After the Divorce · Chapter
Endnotes explained
This chapter provides explanatory notes on various Sardinian terms, customs, and cultural practices referenced throughout the book, including local expressions, agricultural traditions, and superstitious rituals.
What happens
This chapter provides explanatory notes on various Sardinian terms, customs, and cultural practices referenced throughout the book, including local expressions, agricultural traditions, and superstitious rituals.
Key passages
“The custom of burying a person bitten by a tarantula in a dunghill, and putting him in an oven, is not so unreasonable as it at first appears, the effect of the poison being neutralised if the sufferer can be made to perspire freely; while the sickening odours of the dunghill induce nausea, also supposed to be very beneficial.”
The practice of burying a tarantula bite victim in a dunghill or placing them in an oven was originally based on the practical benefit of inducing perspiration to neutralize the poison, and the strong smells causing nausea were also thought to help.
Explains the rational origin behind a seemingly superstitious custom.
“In Sardinia, farm labourers often own cattle which are either turned out with their master’s herds (whose partners they thus, in a manner, become), or are confided to some other shepherd, who receives half the profits in return for looking after them.”
Sardinian farm workers frequently own cattle that either graze with their employer's herds, making them partners in a sense, or are entrusted to another shepherd who takes half the profits for caring for them.
Describes a common agricultural partnership arrangement in Sardinia.