Sa tunda

In Busachi, a town belonging to the historic region of Barigadu, on the evening of December 31, a boy (or girl) was sent with sa tunda, a large circular bread symbolically decorated with scenes of agricultural or pastoral work, to the homes of three girls named Maria, who (by virtue of the name equal to that of Our Lady) would have blessed him. The bread, after being blessed, was cut by the head of the family who kept the first piece for himself and allocated the second to cattle or fields.

The bread in the accompanying image of this article represents a threshing scene performed by two oxen yokes. The abundance of wheat on the ground, within the farmyard circle, was a wish for abundance throughout the year, and, in particular, for the success of the agrarian year. The symbology of the themes represented responds to a form of sympathetic magic, by virtue of which like attracts like. In fact, it was believed that the abundance of wheat grains depicted in bread, also thanks to the triple blessing given to the food, would attract the real abundance of the cereal at the time of harvest.

The perspective from above of the decorations that enrich this piece of tunda makes them simplified in their two-dimensionality, but no less rich in details. While horses (and especially mares) were used for the threshing of wheat in the Campidano, in the center and north of the island, the yoke of oxen that crossed the farmyard area carried a series of fronds to which a heavy stone was connected. This appendix of the yoke can be identified in small two-dimensional representations in bread dough, together with shovels and pitchforks, indispensable tools for ventilation operations: the separation of wheat from chaff.

(Cover image: “Sa Tunda”, Busachi, Sixties. ISRE)

Update

26/1/2025 - 22:44