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St Vitus’s dance and that other one which cured,
they say, the bite of the Tarentine spider.
Norman Douglas, “Old Calabria”
DESPITE TELEVISION and consumer society, a very old Apulia lingers on secretly, with amazing tenacity. Tarantismo is a dramatic example of pagan survival in this ultra-conservative land. An ancient form of therapeutic magic, no doubt familiar to the shamans during the Stone Age, it is popularly supposed to be a cure for the bite of the venomous tarantula. In reality, tarantism is a form of exorcism, a means of healing mental disturbance.
Because one of its churches is dedicated to St Paul, Galatina is said to be free from snakes and poisonous spiders, although surrounded by mile upon mile of vineyards. Throughout Southern Italy the Apostle Paul is invoked against venomous creatures, since he was unharmed by the viper that bit his hand when he was washed ashore at Malta. This is why the church of S.Paolo at Galatina is a place of thanksgiving for those cured by tarantism.
Some writers believe tarantismo is a relic of the Bacchic rites but most think it is caused by a bite from a tarantula. In the early eighteenth century Maximilien Misson was fascinated by the affliction:
The true tarantula resembles a spider and lives in the fields. There are many, it is said, in the Abruzzi and in Calabria, and they are also found in some parts of Tuscany. When bitten by this accursed insect one takes a hundred postures at once – dancing, vomiting, trembling, laughing, turning pale, swooning – and one suffers very greatly. Finally, without help, death follows in a few days. Sweatings and antidotes relieve the sufferer, but the best and only remedy is music.
Bishop Berkeley records:
The P. Vicario [Superior of the Theatines at Barletta] tells us of the tarantula, he cured several with the tongue of the serpente impetrito, found in Malta, and steeped in wine and drunk after the ninth or last dance, there being 3 dances a day for three days; on the death of the tarantula the malady ceases; it is communicated by eating fruit bit by a tarantula. He thinks it is not a fiction, having cured among others a Capuchin, whom he could not think would feign for the sake of dancing.
There was some confusion about the precise definition of a tarantula. Sandys, in his “Relation of a Iourney begun in An. Dom, 1610”, says it is:
a serpent peculiar to this country; and taking that name from the city of Tarentum. Some hold them to be of the kind of spiders, others of effts; but they are greater than the one, and lesse than the other, and (if it were a Tarantula which I have seen) not greatly resembling either. For the head of this was small, the legs slender and knottie, and the body light, the taile spiny, and the colour dun, intermixed with spots of sullied white. They lurke in sinks and privies, and abroad in the slimy filth betweene furrows; for which cause the country people do reap in bootes.
Sandys appears to have seen a scorpion.
Misson (who did not visit Apulia) wrote in 1722 to a certain Domenico Sangenito of Lucera, asking for information. He was told: “They vary in colour and I have seen ashy ones and those of a dark tawny hue, like a flea, and with markings which look like little stars. We have them in the mountains as well as in furthest Apulia, but however their bite does no harm.” Sangenito was apparently referring to a spider. Yet it is likely that the spider exists only in the sufferer’s imagination and is an illusion caused by hysteria.
“In the seventeenth century the belief in the tarantula bites began to subside, and nothing now remains of tarantismo”, Hare declared in 1882. But two reliable witnesses told us that during the 1980s they had been to Galatina and seen women, and on one occasion a man, dancing to relieve the malady. The tarantolata, or supposed sufferer from the bite, believes the cure can only work if she is surrounded by the right colours and the right tune is played. Red, green, yellow or black are most likely to suit a spider and the music must match its mood, happy or sad. The musicians, who play the violin or guitar battente accompanied by cymbals and an accordian, need a large repertoire to find the right tune, as well as the stamina to go on playing for hours on end. The dancing generally takes place in a room, occasionally in the street. A sheet with a portrait of St Paul is spread on the floor and the tarantolata starts to move in imitation of a spider, while the musicians try various tunes for her. When they find the right one she begins to dance, not alone, but with anyone among her friends who is wearing the spider’s colour. She dances for a few minutes, then takes another partner. At first she dances lethargically, but after a few hours becomes increasingly elated, ending in a state of ecstasy.
Perhaps half a dozen tarantolate go secretly each year to the church of S.Paolo, to imitate a spider, crawling and running, flinging themselves on the altar. Their torn stockings are left hanging up as votive offerings. The decline in tarantismo seems to be due to fewer people working in the fields, rather than disbelief in the spider’s bite. (One should not confuse the colourful dancing displays for tourists with the real thing.)
No one has ever been able to give a really convincing explanation. The travellers disagree on the details, if not on the importance of colour and music. Some describe the woman as dancing in front of mirrors, others with a drawn sword in her hand. Keppel Craven says she dresses in white and is decked in “ribands, vine leaves and trinkets of all kinds.” He considers the whole thing an excuse for a party:
While she rests at times, the guests invited relieve her by dancing by turns after the fashion of the country; and when overcome by restless lassitude and faintness she determines to give over for the day, she takes a pail or jar of water, and pours its contents entirely over her person, from the head downwards. This is a signal for her friends to undress and convey her to bed; after which the rest of the company endeavour to further her recovery by devouring a substantial repast which is always prepared on the occasion.
Janet Ross heard a story which should be a warning for anyone inclined to be sceptical. There was a master mason living near Taranto, who:
got new-fangled ideas into his head and mocked at the idea of a spider’s bite being venomous, threatening to beat any of his female belongings who dared to try the dancing cure in case they were bitten by a “Tarantola”. As ill-luck or San Cataldo would have it, he was himself bitten, and after suffering great pain and being in a high fever for several days, at last sent for the musicians, after carefully locking the door and closing the windows of his house. But the frenzy was too strong, and to the malicious delight of all who believed in “Tarantismo”, he tore open the door and was soon seen jumping about in the middle of the street, shrieking, “Hanno ragion’ le femine! Hanno ragion’ le femine!” (The women are right! The women are right!)