The Plague and the Saint: A Religious Legend in an Alpine Community

Author(s): Elizabeth Mathias and Richard Raspa

Source: Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 3, Spain & the Mediterranean (1992), pp. 119-124
Published by: Penn State University Press
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 12
The PlagueandtheSaint:A
ReligiousLegendin an Alpine
Community
ElizabethMathiasand RichardRaspa

THE CHOLERACAMESUDDENLY.The wintersnowwas especiallyheavythat

year. In this isolated Alpine hamlet,mountainpasses were blocked and
avalanchesobliteratedpaths,furthersecludingthe tinyvillage. From gray
Alpine skies,snow had falleneveryday.
Snow turnedto springrain. Riversraged,overflowingtheirbanksand
floodingfields.High above the village,mountainsgrumbledas avalanches
carvedsteep,new pathsintotheirflanks.People yearnedforsummersun to
drythe pathsand stables.
Springended. The summersun blisteredthe earth.Ancientvillagers
could not remembersuch a hot summer.It was the summerof 1836, the
summerof the cholera.
Some believedthatshepherdsbroughtthecholeraup to thevillagefrom
the low pasturesduringtranshumance. Others believed that devils caused
forcommunalsins.Of
the calamity.Still otherssaw it as divineretribution
the populationof about 250, almost 120 people had died. Each day four
morebodieswere draggedto the commonpit grave the hillside.At that
on
rate,peoplecouldestimatewhentheywould die. Ifnottoday,thentomorrow,
the end was inevitable.Limestone,pulverizedinto granules,was scattered
over the bodies to smotherthe odor of decay and suppressthe contagion.
No householdwas spared.Women lamentedloss of husbands.Husbands
suffereddeath of wives and mothers,childrenwere leftorphaned.Whole
familieswent out of existence.
The choleraof the year 1836 sweptaway all local categoriesof control
in this Alpine community.Folk medical remedies,even petitionsto the
supernatural, were useless.What would be known for generationsin the
expanse of the isolatedmountainsideand the tinyspace of the village had
occurred. The plague devouredthe people.

119

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120 SPAIN & THE MEDITERRANEAN

When all appearedlost, Marco Slongo, age 56, literatecapofabbriciere

(head of thevestryboard) awoke in the middleof the night.On thewall at
the foot of his bed glowed a light.A child's voice called out threetimes:
"Marco, I am Filomena.If the people of the Fallerwill bind themselvesto
me in faith,I will end the plague." The lightfadedand died. Marco burst
out of the room and ran throughthe desertedmoonlitstreetstowardthe
Church. Two days afterthe vision, the deaths stopped and the cholera
subsided.
How canwe understand theseevents? An epidemicbreaksintoa community
and the local responseis religious.A legendabout a saintand the plague is
begun.These legendsreflectthe community's expressionof itselfand inter-
pretation of its relieffrom human misfortune.1
As Linda Degh notes (1972), a legend is a storyabout an important
out-of-the-ordinary eventofthepast,sharedas truebymembers ofa community.2
What is criticalto the genreof legendis the senseof space,the markingof
relationshipswithin a specificlocation making it distinctfromall other
environments. The legend of Sleepy Hollow, for example,takesplace in
Tarrytown, New York. The power of thislegend is its abilityto evoke for
the readerthe spiritof beingthere,situatedin thattimeand place and in no
other.3
Legendsgiveus a wayto approachthesaintand theplaguein thisspecific
Alpine village,allowing us to examinethe folkrepresentations of personal
and public space. It is in the social constructionof space - what constitutes
intimacyand distance,safetyand danger,purityand pollution,the natural
and the supernatural forthe folk- thatwe come to understandthe various
configurations communityand selfin confronting
of the choleraepidemic.4
Legends are situatedalong the boundaries of a civilization, revealingthe
ground of its collectivebeliefs: What is true,what is false,what are the
nativeconventionsof verifiability separating fact from fiction? What is the
authority for these distinctions?
The social orderof thisAlpinecommunitydependsupon the legendof
Filomena.The storyofthesaintandtheplagueencodesthemoralimperatives
ofvillagelife.SaintFilomenais believedto havebeena second-century virgin
martyred by the emperorDomitianbecauseshe refusedhis sexualadvances.

^ames Cliffordand George Marcus, eds. WritingCulture:The Poeticsand PoliticsofEthnography.

(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1986); Turner,Victor.The RitualProcess, (Chicago:
Aldine, 1969)
^Linda Degh "Folk Narrative,** in Folkloreand Folklife,ed. Richard Dorson (Chicago:
Universityof Chicago Press,1972), 13.
3RaymondWilliams,The Country and theCity(London: OxfordUniversityPress,1975),
268.
4ErvingGoffman,Interaction Behavior(New York: Pantheon,
Ritual:Essaysin Face-to-Face
1982); Edward Hall, The Dance ofLife(GardenCity: Anchor,1983; Roger Abrahams,African
StoriesoftheBlack World(New York: Pantheon,1983).
Folktales:Traditional

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 MATHIAS & RASPA: ALPINE RELIGIOUS LEGEND 121

AlthoughtheCatholicChurchhas decanonizedFilomena,thevillagepattern
of venerationremainsunshaken.In this way, the communityresiststhe
incursionof officialreligioninto the expressionof folkbeliefand practice.
"Filomenadoes not exist,the Church says,but yet she does," one villager
told us. "She saved this town fromthe cholera." The Church may make
pronouncements of the truth,but the villagersinsisttheyknow the truth
about the saintand the plague.
Legendsarea wayto negotiatethetruthabouta beliefand,consequently,
a way to deal with reality.The legend of Filomenais an exemplumof the
power of resistanceto threatsupon honorand integrity. The legend is also
a storyof the surrender of personalwill to the guidanceof revealedtruthin
scripture.Filomena is a model forthe life of the ordinaryChristianwho
lives accordingto two calendars.Historicaltimemarkingthe intervalof an
individuallife is encompassedwithin a liturgicalcalendarwhich situates
human life in the movementfromcreationto apocalypse.The Filomena
legend instructsChristianshow to negotiatethese two calendars:how to
confrontadversity, how to enduresuffering, how to sufferattacksespecially
fromsourceof authority, and finallyhow to achieve salvation.
Justas the narrativeline of the legend revealsthe groundof belief,so
too does theperformance of the legendseparatefactfromfiction.The story
of Filomenaand the plague was told to us by villagersin theirhomes.Each
narratorprefacedhis versionwith an apology, "We're ignorantcontadini
[farmers].. . . We speakonly the local dialect.. . . We have only a third
grade education. . . . We don't know the historyof thisvillage. . . . You
need to talk to Don Giazon [the local priest].... He has books about
religion."And so on. We were urban American researchers.
university What
was requiredof us was a valorizationof theirindividuallives and theiroral
traditions,just as theyhad esteemedliterate,printculture.
That negotiationof relationships of power,as JamesCliffordpointsout,
constituted the space of the ethnographicevent.5Having establishedmutual
respect,and having situatedourselvesas sympatheticpeople outside the
village ethos,we began to collect storiesvillagershad heard fromparents
and grandparents who in turnhad heardthestoriesfromtheirown ancestors,
stretchingback to 1836,andinforming thecollectivememory ofthecommunity.
What was in doubtfromall the versions,we discovered,was not the saint
or the plague,but the historicaldetailspertainingto the event.How many
people died and where the cholera'sphysicaldemarcationsexistedwere in
doubt.
What was clear in all the versionswas how space was transformed by
thepestilence.The descriptions ofthevillage,forinstance,supportRaymond
Williams' distinctionbetweentown and country.Town spaces,in contrast

and Marcus,eds. Writing

5Clifford Culture,1-119.

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122 SPAIN & THE MEDITERRANEAN

to countryspaces,were angularand tight,as if to containpeople in the

corridors ofintimacy.Enteringthevillage,one movedalonga narrowprincipal
road along which were rows of three-and four-story houses;offthismain
artery,tinysecondary roads wrought theirway up the mountain towardthe
housesat the periphery. Each house was joined to the otherin a protective
wall againstoutsideincursions.
Such a worldfellin the rushof cholera'srelentlessattack.The universe
shrank.Cholera redefinedpublicspace.The physicalburdenof carrying and
burying the dead added to thepain from the loss of loved ones. Beyond labor
and sorrowwas the terrorof contamination.Fearfully,villagersclutched
pickaxes,scythes, and otherfarminstruments, routinely usedto growthings,
to drag cadaversto a common grave.They pulled the dead throughfields
and acrosstheonlyvillagesquarewherethe Churchwas located.There they
passedunderthemutestaresofthefrescoesoftheMadonnaas theystruggled
towardthe burialsite.As one villagerreported,"They draggedthe bodies
out with crudelumberingaxes. Those who draggedthe bodies on Monday
would themselveson Tuesdaybe pulled out to the commongrave."
Villagerslived in concentriczones of pollution.The villagewas a circle
of diseasewhere only familieslivingat the edge of the town were spared.
Each daypeople fromthisuncontaminated place surrendered loavesofbread
at the fringeof safetyand hurriedoff.In additionto keepingpeople alive,
thebreadmayhave also servedas an offering to insure,magically,theirown
survival.
Cholera also forcedthe reconfiguration of community.Friendsbecame
enemies.As deathsincreased,intimacybecame more dreadful.Expressing
affectioncould mean death and in the space of thisdisease,protectedareas
were created.These safe zones markedthe spreadof the choleraand gave
riseto storieswhich todayare partof the communalnarrativerepertoire. A
littleshrine,forinstance,builtintothe hillsideat the outskirts of thevillage
separatesthe territory of Terme fromthe lower reachesof Faller.There are
conflicting accounts of thisshrine,and the motiveforitsconstruction varies
fromstoryto story.One villagerrecalls:
The choleraragedthroughthevillage.One manfromFaller,who was
stillwell, fleddown the mountainsideto Terme where therewas no
cholera.Shortlyafter,he sickenedand died.The peopleofTermethrew
his bodyback acrosstheboundaryintoFallerforhis familyto retrieve.
It is the place where his body landedthatthe chapel was built.
A slightlydifferent versionof the storyhas the man fromFallergoingover
to his own pasture,in the uncontaminated zone of Terme,dyingthere,and
being thrownback into Faller.Anotherelderlywoman reportedthatbread
was usedto drawthelinebetweenthetwo areas.This versionhas an element
of auguryas it seeksto determinethe future:

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 MATHIAS & RASPA: ALPINE RELIGIOUS LEGEND 123

A largeloafofbreadwas takenout and placedon theboundarybetween

Terme and Faller.The side towardFallerturnedrottenand black and
the side towardTerme would remainfreefromcholerawhile Faller
would suffergreatlyfromthe disease.
A thirdwoman recountedthe followingat the shrine:
Look, hereis the stoneledge on the shrinewheretheTerme leftbread
forthe Fallerese.During the cholera,the people of Terme, touched
by theplightof the people of Faller,broughtbreadhereeveryday and
leftitfortheFallereseto get.They broughtthebreadand lefthurriedly
so as not to come into contactwith the cholera.

Finally,an old man told thisversionof the storywhich includedfood and

assistancefromone communityto another:
The peopleofthevillageofLamon,carefulto stayoutsidetheboundary
markingFaller and the plague, plantedcorn,potatoes,and beans in a
fieldforthe starvingFallereseto harvest.
These five legends,with variation,describethe origin of that spatial
boundaryand the shrinethatidentifiedit. Most versionsincludethe image
of the chapel builtto indicatethe pointat which the plague stoppedwhen
St. Filomena appearedin the village and halted it in returnfor a vow of
It is significant
fidelity. nativecategoriesofpollution
thatthestoriesillustrate
and purity.These categoriescorrespondto the natives'view of the celestial
world of theirsaintsas pure and the human world as polluted. What is
reinvented hereis communityspacesthroughcontrasting zones of safetyand
danger.
In thisinfectious universewherefearoftheotherpervadedthecommunity,
the connectionbetween the miracleof St. Filomena and the disease was
metaphoric.The plague is an image of lethalconnectionas the saintis one
of healing bond. Filomena symbolizesthe intersectionof the naturaland
supernatural. She arrivesfromthe purestspace imaginedby the villagers-
heaven- and she descendsintopollutedspace- thevillage- to offerrenewal.
The saintrepresents structureagainstchaos, the orderof the supernatural
world againstthe franticdislocationof this pestilence.Only a mysterious
intervention could stop a mysteriousplague.
Where does the individualMarco Slongo fit into this inventionof a
legend?We see him as a mediationbetweenspaces.He mediatedthenatural
and the supernatural. He existedin the world, in the space - terrafirma-
and throughhis vision of St. Filomena became the connectionwith vita
the space of the divine. Not only did he mediatespaces of purity
eternità,
and pollution,but also he served as an interlocutorin social space.6He

Meanings(London: RoutledgeChapman and Hall, 1978).

6MaryDouglas, Implicit

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124 SPAIN & THE MEDITERRANEAN

occupieda structural positionbetweenthe officialChurchhierarchy and the

peasants. As head of the vestry board, he was a lower level officialin the
Catholichierarchy, yet he was embedded in folk lifewith his as
family surely
as were the shepherdsand farmers.His position of liminalityservedhis
advantage,forhis visionwas believableto both the officialChurchand the
communityof folk.
Marco Slongo, then,was what mightbe called in the anthropologyof
religiona charismatic leaderin a "RevitalizationMovement."7He was to the
Falleresewhat Handsome Lake was to the Iroquois,and what Wovoka was
to the Sioux at RosebudReservation.Four stagesof revitalization map easily
ontotheFallerterritory: crisis,proclamation, incorporation, and institutionali-
zation. Slongo's response to the cholera initiated the first stage of
revitalization.Fallerwas a community in crisis.Second,a charismatic individual,
Marco Slongo,has a visionfroma supernatural domain,and proclaimsit to
the villagers.Third, Slongo "translates"the Roman legend of the saint,
Filomena,into the local dialectand givescommunitymembersa courseof
action to follow. The legend was incorporatedin the village narrativeas
villagersparticipated in thetellingand retellingof the event,translating the
rudimentsof the storyto suitthe particularconditionsof theirsocial lives.
Andfourth, thelegendwas institutionalized as thelocal priestand government
officialssupportedSlongo's vision.
We could considerthe RevitalizationMovementtheoryas a narrative
laid onto the legendnarrative. A theoryis morethanan interpretation of a
situation.It is a restrictive
code. Like a danceor a game,it shapesthenaturally
occurringinto a patternthat can be reproduced.The theoryassiststhe
ethnographer to controldata,reducingthe "confusion"of occurrencesinto
a patternto be examined.
Today, one hundredfifty yearsafterthe choleraepidemic,St. Filomena
is stilla Fallerinstitution. The legendof the plague and the saintcontinues
todayin the village as well as in America,and in otherpartsof the world
whereFalleresehaveimmigrated. The inscription on a plaquerecently installed
on a side altarin the Church,dated 1986, urges"the sons and daughtersof
Faller" to honortheirhistoryand remainfaithfulto the community'svow
to thesaint.In Detroit,and in neighboring Windsor,Ontario,everyAugust
15, Fallereseand theirfamilieshave a picnicto celebratethe Feastof Santa
Filomena.It is an Americanpicnic.Hot dogs,burgers,ribs,and potatosalad
characterizethe feastas a further translation in the Americancontext.The
plagueand thecrisisexistin thecollectivememoryof theoldestimmigrants.
For most,the picnicis a way to connectto anotherspace - the space of the
home village,to extendedfamilies,and to the cultureof theirnativeAlpine
zone.

7AnthonyF. C. Wallace, Religion:An Anthropological

View.(New York: Random House,
1966).

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