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Front Page Project #31

The VASA Front Page Project
presents the work of a photographer, video and sound artist.

Paul Marotta

Holy Week in Enna, Sicily:
Ancient Traditions

© Paul Marotta

At first glance any American would recoil at the image of what appears to be masses of people processing  in the night, adorned with pointed cone-shaped  hoods and white cloths covering their faces with cut-out eyeholes. Any reminiscences of the Klan and the horror they inflicted on black Americans is fraught with terror and evil-meaning intent. Scholars believe that in the years immediately following the Civil War as many as 10,000 blacks were lynched and in the intervening years untold others were terrorized and murdered. It is also thought that the Paris trained costume designer for D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation,  Clare West, may  have been influenced by the ancient traditions of Europe during Holy Week, specifically the Spanish tradition dating from the 15th century of donning robes and hoods during the Easter week processions.

In Enna, this tradition continues today as the many religious confraternities turn out for a day long solemn procession throughout the city--Enna was at one point under Spanish domination. In fact the millennia has seen countless periods of domination by one country or another in Sicily. Today, in utter humility, this tradition continues as hundreds of extremely pious members of the city's various churches don elaborate robes, hoods and gloves, adorned with some of the elaborate beautifully crocheted lace Sicily is known for around the world, which denote their particular confraternity.

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© Paul Marotta

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