AlchoPwn
Public Service is my Motto.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2017
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When one thinks about shamanism, one doesn't generally think of Italy, let alone Venice and the areas north of it. The Benandanti are now supposedly extinct; killed off by the Inquisition by the late 17th Century, but records remain. Benandanti or "Good Walkers" were a folk tradition of dream visionaries who fought nightly supernatural battles against "Malandanti" (Bad Walkers), largely for the good fortune and the safety and prosperity of their village.
Individuals who could become Benandanti were those who were born with their birth caul covering their heads, and the caul was dried and kept as an amulet of sorts for them to draw strength from. Typically a Benandanti was also armed with fennel branches while the witches are armed with sorghum sheafs. One assumes that this was kept near their bed and accompanied them on their night battles.
There is also the supposition that the battle between the Benandanti and the Malandanti was symptomatic of rivalry and tension between villages in the region i.e. one village's Benandanti would be another village's Malandanti, as they vied to steal the power and fertility of the land from their rivals. Given that feuds were a feature of Italian peasant life, it might be remarked that similar beliefs play out in a great many tribal communities around the world at various times, when out-groups are blamed for ill fortune via sorcery when someone important takes ill or dies.
Interestingly, when the inquisition came into the areas where the Benandanti belief system was in place, they were utterly confused, and apparently failed to grasp that the Benandanti weren't the witches the peasantry wanted dealt with. LINK. This caused a degree of conflict to erupt between the peasantry and the inquisition. For all that, the Benandanti seemed to have somewhat adopted elements of Christianity. One wonders at the antiquity of the entire practice, for it doesn't show up in any official records until the 16th century. Could the Benandanti be a form of surviving Celtic or Etruscan shamanism? Where did it come from? While the wikipedia entry LINK suggests that it was part of a long existing trans-alpine system of folk belief, the fact is that we don't really know, and apparently the whole belief system was destroyed soon after it was revealed by the inquisition, because it constituted heresy. If you are interested in reading about it, here is a LINK to a PDF of"The Night Battles" by Carlo Ginzburg that should provide more detail.
Individuals who could become Benandanti were those who were born with their birth caul covering their heads, and the caul was dried and kept as an amulet of sorts for them to draw strength from. Typically a Benandanti was also armed with fennel branches while the witches are armed with sorghum sheafs. One assumes that this was kept near their bed and accompanied them on their night battles.
There is also the supposition that the battle between the Benandanti and the Malandanti was symptomatic of rivalry and tension between villages in the region i.e. one village's Benandanti would be another village's Malandanti, as they vied to steal the power and fertility of the land from their rivals. Given that feuds were a feature of Italian peasant life, it might be remarked that similar beliefs play out in a great many tribal communities around the world at various times, when out-groups are blamed for ill fortune via sorcery when someone important takes ill or dies.
Interestingly, when the inquisition came into the areas where the Benandanti belief system was in place, they were utterly confused, and apparently failed to grasp that the Benandanti weren't the witches the peasantry wanted dealt with. LINK. This caused a degree of conflict to erupt between the peasantry and the inquisition. For all that, the Benandanti seemed to have somewhat adopted elements of Christianity. One wonders at the antiquity of the entire practice, for it doesn't show up in any official records until the 16th century. Could the Benandanti be a form of surviving Celtic or Etruscan shamanism? Where did it come from? While the wikipedia entry LINK suggests that it was part of a long existing trans-alpine system of folk belief, the fact is that we don't really know, and apparently the whole belief system was destroyed soon after it was revealed by the inquisition, because it constituted heresy. If you are interested in reading about it, here is a LINK to a PDF of"The Night Battles" by Carlo Ginzburg that should provide more detail.