We know that the Christmas cyclone is about to set us reeling, when Lu Puparu is blown our way. The annual publication lights up dark December days and offers a gentle tap on the shoulder to remind expats that Lecce has a dialect all its own. You will know Lu Puparu this year, its 29th, by Piero Pascali’s delightful drawing of Giuseppe Pascali’s Nativity Crib Scene on the cover. Giovanni Polo’s dose of Lecce-speak accompany it:
…E quiddhu, amici mei, fose lu primu
de tanti pupi ca facimu ancora cu nna sustanza
mùceta-la crita.
Arte perèddha? Fòrsi. Ma nu ccriu
ca bbu scurdati, gròlia rànde, ntica
ca lu primu puparu…è statu Diu
(This swaddled infant, my friends, came first
Of the many we made of earthy stuff
Is that makers’ art no more among us?
Could be so although
It’s old as old can be
When there had been none
God made a baby for the crib)
Lu Puparu or the baby in the Christmas crib is the icon around which the review as always builds its annual number. Five thousand copies have been offered as a gift during la Fera Te Santalucia, the 13th of December, Saint Lucy’s Day. The gift-bearers are the Theatrical Cultural Association Rotepacce, directed by Oronzino Invitto.
The items of the review are more than best wishes of the season and encouragement to see January as a beginning of a new and better chapter in life. Articles also face up to various cultural problems where the dialect is spoken. In Lecce Città Artigiana, Luigi De Luca asks what distinguishes the artist from the artisan. He finds no difference in the quality of both of their products though the artist is often weighed down with verbal justification whereas the artisan submerges himself in the process of creation. To say that the artist alone “represents a vision of the world” doesn’t quite satisfy De Luca. He notes the anonymity of artisans in the past and how their nameless hands built the glories of Lecce. That the artisan spirit of making beauty for its own sake can no longer be felt in objects offered tourists today leaves him regretful.
De Luca doesn’t write in dialect but in Italian. That Lu Puparu’s purpose is to exalt once a year the language of Salento and yet is written a good part in straightforward Italian says everything about the least overbearing of dialects. This is one with a smile on its face. Like the goodies in a Lecce pastry shop, it’s up to you to take your pick. You can join in, enjoy it, or choose not to. It’s not imposed as some sort of political statement.
Italy boasts many dialects. Some of them play hide-and-seek with Italian. Others offer little that the expat’s acquired Italian can help to decipher. Linguists are happy to explain why. But the uninstructed English-speaker adventuring over the Italian peninsula makes his own judgment on how his utterances are received. Your version of the national language may sour a welcome in corners of the Veneto. In talkative Naples country, it can get you excluded from the ongoing conversation. There’s no time or space for anything but the urgent syllables of the natives. It’s not hostility to your person. It’s that not hearing you speak their dialect, they haven’t noted your existence. On the other hand, dialect speakers in Sicily recognise your presence. But it’s as if you dropped from Mars. They murmur their strange words to themselves and wait for an interpreter.
With Lu scioperu te li pupi! by the Dean of dialect writers, William Fiorentino, we are back in the main stream of the local indigenous utterance. A tale of fantasy and humour, it’s a spark off a talent that has given two volumes of plays in the comedic mode. The 92-year-old Fiorentino—who for some reason aims at 102— is the stern guardian of what he calls nostra parlata. He has been known to correct a dialect speaking supermarket cashier who inserted mica in her counter chitchat. That’s straight from Lombardy, he said, our word is filu. Maestro Fiorentino laments the fact that no young author writes in dialect. One would likes to suggest to him that translating into dialect a famous literary text found in the public domain might be the best way of boosting his beloved idiom in universal esteem.
At the very centre of the review is a feast for the eyes served up by the pupils of the Istituto Comprensivo Ammirato-Falcone. Salento traditions speak to us here not in words but in a multitude of colours in seventeen assertions of youthful imagination.
The crib figure, Lu Puparu, has often been made of cartapesta, an inexpensive material for sculpture made of straw, glue and plaster that produced masterpieces in 17th and 18th century Lecce. The art of paper statuary, along with the Salento’s olive tree are the foundation themes of this year’s issue of the review. Giuseppe Pascali’s article on the difference of the Lecce and Neapolitan Christmas cribs goes into the use of cartapesta or crita (terracotta) in the figures.
As for the noble olive, Fabio Lettere reflects on the grim matter of Xylella, the malady that has recently destroyed so many trees. Antonella Buttazzo in Sotto il calore dell’ulivo tells us “…l’olivo, l’anima del tenace Salento. In questa terra di luce e di pietra, l’ulivo è quindi molto più che un semplice elemento del paesaggio. Esso infatti, è simbolo di un’identità collettiva, un testimone….”( …the olive tree, tenacious Salento’s soul. In this land of light and stones, it is therefor more than a simple element of landscape, It is, in fact, a symbol of collective identity, a witness….) Buttazzo speaks of the sculptors Salvatore Sava and Salvatore Spedicato before him, both of whose work was inspired by the olive tree, seeing it as a metaphor for life itself.
Raffaele Polo’s interview with Oronzino Invitto conducted over a Sunday dinner that sounds succulent rounds off this issue of Lu Puparu with director Ronzino’s broad digestive smile and a tribute to his skill in the kitchen.
The good cheer sends us to his booklet of dialect epigrams, rotepàcce, of 2012, a second volume to appear in 2025. The dialect is rendered in Italian. English speakers have a puzzle to solve as they wait for the New Year’s bell to toll.
Lu primu puparu
‘Nna francata te luta,
la mpastau
e l’ommu, cu nnu fiatu,
sciù criau!
(Un pugno di fango,
lo impastò
e l’uomo, con un soffio,
poi creò)
—————————
L’annu ecchiu
Abbande uastasi!
Si statu capace
pe tutici misi
mme nnechi la pace
(Vai via mascalzone!
sei stato capace
per dodici mesi
di negarmi la pace)
————————-
La befana
Se puru nu esiste
ni nde frecamu,
ecchi e piccinni
nui la spettamu
(Se pur non esiste
non ce ne importa,
vecchi e bambini
noi l’aspettiamo)
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