This article examines a traditional sporting game played during carnival and based on the symbolic hunting and killing of a dummy ox in the streets of Offida, Italy. The Bove Finto (literally Fake Ox) attracts hundreds of players scrambling in crazed pursuit of a large dummy ox carried by an athlete from the committee who organizes this annual game. The article analyzes the game using ethnographic methods. This traditional pantomime is part of a European legacy of bull sport rituals (that is, bullfights and bull runs), but it is more recent than might appear, as the game mixes traditional and more modern aspects. Conceived as a traditional ritual that brings together the young men of the village and gives them the opportunity to fight “for laughs,” it is in reality a recent invention appearing at the beginning of the twentieth century, at a time when modern sports were structuring in Italy. This example therefore functions like an inverted mirror that develops on the ruins of traditional culture even as new sporting models emerge. The annual rite of Bove Finto in Offida thus recalls the need for cathartic and community actions, which, depending on the context, can take the form of a game or of a more codified sport.
AN INNOCENT CATHARSIS: INTERNAL LOGICS OF THE FAKE OX GAME
Lia Giancristofaro
2024-01-01
Abstract
This article examines a traditional sporting game played during carnival and based on the symbolic hunting and killing of a dummy ox in the streets of Offida, Italy. The Bove Finto (literally Fake Ox) attracts hundreds of players scrambling in crazed pursuit of a large dummy ox carried by an athlete from the committee who organizes this annual game. The article analyzes the game using ethnographic methods. This traditional pantomime is part of a European legacy of bull sport rituals (that is, bullfights and bull runs), but it is more recent than might appear, as the game mixes traditional and more modern aspects. Conceived as a traditional ritual that brings together the young men of the village and gives them the opportunity to fight “for laughs,” it is in reality a recent invention appearing at the beginning of the twentieth century, at a time when modern sports were structuring in Italy. This example therefore functions like an inverted mirror that develops on the ruins of traditional culture even as new sporting models emerge. The annual rite of Bove Finto in Offida thus recalls the need for cathartic and community actions, which, depending on the context, can take the form of a game or of a more codified sport.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
