cf also >> Marine Reserve of Cape Milazzo
from the book "Dicerie" by Carlo Catanzaro - ed. tecnodid, piazza Carlo III,
Naples
The webmaster thanks the author for the privilege he had
A rat tail |
Once upon a time there was the tonnara of Tono and the oldest tonnarella of Sant'Antonino on the West Sea. The so-called "tonnarella" had become a kind of appendix of the great Tuna tonnara and was put into the sea, from the end of the Cape to the Maidda for the capture of those tuna that approached the coast to fall in the Bay of Sant'Antonino. The coast of the Bay was crossed by a long path that, descending after a few hundred meters from the Villa Lucifero, reached the Punta del Messinese where, sheltered by a rock cloister, was, among the tall palms, a rustic stone construction with annexed a small cistern.In this construction lived a woman Crucifissa (Crocifissa), widow of rasa Cola (ras Nicholas) already superintendent of the tonnarella and keeper of some warehouses, for the deposit of fishing equipment, which stood along the path, near the sea.
A thin, skinny Donna Crucifissa, a woman with olive skin and eyes of fire, she
was a gentle and very religious creature, custodian of ancient and arcane
prayers that gave her strange and mysterious powers against the devil and the
adverse forces of nature. These powers the woman exercised only in exceptional
cases, without any compensation, always with great reserve and always in the
name of the Holy Trinity and of many local saints, now the most unknown, whose
cult had been abandoned for centuries.
To these saints, familiar to her and
forgotten by everyone, she always used recurrently with success, also to cut the
whirlwinds that, like long tails of rat ("cuti i rattu") hanging from storm
clouds, were sucked by the sea nets and fishermen and trees and houses uprooted
from the land. It was the middle of June and the weather that year still seemed
like winter. Scirocco turbines and an adverse game of the currents had
repeatedly struck the tonnarella nets. Tuna, swordfish, palamidi and alalunghe
had not even seen the shadow. One morning, in an unnatural stillness, without
wind, under a sky of pitch-black clouds, a monstrous whirlwind could be seen
rumbling about a mile from the coast on the Secca di Ponente. Many frightened by
the event were locked in the house, others took refuge in the church of
Sant'Antonino, carved into the rock. The sailors of the tonnara immediately
brought Donna Crucifissa on the high cliff of the lantern, trusting that as
always the woman would also cut the impetuous and gigantic vortex promptly with
her orations.
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But the ritual in this circumstance was not the usual one. The woman at the
sight of the terrible phenomenon of such immense proportions was seized by an
unstoppable tremor and a crying tear, she wanted to have collected two "spikes"
(leaves) prickly of prickly pear and on these kneels she gathered for a long
time in prayer. The clouds became lower and lower, invading the Promontory like
thick fog. The noise of the vortex became a chilling ululation.At this point Donna Crucifissa imposed on everyone present to prostrate herself on the ground, clenching her face tightly in her hands for no one to see. Then he began to recite his prayer aloud. What happened in those minutes, miracle or magic, no one will ever know. It rained everywhere in the olive grove, on the houses, on every bush or path an infinity of fishes of every kind and of every dimension. When the woman told the sailors to rise from the ground and look around, the tremendous whirlwind and the black clouds there were no more tracks, instead there were fish and algae everywhere.
 The prickly pears of Capo Milazzo, commonly called "chiappe di ficarazzi", on which Donna Crocifissa kneeled |
 Moment of tuna fishing: the slaughter in Milazzo |
Nobody knew what and how it happened. The prodigies of Crucifissa woman were
many, just a lot! And her death was mysterious too. The woman now almost a
hundred years old, after the death of Raso Cola moved more and more rarely from
her remote home. Two elderly nephews, who lived not far from the Villa Lucifero,
looked after her with love and devotion. The priest who every Sunday officiated
in the chapel of the Villa never failed to bring the Holy Communion on time. In
one night at the end of August, a violent storm shook the whole Promontory with
wind and hail. A thunderbolt, as if they had never seen it, illuminated the sky
as if it were day and a tremendous roar shook the earth from the depths like an
apocalyptic earthquake. At dawn the damage was counted. The home of Donna
Crucifissa was still apparently intact, but devoid of shingles and fixtures and
emptied of everything. Perhaps a whirlwind had sucked away forever, and who
knows where, the old saint and his few possessions.