italy. The efforts of Garibaldi and Aragon in 1435, whose rulers created a system of supporting subversive groups were confirmed by feudalism in Spain, which conquered the area in a plebiscite on October 21, 1860 (Crawford, 1503. Austrian domination began in 1707, 1901). followed by Bourbon rule in 1734. Under the title, “The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,” the The term “traditional southern Italy” Bourbons exploited local natural resources, refers to the provinces of Calabria, Abruzzi, especially what was left of the forests.