L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE A q u a r t a r a s t o o d a b o u t t w e n t y - t w o i n c h e s h i g h , c a r r i e d t w o handles at the shoulder and held a little over four and a h a l f g a l l o n s . F o r m o s t o f Sicilian history, it was also the answer to the question of "how much." The word named a quantity as well as an object, and the quantity was fixed precisely enough that people went on buying and selling "by the quar- tara" long after unification did away with the old Sicil- ian measures. Most house- holds owned several, hauled back full from the village fountain, and standing in t h e c o o l e s t c o r n e r o f t h e room. When one of them was empty, somebody would put their mouth to the neck and b l o w , a n d t h e j u g w o u l d answer with a low boom deep enough to hold down the bottom of a tarantella. Since the Greeks, two- handled terracotta jars of this kind have been made on the island, and the quartara sat at the head of a family of t h e m ; b e l o w i t c a m e t h e lancedda, roughly half the size, and then u bummulu, a small flattened vessel hold- ing a gallon or so, pierced w i t h a s p o u t t h a t w a s s t o p p e d w i t h a s t i c k a n d carried out to the fields with the midday meal. The bum- mulu's name is thought to come from a Greek root imi- tating the gurgle of liquid leaving a narrow neck, the s o r t o f e t y m o l o g y t h a t s o u n d s i n v e n t e d b u t … i s not. Because unglazed fired e a r t h e n w a r e i s s l i g h t l y porous, a little of the water inside seeps out through the wall and evaporates off the s u r f a c e , a n d e v a p o r a t i o n carries heat away with it, which meant a full quartara k e p t i t s c o n t e n t s c o o l through months perhaps as h o t a s t h o s e w e ' v e b e e n experiencing recently in the Belpaese. Metal would have been stronger, of course, but it would have cooked the w a t e r : c l a y w a s b e t t e r because it let the heat out. W h a t t h e s h a p e d o e s musically is simple enough: blow across the mouth of a large empty jar and the air trapped inside sounds the way it does in a bottle, but terracotta gives the note a dull, woody edge where glass gives a bright hoot. Cata- logues of instruments file t h e q u a r t a r a a s a n a e r o - phone, usually with the word "improper" attached, on the r e a s o n a b l e g r o u n d s t h a t nobody ever built one to be played. The result is a rim- bombo, as Sicilians call it, deep and hollow, more felt than heard if you are stand- i n g c l o s e . A n d s i n c e t h e pitch depends on how much air is enclosed, a jug with water still in it sounds high- er than one that has been drained. In an ensemble, it works a s b a s s a n d p u l s e , s e t beneath the friscalettu, the little cane flute that carries the tune, but alongside the tamburello, a guitar and, when there is one, the mar- ranzano, the iron jew's harp twanged against the teeth. Its job is to create and keep t h e b o t t o m n o t e a n d t h e beat, the same job an Ameri- can jug band gives its jug. This is why nobody solos on a quartara; in the end, it is furniture that keeps time, b u t a g r o u p w i t h o u t o n e s o u n d s t h i n n e r i n a v e r y noticeable way. Across the South, there is a whole class of instruments that started life as some- thing else in the kitchen, and the quartara is one of them. The friction drum that Cam- pania calls the putipù and Puglia the cupa-cupa is a terracotta jar with a skin stretched over the mouth and a cane pushed through the middle, rubbed rather than struck; the torototela of the northern plains used a dried pig's bladder for its sounding box. None of them were bought, they were what a household already had, pressed into service on the days when there was going to be music: what they have in common is their humble, yet creative origins, and the f a c t n o o n e s p e n t e x t r a money to make them! Caltagirone, Sciacca and Santo Stefano di Camastra, three of the island's pottery towns, are still turning the jars out, the trade having outlived the need for the object. That is the odd posi- tion the quartara now occu- pies: plastic and metal took over the carrying and the cooling two generations ago, so the domestic reason for owning one has gone, but f o l k g r o u p s k e e p p l a y i n g them. Ensembles in Taormi- na and Agrigento still list the quartara among their instruments, and the ones sold to visitors are usually e x p l a i n e d a s d e c o r a t i o n , which they mostly are. The exceptions are the ones somebody is still blow- ing into, and those are kept empty on purpose. La quartara: the Sicilian water jug that plays the bass line LUCA SIGNORINI Advancing our Legacy: Italian Community Services CASA FUGAZI If you know of any senior of Italian descent in San Francisco needing assistance, please contact: ItalianCS.org | (415) 362-6423 | info@italiancs.com Italian Community Services continues to assist Bay Area Italian-American seniors and their families navigate and manage the resources needed to live healthy, independent and productive lives. Since Shelter-in-Place began in San Francisco, Italian Community Services has delivered over 240 meals, over 900 care packages and made over 2000 phone wellness checks for our seniors. A musician blows across the mouth of a quartara, using the traditional Sicilian water jug as a bass instrument in folk music (Image generated using Adobe Illustrator AI)

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