Shapes of Bread in the Maternal Concept in the Traditional Culture of the Central and Southern Regions of Italy

Abstract

Traditional food as the most enduring part of material culture and a reflection of conceptual connections between human and the world is at the same time one of the fundamental symbolic components of archaic rites and beliefs of peoples. The process of sacralization of food was primarily influenced by the underlying content of the factors affecting its production. Ritual food of agricultural and pastoral cultures, which comprehensively reveals the climatic, geographical, production and economic basis of society’s existence, also reproduces its social experience. The object of the study is the food traditions of small communes in the central and southern regions of Italy, in which ancient farming customs have been preserved, and in some places culturally transformed or reduced and partly integrated into modern religious rituals and partly embodied in traditional art. The study explores the semantics and modifications of bread plastics, representing symbolic forms of nourishment and birth, interpreted within the framework of the author’s concept of the maternal principle. The relevance of the topic is justified by the insufficient study of questions related to the pragmatics and symbolism of ritual baking in the form of a part of the female body imitating the anatomical shape of the breast. The aim of the study is to analyze bread plastics containing the maternal element in the context of mythosymbolism of food traditions of Italian ethnic groups as part of the Mediterranean culture. The study is based on a systematic approach that allows to identify the most enduring traditions associated with the production of flour products in the ritual of honoring fertility deities as well as elements of religious syncretism in the Christian cult of female saints. The research methodology is based on the cornerstone principle of historicism. Comparative-historical, retrospective, synchronic and diachronic methods are applied. The research is based on scientific works by Italian anthropologists, contemporary editions of texts by ancient Greek and Roman authors, historical chronicles of the XVI—XVII centuries, and the author’s field research materials. The scientific novelty is grounded in the historical-cultural analysis of the maternal concept in the food traditions of bread-making among Italian ethnic groups in the central and southern regions of Italy. The main conclusion of the study reveals the role of maternal symbolism in food rituals, containing a metaphorical image of nature as the main source of human food, “nurturing nature”. The formation of mythological views on the fertility cult was based on the worldview, in which nature appeared as a giver of fruits and human life. Food votives, featured in rituals as offerings, aimed at achieving crop yields, reflected the concept of maternal nourishment that humans sought to beseech from higher powers. With the official adoption of Christianity, folk customs did not disappear, as they offered consistent resistance and were therefore incorporated into church practices, while the images of fertility deities underwent adaptation to those of Catholic saints. Subsequently, the vestiges of the primitive agrarian cult, embodied primarily in ritual and ceremonial food, in particular, traditional sweet pastries, manifested themselves in modern confectionery practice, forming new myths and legends of both religious and domestic nature.