The ritual fire, from the Charshanbe Suri to the flames of s. Joseph.
Sorkhī-ye to az man, zardī-ye man az to "your red to me, my yellow to you". This is the formula uttered by the Iranians when they jump over the fire lit during the night of Chahāršanbe-sūrī, the last Wednesday of the Persian solar year. As the last Tuesday of the year draws to a close and Wednesday night approaches, the streets and squares of Iran's big cities, as well as small villages, light up with the warm red color of fire. If Charshanbe means "Wednesday", the term sūr is to be understood as a variant of sorkh (red) and therefore as a reference both to the fire and to the "rosy color" "(sorkhī), indicating good health.
According to some scholars, the rite of Charshanbe Suri derives from the Zoroastrian festival of Hamaspāθmaēdaya, which was celebrated six days before Nowrūz, the Persian New Year, while the choice of Wednesday as a day of celebration, as well as the ritual practice of jumping the fire, would be dated until after the Islamic conquest. In fact, the Arabs think that the last Wednesday of the year is an "unfortunate" day.
Preparations for Charshanbe Suri begin a few days before the last Wednesday of the year, when the bushes are harvested which on Tuesday afternoon are arranged in bundles of one, three, five or seven (always in odd numbers), spaced a few meters apart. one from the other, in the courtyard of the house or in a square or street of the town or city. As soon as the sun sets, these beams are turned on and, at dusk, men, women and children jump on them. During the jump, people would acquire the red color of fire, a symbol of strength and health, abandoning the yellow of disease and suffering. It is believed, in fact, that this ritual makes people immune for a whole year from diseases and misfortunes. That fire symbolizes the annulment of the past year is testified by the still widespread practice of throwing an old object that is to be disposed of on the fire.
In the following hours, after all family members and friends have jumped on the fire, it is allowed to extinguish. Subsequently, the ashes, symbolically laden with the winter dirt of the past year, are buried, usually by a girl who has not yet reached puberty, in fields far from homes. The girl will be able to return home only after having pronounced the following formula: "Who are you?" "It's me"; "Where do you come from?" "From a wedding"; "What are you bringing?" "Good health". This ritual practice sanctions the recognition of the passage of time, from winter to spring.
Other rituals have the task of warding off the evil eye and warding off misfortunes. Among these, in some parts of Iran, the Khuneh Takoni "breaking a jar" can be mentioned. The jars are destroyed, after jumping over the fire, so that human misfortunes are transferred to the jar itself. Also important is the burning of rue (esfand) or incense (kondor) seeds, because it is considered a precaution against the evil eye and evil spirits.
A ritual of great importance is qāšoq-zanī, "beating the spoon". After the various "fire games" (ātašbāzī), when the darkness of the night has now fallen, the girls and boys hide under long chādor, putting on a real disguise, and go to the doors of their neighbors' houses, slamming a spoon on a bowl. The host gives them ājīl (dried fruit), sweets or coins. They represent the dead, recalled by the advent of the new year, to claim their due, as chthonic entities guarantors of the natural and social order. It is a question of alms, which shares symbolic structures with geographically distant ceremonies, from the Halloween party to those of the children who impersonate saints in Southern Italy. That this is the day of the return of the dead is confirmed by the Zoroastrian belief that the fire that burns tonight shows them the way to this world of ours.
Food takes on an important value, families and friends eat ājīl-e Charshanbe Suri, consisting of watermelon seeds, yellow melon and pumpkin, pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds, roasted chickpeas, and wheat. Aš-e rešteh, the Iranian noodle soup, is usually prepared. It is said that the longer the string of pasta, the greater the chances of a long life for each member of the family.
The "Red Wednesday" therefore starts a period of change in Iran, the new year, through a ceremony that at the same time ritually marks the seasonal transition from winter to spring, in connection with the agrarian cycle. Fire is the central symbol of this passage, in which the old, diseases and misfortunes are abandoned and pushed away, in favor of the new, health and joy. This symbolic character of the flames is not exclusive to the Persian New Year celebrations, but on the contrary it leads us back to places closer to us. The fire, in fact, testifies to the same symbolic structures, albeit with different ritual modalities, underlying ceremonies distant in time and space connected to the renewal of the social and natural cycle. The jumps of fire that Iranian women and men perform during the Charshanbe Suri, recall the use of vampi (bonfire) widespread in Sicily to celebrate the saints, in particular s. Joseph.
In large cities, such as Palermo, but also in small inhabited centers on the evening of March 18, at dusk, huge vampires are lit - despite municipal prohibitions - in large intersections, open spaces or squares, symbolically wanting to mark the end of the cold and the regeneration of the seasonal cycle. It is the boys who take care of the wood collection, made up in the city mainly of old furniture and fruit boxes, while away from the city centers by plant elements, such as brushwood and pruned branches. The adults instead take care of the construction of the pile, which requires a lot of care and attention in the arrangement of the wood, given the large size of the vampires. As soon as the fire is lit, it is possible to hear cheers such as: Agghiurnò, viva San Ciuseppi! (it is day, long live St. Joseph). While the fire burns, the boys try their hand, similar to the jumps of the Iranians, in tests of courage and strength, jumping the flames and through acrobatics they demonstrate their strength and virility. Old objects are thrown into the flames, but sometimes even objects that are still functional, a sign of waste and ostentation characterizing the holidays. In some cases, while the fire is raging, San Guseppi (sweet pancakes stuffed with ricotta cream) circulate among the present trays of sfinci.
Others are the ritual elements of the feast of St. Giuseppe: the begging of wheat and legumes, reminiscent of the Iranian practice of qāšoq-zanī; the "tables" and banquets, which I cannot fail to recall the sofreh of the Nowrūz; the sacred representations, in which children impersonate the saints, extrahuman entities similar to the dead.
Some will turn up their noses when reading about similarities between two very distant cultural horizons, but it is only a phenotypic difference. As many anthropologists and folklorists have pointed out, the festivals of Southern Italy ranging from the feast of the dead (November 2) and from Christmas to Easter are to be understood as "New Year's celebrations", ceremonies of regeneration of the natural and social order in relation to the agricultural cycle. For this reason, the feast of St. Joseph in Sicily has many symbolic elements in common with the Persian Charshanbe Suri and Nowrūz, precisely as a "New Year's party", although subjected to a process of re-semantization within the Christian religious framework.
Fire is certainly the protagonist of this complex ritual, both in the case of the Charshanbe Suri and the vampi di s. Joseph. Fire is a symbol of purification, the removal of evil and the annihilation of the old, but at the same time of regeneration and renewal. Thanks to the fire, the Iranians and Sicilians, although within different cultural and religious frameworks, leave behind the sufferings, sacrifices and misfortunes that the past year has caused them, projecting themselves towards a hoped-for new year full of joys and fortunes. It is precisely through its "regenerative-destructive" and "life-death" ambivalence that fire allows for social and cosmic renewal. The periodic regeneration of the cosmos, in its natural as well as social dimension, is guaranteed by the establishment - but at the same time annulment - of the càos. Fire is as fearsome as necessary.
by Gioele Zisa
Source: Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia