Pastoralism, the Lucanians
& the Alburni Mounts
or
Green Pastures
on the Flank of the Dove
The Costa
Palomba is the south-western flank of the "Alburni
Mounts" (here, seen from across the Calore valley). The
town on the slope in the center is Castelcivita at 526
meters (c. 1700 feet). The plateau slopes upward to the
northwest from about 1100 m. with peaks above 1700 m.
(c. 5500 feet). The high flank, dropping off on the
left, is directly above the Paestum plain.
The
term costa
in Italian generally means the same thing as "coast"
in English —a stretch of land bordering on the sea. It
can, however, also mean "mountain side," or "flank of a
mountain." Thus, in the Cilento Hills just a few miles
inland from Paestum, the remarkable geological feature
uplifted between the Calore river (in the valley in the
center of the above photo) and the Sele river (on the
other side, not visible in this photo) is called i monti Alburni, the
Alburni Mounts, named for the principal height on the
plateau, Mount Alburno, visible in the photo (the peak
sticking up to the right of center). Costa Palomba is the
local name for the south-western flank visible in the
photo. (Palomba
is dialect for the Italian colomba, dove. Note the similarity to
the Spanish, paloma.)
Indeed,
there is something aerodynamic about the entire massif, as
it if it were about to go airborne, to take off. The
plateau extends for some distance beyond the photo to the
right.
The entire tableland was for many centuries one of the target grazing lands, the end of the road, on the long seasonal migration of shepherds and livestock from the plains in the interior. In Italian, this type of seasonal movement is called transumanza (from Latin for "across the ground"). The area was apparently first used by an early Italic tribe called the Enotrians many centuries before the Greeks arrived to settle the nearby coast at Poseidonia (Paestum) in 600 BC, and then around 700-600 BC by the "transhumant pastoralists" who displaced the Enotrians, the Lucanians. The Lucanians were cousins of the Samnites, who were centered somewhat to the north near Benevento and who became later known as implacable enemies of the Romans. Most of these early Italic tribes had spread from north to south through Italy many centuries earlier as part of the Indo-European expansion. The myths of their expansion involve the so-called "rites of Spring" during which excess population was expelled from the parent group through a ritual of vicarious animal sacrifice; those sent off to seek their own valleys, hills and fortunes would, in turn, later stage their own "rites of Spring" and send off others. Thus, the peninsula filled up with Samnites, Lucanians, Enotrians, Sabines and, of course, Latins — the Romans, who made us forget all the others.
Anthropologists
and archaeologists generally divide pastoralism into
various kinds. You can have true migratory tribes who tend
animals as a way of life and lead a nomadic life-style. In
the case of southern Italy, however, pastoralism was of a
different kind. These were not simple herders of goats and
sheep, constantly on the move and eking out a
subsistence-level life. The pastoralists in southern Italy
were often from a solid, substantial culture for whom the
ownership and migrating of livestock during the transumanza were
cultural constructs, part of a much more complex life. The
Samnites, for example, also great pastoralists with their
own transumanza
routes farther north, were a powerful and warlike culture.
Moving animals back and forth along migration routes did
more than just feed the animals; it gave the owners the
opportunity to make themselves physically known in adjacent territory;
it gave them the prestige of showing off their wealth of
livestock; it let them form unions, make allies and engage
in trade using the secondary products of the animals, such
as wool and milk; and seasonal migration renewed contact
among cousin peoples separated by the centuries—such as
the Samnites and Lucanians.
The
ancient transumanza
moved from the plains of eastern Lucania, crossed the main
body of the Apennines into the western hills of the Cilento to enter upon the
Alburni plateau at a point about 1100 meters above sea
level near the modern town of Sant'Angelo a Fasanella (out
of sight on the right in the photo at the top of this
entry). There are still traces of a wall around the rocky
perimeter of the summit, and near the entrance, there is
still a somewhat mysterious rock
carving, (photo, below) put in place either by early
pastoralists or by later Samnites who moved into the area
around 400 BC. Also, numerous ceramic fragments have been
found strewn over the plateau; they bear cord decorations,
and well as finger impressions and geometric designs that
recall the final period of the Bronze Age. The ceramics
apparently do not bear any alphabetic inscriptions, which
puts them well before the year 700 BC (at which time the first pottery with Greek inscriptions
appears at Pithecusa (Ischia).
(Whatever inscriptions have been found in Oscan, the
language of the Samnites and Lucanians, are from later
centuries and are in Greek letters.) Also, at the base of
the slopes, there are remains of circular huts set at
ground level; they are relatively well preserved and
typical of ancient shepherd communities.
Local lore throughout Italy still contains traces of the ancient migrations. There is, for example, a grotto near lake Fucino in the Abruzzi in central Italy said to be the abode of the snake goddess, Angitia; a cult to her grew up in the presence of the many difficulties and fears connected with the transumanza such as the presence of wolves and poisonous snakes that preyed on shepherds and livestock alike. The site became a target for pilgrimages among local farmers and migrant shepherds. The rituals were magical and therapeutic, all aimed not just at cursing the snakes but at the economic and psychological side of the long passage. ("Please get me through this in one piece with some healthy livestock left!")
passage below added August 2018
With the advent
of modern zootechnics (the scientific managing of
livestock, including handling, breeding, feeding and
nutrition, preventive medicine and economics) and the
large-scale raising of sheep in place, the transumanza
has undergone a sharp reduction, indeed in many places
has disappeared entirely. It is however, not a total
anachronism. The places where sheep still "move to
greener pastures," albeit on a reduced scale in Italy
include some Alpine and pre-Alpine regions (foothills)
in the Valle d'Aosta, Piemonte, Liguria, the Asiago
plateau, Lessinia, Trentino, Alto Adige (South Tyrol)
and Carnia, in the Apennine areas of Molise, the Abruzzi
(mainly towards the Ager Romanus (literally, "the field
of Rome", i.e. the geographical rural area that
surrounds the city of Rome), and to the south in parts
parts of Puglia and Lazio, and in Sardinia in
Villagrande and Arzana. In Sicily, the transumanza
still exists in the areas of Madonie and Geraci Siculo.
Generally, the third Sunday on May is the day set to
"move to the mountain," that is, land that is public in
Geraci Siculo is opened to shepherds and their flocks.
The herds and flocks spend the entire day wandering
through the town to get to where they will "summer over"
in the mountains. The image (above, right) shows the
major transumanza trails in south-central Italy.
The largest one was the NW to SW trail from the Abruzzi
to Puglia. This ritual has attracted writers and poets.
Gabriele D'Annunzio in his poem The Shepherds
writes
«Settembre, andiamo.
È tempo di migrare./ Ora in terra d'Abruzzi i miei
pastori/lascian gli stazzi e vanno verso il mare:/
scendono all'Adriatico
selvaggio/che verde è come i pascoli dei monti. »
It's September,
let's go. It's time to move./ The shepherds in the land
of the Abruzzi/Leave their folds and go to the sea:/
down to the wild Adriatic,/as green as the mountain
meadows.
end of added section
The
presence of pastoralists at the high elevation of
the Alburni plateau was seasonal, limited to the warm
summer months, after which they began the trek back down
to the plains in the east. The extent to which they may
have left permanent sites in the area is unclear, as is
the exact relationship between the inhabitants of these
sites and the newcomer Greeks on the coast at Paestum. At
a certain point, around 600 BC, we do know that the Greeks
were successful in establishing colonies of Magna Grecia at Poseidonia and Elia (Roman Velia), among other
places in southern Italy, and that a couple of centuries
later, the relationship between the native Lucanians and
the coastal Greeks became belligerent. Greek colonists
appealed to the "home country" for military help against
the Lucanians, now in league with their cousin Samnites.
Help arrived in the person of Alexander I of Epirus, an
uncle of Alexander the Great. He was partially successful
in battles with the Lucanian and Samnite forces at
Poseidonia in 332 BC and in places farther south at
Heraclea, Terina and Sipontum. He was killed in 331 at
Pandosia (modern Mendicino) and the situation between the
warring factions settled into somewhat of an equilibrium.
Apparently, the Lucanians did manage to settle in at
Poseidonia (changing the name to "Phistu," from which we
derive the Roman and modern name, Paestum). They did not,
on the other hand, take nearby Velia, nor is it clear that
they even tried. (In the face of Roman expansion, the
Greek-Lucanian-Samnite situation was not completely
resolved until after the Fourth Samnite War, commonly
called the "Pyrrhic War," from 284-272, and especially the
decisive Roman victory over Hannibal in the Second Punic
War in 202, which set the stage for a Roman takeover of
the entire southern peninsula.)
Modern
times have rendered the ancient seasonal migration of
livestock obsolete, but the area is still full of local
livestock and shepherds. The shepherds still tend their
animals the way they have always done.
Other mention of the transumanza here.
Also
see Roccagloriosa
& Towns of the
Alburni.
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