The power of Italian music. African cultural patterns in European traditions: The case of Tarantism

A musical culture based on trance and possession survived in Catholic Europe until the early 1990’s—Tarantism from Salento, Southeastern Italy. In a land where no venomous animal kills humans, Tarantism assumes that people biten by a spider or scorpion are doomed to die unless they engage in possession dance. This is supposed to make the taranta (female spider) dance with/through the human dancers, until the devilish animal dies from exhaustion, thus releasing people. The whole conception — fatal venom, possession by an evil spirit, aim at liberation, catharsis through dance, gods and spirits dancing with/through humans — points to a more African than European cultural context. Other facts also reinforce the point: dancers only react to their devil’s peculiar song; dance steps mimic animals (there is a spider dance, or sometimes a snake dance, alternating with a round dance); a class of specialized musicians, sharing the craft of ritual songs and rhythms, lead the trance/catharsis process through dynamics and accelerando; archaic instruments are used, such as tambourine and a folk oboe. The question arises whether such elements in Tarantism be related to Northern or Sub-Saharan Africa. If Tarantism is not Medieval (as often stated) but much older, then it is rooted in an Afro-Mediterranean complex of myths and rites, partly shared with Greek, Egyptian, and Near Eastern civilizations. Its mystical overtones point to the same direction, as do its apparent similarities with Saharan cultures.