Mamuthones

Sardinia · The islands
Mamoiada (province of Nuoro), Barbagia di Ollolai

Mamuthones — the Mamuthones wear a black wooden mask, black sheepskins and up to thirty kilos of cowbells on their backs; they advance in two files with a measured step that makes the bronzes resound.

Variants and dialect names

Mamuthones and Issohadores (or Issocadores, the «catchers» with the rope, sa soha)

What is told

The Mamuthones wear a black wooden mask, black sheepskins and up to thirty kilos of cowbells on their backs; they advance in two files with a measured step that makes the bronzes resound. The Issohadores, in red bodice and white mask, capture the onlookers with the rope.

What it was forthe author’s reading

Rite of the winter and carnival cycle. The readings proposed — agrarian propitiation, procession of souls, memory of prisoners — are all modern interpretations and undemonstrated.

Where it is attested

A fully living rite with fixed dates: 17 January, feast of Sant'Antonio Abate, the first outing of the year with the lighting of the fires; then the Carnival outings, Sunday and Shrove Tuesday.

Caution

The «nuragic» or «prehistoric» origins that are to be read everywhere are popularising conjectures without documentary basis: the first certain attestations of the mask are relatively recent.

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