The festa di li schietti
by Antonio Catalfio
In Terrasini, on Easter Day, an ancient tradition reoccurs. Its beginning is lost from time immemorial: the “Festa di li schietti” (bachelor’s day), called also the celebration of the tree, star of this popular event. The feast consists to raise up, just with an hand, a bitter orange tree weighing fifty kilos. The event starts on Holy Saturday sunrise, during a complex ritual miraculously kept untouched. In the citrus plantation of Terrasini, the members of the “Dubbitazione”, the schietti (bachelors) organizing committee, starts the rite of the orange tree cutting. The right choice needs six months before Easter, a lot of secret inspections of the schietti determine the sacred selected, endowed with the basic features for a good raising. The tree must be leafy and well-balanced with a straight trunk.
The cutting is a sacred moment of the rite, infact, the tree is killed and then resurrected with the raising; because of this, the delicate operation is realized by local craftsmen with special tools. After this, begins the rite of the manciata (collective meal), usually where the tree was cutted off, with the “Dubbitazione”, the family of the giver and with an improvised band.
The manciata reveals the connection with ancient pagan agrar rites: a new life cycle starts, the people eat around the fire mutton meat and grilled anchovies: two symbols of the double Terrasini culture, rural and seafaring. This meal will propitiate, after generous libations of the strong and spiced local wine, a year made of plenty and happiness.

Early in the afternoon, the tree grows hero again: loaded on a sicilian cart called “’u carrettu ra festa”, triumphally arrives in the town, to the joiner, that have to adapt it accordingly the raise rules. A wood pole and some additional branches are added to the trunk, to reach the right weight; an iron cone is introduced in the pole final part, and the graft is strengthened with a big iron ring.
Therefore, the tree is adorned with coloured banners, red scarfs, “ciancianeddi” (the horses bells) and “aineddi”, now little caciotta cheese, first, soft cheese formed by the craftsmen by a quick mouth motion, in zoomorphic appearance.
Now the tree is ready for the celebration: formerly, the “Dubbitazione” “scurava” (was sleeping) in the warehouse where the tree was adorned, to protect it by possible vandalic acts.
The day after, at Easter daybreak, the “alborata” (firecrackers) wakes up the whole city, remembering to our community the day is come. The tree is blessed by the archpriest and then begins the joyful walk around the city lanes. This is the moment for the schietti to show their strength and ability: they have to raise up the tree, standing below their girlfriends’ balcony.
So the man, till some time ago, declares his love in girlfriend’s family presence; if the “zita” (the girlfriend) agrees, she detaches a twig from the tree hovered in the sky, so the wedding promises is ratified.

The old men say that lots of marriages were melted away, because of the man incapacity to raise up the heavy tree: once, a sturdy boy, excited and trembling, cannot raise up the tree below his zita balcony. The reiterated and clumsy attempts, emphasized by the laughs of the people, filled the boy with so much anger to throw the tree, till the roof of the building.
Virility was confirmed and the marriage was celebrated. Today, the feast is gladdened by collateral events, enriching these two happy days.

The sicilian carts passes to the band sound; folk dances and the unevitable concert in the Piazza.
There are now some innovations in the traditional rite, like a chronometrical race of the raising, but they don’t have damaged the traditional way of the rite; in fact, the extension to the married and to the children (that raise up a little tree), is an evidence of the event’s vitality.

For this reason, since not long ago, there is the only authorized exception: the celebration is organized also in the U.S.A. by the Terrasinese Club in Detroit, where a big emigrated community lives. The tree is from Florida, the raising scenario is a moving photo mural of Terrasini’s Cathedral, but the ancient meaning of the tree, symbol of a renewed life, is perpetuated, in two different and very distant places, by the same community that handed it down over the centuries.