L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 6 STEFANO DE CAROLIS T he craft of rope mak- ers , funaio or cor - dar o, is as old as M an: a thous ands - year long art, based on an easy manual technique, where two only apparently sim- ple factors join forces: the rush (which in Italian is called giunco and comes from the verb giun- gere, which means to tie togeth- er) and the wheel mechanism. In ancient Rome, rope makers were called furnitortor or restic- ularius, which translate literally as "weavers of rush." To fully understand the importance of this timeless and fascinating craft, it's sufficient to look at some Egyptian burial sites from 2000 BC, where archaeologists unearthed paintings and frescoes depicting the most ancient image of a rope maker, pictured mov- ing back little by little, while the rope gets weaved. Since then, throughout the centuries and fol- lowing the impetus of different linguistic influences, the jargon "backward master," maestro all'indietro, reached our days. The use of the wheel mecha- nism in rope making, however, came later, even if Egyptian rep- resentations already show the peculiarity of this craft, with its rhythmical backward pacing and the movements used to weave and let the rope pas s on the palm. The instruments, tech- niques and artifacts related to the art of rope making are extremely important, as the many dialectal words and expressions referring to it show: words in most cases unknown to the Italian language, relics of a world technological progress ultimately crushed and cancelled. Like nzjirte, weave or braid, which comes from the Latin sero, to tie together; nghi- uemere, a ball of thread, from the Latin glomus; zoche, dal greco zeugnumi, to join or tie. U p to s ome years ago, in Puglia, people would use the expression "you're behaving like a rop e maker, you're going backward instead of forward." It w as typical of grandparents when, irritated and angry, they reprimanded their children if they weren't good enough in school or at learning a craft. For four thousand years Man, during his socio-economical evolution and to obtain all instruments needed to his daily work, has been using ropes of all types and thickness. Because of this, various natural materials were weaved to make them: ani- mal intestines and skins, papyri, bamboo, palm fibers , hemp, linen, wool, cord grass, goat or camel's hair. Even women's hair were used. Among the most commonly used materials in Puglia was rush (juncus acutus), a plant of the juncaceae family. Abun- dantly found on the coastal and marshy areas of the region, it w as cheap and profitable. Puglia's expert rope makers w ould recognize it from its flowers, which are formed by a six-piece glumaceous perigone joined at its base. Rush's stalks, once treated, were in part used to stuff chairs, in part to make ropes of various kinds. Many were the crafts popular in our farming tradition, the cul- tural and lexical wealth of which have been largely erased by new technologies and the evolution of our times. Images, reminis- cences, snapshots of everyday life that still survive in our child- hood memories. In Puglia, the professional figure of the cor- daro was tied to another, just as important: that of the fiscolaio. Beside producing ropes of vari- ous types and thickness, he also made, in a parallel fas hion, another essential element of the world of trappeti (oil mills) and of olive oil production, fiscoli (fisckele). Fiscoli (from the Latin fiscus or fiscina, which means bag, hamper or basket) were made by expertly weaving together roping made of rush, coconut, goat's and even women's hair, the latter usually bought from hairdressers. Goat's hair fiscoli were the most sought after, especially by oil mills owners in the South of Italy. However, this type of fis- colo, used during the second pressing of the olives, yielded a low quality oil, because goat's hair would alter all its organolep- tic and noble properties, giving to it a nauseating taste. Usually, rope makers made fiscoli during the Summer to sell them out during the oil making season, which normally lasted from October to March. Some trappetari (oil producers) would buy large quantities of rush, to be used throughout the season, and paid fiscolai to work directly inside their oil mill. Materials and instruments were provided by the owner of the oil mill, who also paid a daily wage. Hemp (cannabis sativa) was mostly imported from the North of Italy and from some areas around N aples . H emp ropes (known as lazze) were produced for agricultural uses, especially to make horses and mules' reins and to secure materials on carts called traini. Hemp and goat's hair needed to be cardati, or carded, before being spun. Once carded, they were gathered together to form bundles of fibers, which the rope maker would keep at hand, hang- ing from his belt. When work was slow, like in January, February and March, many rope makers, especially the poorer ones, would pick what was left from fiscoli making, and even used fiscoli and broken pastorelle, low quality ropes used for reinforcing jobs. All this recycled material was weaved off and passed through the batti- toio, s o that fibers could be reused to make new ropes called lanodde and calatòre, both used by fishermen. The first were used to prepare fishing nets, and w ere obtained through the ritorcitura, or twisting, of three heads: their length would go from 16 to 18 meters. The sec- ond were used to prepare the so called conzere: used in particular for white fish, they were made with 1000 meter long lanodde ropes, on which palammare - ropes made with horsehair - were tied every three meters. Each palammare had a bait. When unweaving ropes, cor- dai used to wear a long apron, u sinale, so that their pants would- n't get ruined. Because of their continuous twisting movement, their fingers would get cuts and grazes that often bled: to avoid this, cordai would wear leather thimbles. Even though he worked with poor raw materials, this humble, tireless craftsman had social and economic relevance throughout the South of Italy, where the economy always found its roots in agriculture, farming and fish- ing. The rope maker, w ith his large, faithful wheel and his craft's instruments used to work in small and large towns and, during those endless and tiring hours of work, he was constantly surrounded by children who, for a few cents or a piece of bread, would turn the wheel for him, menare la ruota. In Bari, cordai used to work near the Spiaggia del Filosofo, Feloscene, just beside the Petruzzelli theatre. In his w ork Thus S poke Zarathustra, 1883-1885, German philosopher Frederich Nietzsche wrote: "Indeed, I don't want to be like rope makers: they pull their ropes in length and walk backwards all the while…" Fixing in time the images and memories of those ways of life, of those crafts, gathering their most significant voices, docu- menting the past and its many linguistic expressions means making history. We must protect and safe- guard our culture, imbued with traditions, ancestral rituals, folk- lore, craftsmanship, old profes- sions, agricultural techniques, oral expressions and so much more. This is our very ow n intangible cultural heritage, which will grant us a long lasting sense of continuity and identity. Rope makers, or cordai, are also known as the "backwards masters" because of the way they work walking backward while weaving their work. Photo: Paolo Mangoni Fixing in time the images of traditional ways of life to preserve them in the future. Photo: Paolo Mangoni Lost crafts: the master rope maker, u mast's l'andrète NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS

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