Cocullo

Cocullo is a municipality and a mountain village with 246 inhabitants (as at 31 December 2012) in a valley of Abruzzo in Italy, about 20 kilometers from Sulmona.

The few hundred inhabitants counting village preserves one of Europe's oldest and strangest customs.

On the first of May of each year since 2012 ( in the past it was held on the first Thursday in May instead of ) thousands of people visit from all over Italy a treat in honor of St. Dominic of Sora, a 951 -born Benedictine monk from Umbria. The hermit and monk was as far back as miraculous, with miracles have almost all to do with the defense of bears, wolves and especially snakes. Previously, the pilgrim people from the surrounding region, in which up to the 1950s, yet costumes were worn.

The festival in honor of the Holy Abbot of St. Dominic is his life-size statue bearded in black coat, holding a staff in his right hand and a horseshoe in his left hand, carried out of the Baroque church in a procession through the village and back again.

The young men and girls of the village gather for the procession in the surrounding Rocky Mountains hundreds of snakes with the statue at the beginning of the procession is draped over and over. A variety of snakes can be worn around the neck and arms by the serpari (snake catchers ) in worship and in the procession. During the service of the altar is flanked by two young women of the village balancing on the head of each a large basket with large hoop-shaped loaves, which are decorated with red and white silk and covered with carnation and cyclamen. The women also accompany the procession. Before the procession, a bright red and a green banner be taken to have been attached to the bills as offerings. The procession begins with a song that is sung by a village girl in the dialect of Abruzzo. On the banner, the priests of which carries a Silberreliquiar a cylindrical with a tooth of the saints follow. Then the two women follow with the bread baskets, then a chapel and finally the support of the statue of St. Dominic. The schlangenbehängte statue is accompanied by young people with hands full of snakes. The girls of the village were also formerly with snakes in their hands on the roofs and so greeted the procession. During the procession, all the bells are ringing, it is applauded and cheered. The snakes are taken in returning to the church.

Previously was allowed, as the travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor reported, the animals still collected in hibernation under rocks, bite into a piece of cloth where they ausspritzten their venom and tore the piece of cloth the fangs out. The animals were sewn into a Ziegenbalg to store up to hard or they stowed in vessels. After the procession, they were sold.

Today, non-poisonous snakes are collected as Aesculapian snakes and released after the procession.

It is believed that the inhabitants Cocullos implemented this by their warlike ancestors, the tribe of the Marsi, who were according to reports serpent worshipers, snake charmers and magicians.

Some researchers see parallels to the fertility rites of the Agathos Daimon.

Specialty

In the surroundings of the village vines of Montepulciano are grown for the DOC wine Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.

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