A widespread diffusion of baskets can be found throughout the territory of Sardinia. What changes from area to area is the material used. Transported on horseback by specific street vendors ('corbulai'), they were not lacking in any home.
If the inner and hilly areas of the island used, as raw material in the construction, to the asphodel stalk (Ollolai, Olzai, Flussio, Montresta, Sennori), those of the plain, close to ponds or to the sea (San Vero Milis, Sinnai, Castelsardo), they made use of reeds, wheat or dwarf palm. The diversified and refined case history of “straw” baskets, for exclusive domestic use, is also accompanied by that of the barrel artifact (“pischedda”), also used outside the house as it is more resistant and equipped with a handle, therefore more adaptable to different stresses. Not unlike in technique from those made in many other parts of the globe, the asphodel or reed basket was created and developed by spirated concentric circles, according to the “continuously growing” method. The spiral is built with a bundle of stiffer matter which, with the aid of water and a piercing instrument (in the case of the asphodel, the sharp chicken shank is used), is stopped by spiraliform points that surround the filling bundle, also anchoring it to the previous round.
Before arriving at the actual construction of the basket, it is necessary to provide for the preparatory steps: collection, reduction of the material into thin slats and its drying in the sun. Natural heat to which, even after construction, the basket must be subjected. The time of harvesting the plants is important, allowed at particular times of the year and regulated by lunations, under penalty of the attack of insects or mold, enemies in the preservation of those essences. The most common types consist of the corbula (“colve, colvula, crobi”), a more or less deep concave basket (in recent cases also including a lid) and the low and wide basket (“canistedda”) with a variable size, from very large (even greater than one meter) to medium, to small or very small. For the Campidanese bride, both the dowry in crockery ('strexiu 'e terra') and the set in corbule, baskets and crivelli ('strexiu 'e fenu') were equally necessary for baking. In the Campidano house, equipped with an internal patio (“lolla”), a small room, tall and narrow, was the special shelter for these indispensable tools.
The more modest Barbarian home, marked by pastoral rather than frumentary rhythms, did not have a specialized environment for the storage of these containers. With the advent of tourists, the basket has also been enriched with decorations. In inland Sardinia, where everything is morphologically more severe and white/black is preferred over the color, the baskets did not bear any decoration unlike their counterparts in the Campidano which, on the other hand, especially those for festive occasions, show inserts made with wool, cotton or fabrics, often precious, of various shades. The basket, due to its natural adaptability, lends itself to being re-functionalized. In the 1950s, Eugenio Tavolara proposed a series in which forms taken from goldsmithery were recovered; one in particular achieved great success as a “magazine rack”.
Today, corbule and baskets are still produced, but their workmanship, very gross in thickness (in this way, the reduction in costs has been solved by reducing construction times), betrays the primary need to satisfy an undemanding tourist demand. An interesting fact: in Cagliari, at the end of the nineteenth century and still in the early twentieth century, there were “is piccioccus de crobi”, street children who, equipped with corbula, carried out fast and limited transport, especially of foodstuffs.
Negli anni Ottanta e Novanta del secolo scorso cresce la consapevolezza nell'isola che la lingua sarda è una ricchezza da salvaguardare. Al di là della sensibilità verso il mondo tradizionale, si afferma la volontà di far entrare la lingua di continuità storica dell'isola anche in ambiti più moderni e attuali.Nasce così l'esigenza di una nuova letteratura sarda che, accanto alla difesa delle espressioni più autentiche dell'identità etnica, sondi e scopra nuove modalità espressive. Una di queste è la prosa dei racconti e dei romanzi che, a partire dagli anni ottanta, si moltiplicano secondo una linea di tendenza inesauribile.La poesia, dopo le grandi prove del Novecento, è comunque sempre un ambito nel quale gli scrittori in lingua sarda trovano modo di esprimere la propria creatività. Le pubblicazioni si susseguono e sono numerosissime. I premi letterari si moltiplicano e si diffondono in tutta l'isola. La poesia scritta sembra conoscere un momento di grande rigoglio.È entrata invece in crisi la poesia orale improvvisata, quella che in sardo si chiama "a bolu". Con il progressivo ritiro dei grandi "cantadores" che avevano dilettato nelle piazze generazioni intere di sardi, il panorama attuale è diventato più povero. Gli interventi finanziari a sostegno della lingua e cultura sarda hanno prodotto una crescita generale del settore anche se non sempre omogenea.In seguito all'approvazione della legge statale n. 482 è nato e si è rafforzato l'interesse anche per l'uso del sardo quale lingua amministrativa e ufficiale.
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