Photo: © Ando Gilardi
From Ando Gilardi’s photo report shot for Ernesto De Martino’s anthropological studies about Southern Italy:
“A pleasant kind of benign maciara, better called scongiuratrice (jinx breaker) in this case. She lives in Crotone and is vaguely identified as the leggiutrice (reader). She knows spells that can send roundworms away from children, cure erysipelas and other similar maladies; partly for fun and partly for serious purposes, when these cases present themselves she is most often sent for in the town’s slums. She is also an expert narrator of long fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and for this reason a whole host of young listeners always follows her.”
(Nautilus private collection)