Natives Excessively Polite
Take an interesting look at what scholars and travelers have discovered during their visit in Sardinia during the early part of the 20th century. This historical article was taken from an article of the same title in The National Geographic Magazine written by Helen Dunstan Wright, August 1916 Volume XXX Number Two. The article is serialized in parts.
Generally speaking, the peasants seem to be somewhat downtrodden and do not realize their just rights. We thought the attitude of the man in the following incident most unusual: When motoring along one of the straight roads down through the valley to Cagliari, we saw a man ahead on horseback. He jumped off in a great hurry and, holding the horse by the end of the reins, got down into the deep ditch at the side of the road. As the car came up he was so interested in probably the first automobile he had ever seen that he forgot his horse, which, unexpectedly, gave a jump down into the ditch almost on top of the man, upsetting him and his saddle-bags into the mud. When we stopped to examine the harm done and to help him up he was very gratified and most profuse in his apologies for having disturbed us, saying: “Excuse me; excuse me; it was all my fault.”
The music of the Sards is characteristic; not all quick and vivacious like that of the Sicilians or other southern Italians, but monotonous and slow, resembling very much the music of northern Africa. Often a long song will be sung to one phrase of a melody, like a sorrowful chant; The accordion is a favorite instrument, and in the villages on Sundays or other festas most of the inhabitants congregate, in the principal piazza and dance to its music. The men and women form in circle and dance slowly forward and backward, some of the younger men adding more complicated steps, occasionally breaking away from the circle and dancing with their partners; but the whole effect is dignified and staid.
Each “paese” or village has its annual festival to celebrate the birthday of its own particular saint or some other church feast. The most renowned of these is the “festa” of “Saint’ Efisio,” the national feast of the island. The ceremony is in the form of a procession from Cagliari to Pula, a village 9 miles away, with the return to Cagliari. The saint was an official in the army of Diocletian, and for his conversion to Christianity was beheaded at Pula. On midday of May 1 the procession leaves and returns on the evening of May 4. It is composed of a cavalcade of horsemen all in the costume of the ancient Sardinian militia, escorting the image of the saint, which is preceded by musicians playing the “launeddas,” an instrument made of three or four reeds of different lengths and like the pipe of ancient times.
In the region about Iglesias where the mines are, the workmen celebrate annually the festa de Santa Barbara, “the god of fire,” which usually results in much wine drinking, followed by a few days absence from work, so as to recuperate.
