Procession
in honor of Saint Anthony |
|
| About
a month before the feast of Saint Anthony of Padua (June
13), a small trio of musicians paraded through town.
It consisted of drummer Vincenzo Onorato (the cemetery
custodian), his brother Pasquale, and another young
man. |
| The
trio had the job of promoting the sale of tickets for
the raffle to be held on the feast day. Each ticket
cost 4 “soldi” (old currency) and bore the
name of the purchaser. |
| About
twenty days before the feast day a collection would
be started for copperware (essentially kitchenware),
different kinds of cloth, and, in more recent times,
clothing items. The committee in charge of the celebration
bought a lamb. |
| On
the feast day, about 11 in the morning, a procession
was held, and in late afternoon, the feast began with
preparations for the “banner” prizes. For
these, a pole was set up with a banner on top; hanging
from this were the various prizes collected the day
before. |
| In
the heap of collected tickets, many with the words “Saint
Anthony” written on them were added; when the
raffle began, the ticket numbers called before those
with the Saint’s name were declared void, but
the three that followed were declared winners (obviously
they were minus the Saint’s name). |
| The
first ticket drawn right after the last one bearing
Saint Anthony’s name would win the cloths (3rd
prize), the second, the copper objects (2nd prize),
and the last drawn got the lamb (1st prize). |
|
