The Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a Roman Catholic church, serves a predominantly Italian community in New York City's borough of Brooklyn. During the last weeks of June, posters in shop windows throughout the neighborhood announce a saint's feast and street fair at the church. This annual fair, whose profits support the church school, is the kind of Italian street festival popular among all New Yorkers. Refreshment stands offer soft drinks, cotton candy, and snowcones; sausage, onion, and pepper sandwiches; stuffed beef rolls called braciole; and mounds of deep-fried, doughnutlike zeppole. Midway-type games of skill and chance offer such prizes as huge pink pandas and live goldfish in a bowl. But one feature of this festival distinguishes it from all other New York Italian street feasts and gives it the name by which it is mot widely known: this is the giglio (pronounced JILL-yo), a gaily painted, gracefully tapered spire about six stories high that, from neighborhood rooftops, looks like Brooklyn's buoyant answer to the somber skyscrapers across the river in Manhattan. Surmounting the giglio is a statute of Saint Paulinus, in whose honor the feast is held.
Saint Paulinus is the patron saint of Nola, a town about twenty miles from Naples that is the ancestral home of many of the Brooklyn community's residents. Paulinus was bishop of Nola in the early part of the fifth century A.D. The Roman Catholic breviary gives an account, taken from the Dialogues of Saint Gregory, of the miracle that is celebrated on Saint Paulinus's Day, June 22. The story goes that Vandals pillaging southern Italy carried off many of the inhabitants of Nola to Africa as slaves. Bishop Paulinus gave himself into bondage in place of a widow's only son and was put to work as a gardener. Quickly becoming a confidant of his master, Paulinus prophesied to him the impending death of the Vandal king. The king, who had been having dreams with the same tidings, ordered that Paulinus be brought before him and as a reward for his gift of prophecy freed him and the other enslaved citizens of Nola, gave them boats, and sent them back to their town.
The subsequent literature on this legend diverges on just about every detail, from the nationality of the villains to the identity of Paulinus. In the Brooklyn church version, which appears in a flyer distributed during the feast, the Vandals are identified variously as Moors or Saracens, and Paulinus's freedom is attributed to the intervention of a Turkish sultan. According to this version, the climax of the legend--not mentioned by Gregory at all --is the bishop's triumphal return. Accompanied by his fellow townspeople and the Turk, Paulinus is supposed to have been greeted by the people of Nola, carrying lilies in his honor. Every year since, the flyer concludes, the Nolani have built a mountain-high, towerlike structure, the giglio ("lily' in Italian), to commemorate the miracle of Paulinus's return.
The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, on the other hand, writing in 1914 on the Catholic saints, states that the Paulinus of whom this miraculous story was originally told is not the Paulinus who is being honored by the church on this day. According to him, three bishops of Nola were named Paulinus. The first, born about A.D. 354, was a pagan convert, a former Roman prefect, who after his conversion and election as bishop became known for his charity, for an extensive body of correspondence with Saint Augustine and other fathers of the early church, and for a large building program of cathedrals and aqueducts. It was he who was canonized after his death in A.D. 431. The incursions of the Vandals mentioned by Gregory did not occur, says Baring-Gould, until well after this first Paulinus's death, more likely in the time of the third Bishop Paulinus ofNola, about A.D. 513 to 535. In other words, according to Baring-Gould, as often happens in hagiographic legendry, a good story concerning a relative unknown has wandered and become attached to a more famous personage. In popular accounts, the figure of good Bishop Paulinus, he of the correspondence and building program, attracted to itself a miraculous tale of enslavement, prophecy, liberation, and return that could only have happened to a successor generations later.
Whether the canonized Paulinus deserves credit for these particular exploits is of little concern to those who celebrate the Feast of Saint Paulinus today. Wherever Nolani live, they honor the legendary event and its hero by carrying huge, heavy towers, or gigli, with brass bands riding on them. In Brooklyn they call this "to dance the giglio,' an abbreviated translation of the Nolan ballare o' giglio n' coppe e spalle, "to dance the giglio on the top of the shoulders.' In Nola, eight gigli are danced by competing teams of men hired by the village guilds--the shoemakers, tailors, bakers, and so on. They dance the structures through the town's narrow, winding streets. The houses abutting the streets are freshly whitewashed, the better to show any scuff marks caused by a giglio brushing against them--points off in judging a team's performance. At the climax of the feast, all eight gigli converge on the piazza at the center of town where they put on a competitive spectacle of acrobatic maneuvers, then line up in front of the town hall for the final judging.
In Brooklyn there is only one giglio, and it is danced in a highly collaborative undertaking by the community. Some say the custom started about 1900, soon after immigrants from Nola began to settle in the neighborhood, but the documentary evidence uncovered so far goes back only to the 1920s. Each year the tower was built the same way as in the old country, of papier-m ach[e saints, angels, flowers, and birds attached to panels hung on a framework of wood. The tower rested on a square platform large enough to accommodate musicians and a singer. The platform, supported by sturdy legs, stood just under shoulder height to an average-sized man. From each side projected seven or eight stout wooden poles about four feet long. Four, or sometimes five, men, stooping slightly, could fit along each pole and get their shoulders in position under it. In all, there were enough places for 128 men, more or less. When they stood erect, the giglio lifted just clear of the ground.
The basic form of the giglio is unchanged since those times, but nowadays the frame, legs, and poles are made of aluminum. The panels incorporate many of the old papier-m ach[e figures, augmented by new ones and by decorative plastic flowers. The pieces are stored in the church basement, from where they are retrieved each year, painted, and refurbished. About a week before opening day, the framework is erected and the panels hoisted and hung upon it. The last item to go on is a self-contained sound system with enormous speakers. When it is finished, the giglio stands sixty-five-feet tall and weighs more than two tons. As in Nola, a galleon is also constructed on a similar scale, with carrying bars for another 128 men. The boat, as they call it in Brooklyn, is also danced, either alone or in conjunction with the tower. It represents the ship that returned Paulinus to Nola and carries a statue of the saint in its stern. It also holds a band, singer, and several neighborhood boys in costumes representing the Turkish sultan and his attendants.
Originally, the Brooklyn giglio and boat were danced together on June 22, the feast day of Saint Paulinus. Three and one-half weeks later, on July 16, the community celebrated yet another large-scale religious feast, that of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In the mid-1950s, the church decided to combine the two celebrations into a two and one-half week festival timed to include the first three Sundays in July. Now, the first Sunday of the feast (July 3 this year) is given to dancing the boat; the second Sunday to the boat and giglio together; and the third Sunday to the giglio alone.
The structures are carried for several blocks up and down the two cross streets in front of the church. The carrying is not continuous, as in a parade, but is broken up into relatively short segments, each called a lift. Lifts may cover anywhere from twenty to thirty yards of ground and last one to three minutes each. Some lifts are fancy, such as the complete rotation called "a three-sixty'; others are physically demanding, as in the quick drop-and-lift called "a number two.' Some are both. "Every year they dance the cha-cha with the giglio,' says one neighborhood resident. "Think of it! You're talking about several thousand pounds being moved back and forth, back and forth, by over a hundred men at one time.'
To achieve the coordination and precision of effort that will insure the success of each lift and the safety of all the participants and bystanders, the personnel who dance the giglio and boat are organized every year in a pyramidal hierarchy of authority. At the very top is capo number one, under whose command are capos two and three. At the base of the hierarchy are the boys and men from about seventeen to fifty-five years of age who bear the physical burden of the celebration. These constitute the paranza, the crew of lifters.
The person in charge of any particular lift can be one of the three capos of the year, an honorary capo from a previous year, the "godfather' of the giglio (another honorary position accorded a former capo), or one of three apprentice capos. The first step in a life is to determine, from a list drawn up in advance by capo number one, the name of the person in command and the route to be followed. The lift capo and the band leader then discuss what musical piece the band will play during the lift. Some capos have their own trademark tunes; one former boxer always uses the theme from the film Rocky. Otherwise, the tune is usually a popular Italian or American song. (Recent favorites have been "New York, New York' and the themes from Superman and Star Wars.) The singer/M.C. riding on the giglio (or on the boat) then announces the lift to the crowd over the public-address system. The lifters take their positions under the bars, the capo with his cane of office steps out in front, makes sure that all are ready, and gives the band the signal to begin. The music starts: nowadays the initial tune is always O'Giglio e Paradiso ("The Giglio of Paradise'), from the song written by Pasquale Ferrara and trumpeter Phil Caccavale in the late 1950s. The first verse of the tune ends with a high, blasting fanfare of horns; on the very last note the capo thrusts his cane into the air, the lifters tense and jerk erect, the bystanders cheer, and the giglio is up! The capo signals for the first tune to stop and shouts, "Musica!' A second tune, his chosen tune, starts. Again he punches the air with his cane, and the structure begins to move.
Each capo has his own style of leading. Some strut and prance like drum majors in a parade; others simply walk backward, keeping an eye on the progress of the structure. The capo is responsible for making sure that the structure is kept straight: any wavering or tilting, and the lift must be quickly aborted. He gestures constantly with his cane or calls out corrections. His commands are picked up by lieutenants at the corners of the structure, each in charge of a squad of lifters. The lieutenants shout the capo's instructions to their straining men and sometimes apply their own weight to effect the required shift in direction or orientation.
When the appointed destination is reached, the capo signals a halt, the cry goes through the ranks, and everyone stops, still bearing the weight of the structure. The capo approaches the front rank, checking to make sure that everything is still straight. He then shouts four commands in Nolan dialect into the microphone attached to one of the front carrying bars: "'Uagli[o!' (boys!) he cries, calling for everyone's attention. "Aizate i' spalle!' (lift your shoulders!). The men lift by rising up on their tiptoes, straining to get as high as possible. "Gungi-gung'!' (get ready!). And then, "Agg ett'!' (throw it!). The lifters suddenly bend their knees, ducking all at once, and the structure comes crashing down on its supports. The crowd cheers and applauds. The capo is congratulated by his family, lifters, and friends, and the list is consulted for the next lift.
The climax of the three Sundays of dancing takes place on the second of them, when both the boat and the giglio are lifted, meeting together at the crossroads in a symbolic reenactment of the fifth-century homecoming in Italy--Saint Paulinus, returning triumphantly in his bars: "'Uagli o!' (boys!) he cries, calling by the people of Nola. At the end of the afternoon, on this and the other two Sundays, there is terrific rejoicing. The lifters cavort and frolic, embrace each other, and jubilantly raise the capos and lieutenants on their shoulders.
One may look beyond the legend of Saint Paulinus for an interpretation of these activities. Scholarship on Nola and the giglio has produced evidence that the feast, which falls on or near the summer solstice, derives from a pre-Christian summer festival celebrating the Greek god Dionysus. The legend of Saint Paulinus closely resembles a myth of Dionysus's release and return from pirate captivity, and archeological artifacts show Nola to have been an ancient Hellenic center of Dionysian worship. Dancing the giglio and boat may have begun as pagan fertility revels, the focal mythic figure and central phallic icon of which were supplanted and remythologized in Nola by the early Roman Catholic church.
A good case can be made that male virility and power are being implicitly celebrated by the modern dancing of the giglio in Brooklyn. Dancing the giglio is an unabashedly male event. While girls and women play important supportive roles, minding the store and the children while their men perform, bringing refreshment to the exhausted lifters in the heat of the day, and urging them on from the side-lines, the boys and men really carry the day and give the event its tenor. Among the lifters, there is a locker-room male conviviality and a gymnasiumlike display of physical prowess. This display is not lost on the women who are the girlfriends, fianc[ees, wives, and unattached-but-interested admirers of the men under the giglio. "It's a macho type of feeling,' says one young lifter, "when you get under the giglio.'
Dancing the giglio in Brooklyn is not about male virility and power in and of themselves, however, but about the way in which they have been channeled into a neighborhood endeavor presided over by the church and the older men of the community. The authority of the church is everywhere apparent. The priests are influential in the organization of the feast's activities and in the advancement of individuals through the giglio hierarchy. During the feast, the church is represented in effigy by images of the Virgin and the statue of Saint Paulinus and in person by the priests who perform such rites as sprinkling holy water on the boat, giglio, and lifters. And the Roman Catholic church is symbolically borne on the shoulders of the lifters when powerful officials--in 1982, a papal nuncio from Rome--ride the giglio as guests of the feast. The lifters themselves often describe their participation in religious terms. One older man attributes the paranza's ability to carry the giglio to divine will; another expresses it this way:
Every man who puts his shoulder to the giglio is performing a religious act. We have our fanfare and we have our fun, and you'll see us laughing and joking. But we're all doing penance. We're doing it for deceased members of our families--a mother, a brother--to get them out of purgatory and let them rest in peace.
If the early church established the Feast of Saint Paulinus in Nola to contain the powerful human urges expressed in existing pagan revels, channeling them for the benefit of the church and the Christian soul, its goal has been admirably achieved in Brooklyn.
Compelling motives for participation also arise from family tradition. "My father lifted,' says one member of the paranza, "my grandfather and my uncles, they all did it. It's in my blood, I can't help it. If they had it in the fifty states, I would go to every state.' This sense of continuity is important to the community and pains are taken to guarantee the participation of each new generation. Children are brought to see the dancing before they can walk. They are present when the preparatory work of erecting the giglio is done. By the time they are five or six years old, boys can be seen playing giglio, some carrying milk crates or chairs on their shoulders while others shout commands.
The first formal participation for a boy comes at seven or eight years of age when he can become a member of the "rope gang.' During the dancing the gang's task is to hold a long rope in a huge rectangle around the giglio or boat and its personnel, forming a moving barrier. This allows the bystanders to keep up with the action at all times, but prevents them from surging into the performance area. The degree of responsibility and authority exercised by members of the rope gang is unusual for neighborhood boys of this age. It is a strong lesson for them in the advantages of participation in community life. The message is, You belong and you have a vital role to play.
When members of the rope gang reach the required height--about three and one-half feet at the shoulder--they join the ranks of lifters who carry the children's giglio and boat, scaled-down versions of the adult structures. These are relatively recent innovations in the tradition--and strictly Brooklyn. The children's event mirrors that of the adults. They have their capos who employ the same gestures of command for an identical ritual of lifts. On "the big night' (children's lifting takes place on three weekday evenings), the children's giglio and boat are brought together to reenact the Saint Paulinus legend, just as the big ones are. The boys are under the close supervision of the adult capos. For their first lift, they even receive the personal coaching of capo number one and perform under his guidance in front of their parents, siblings, and other community members. The lifting is difficult for many of the boys, but the community expects them to carry one. One evening, one of the adult lifters, watching the children's event from the sidelines, went up to a young lifter struggling under the small giglio and said, "Is it hard? Well, get used to it--you're going to be doing it for the rest of your life!' At the end of the evening's lifting, the children's capos and lifters carry on in the same way as their adult counterparts, embracing each other and riding on one another's shoulders.
Processions through the neighborhood bring giglio-connected ritual to all parts of the community. One of the most important of these is the "line of march' that takes place each Sunday prior to the dancing, a cumulative procession led by one band, the priests, and a Marine honor guard. The procession begins at the church with the lifters and rope gang and stops at the home of each member of the giglio hierarchy in ascending order of importance--committee secretary, Turk and attendants, giglio godfather and godmother, lieutenants, apprentice capos, and capos--gathering them into the company on the way back to the church and the giglio. The line also stops at the homes of members of the hierarchy who may be ill or recently deceased. Marchers greet the sick and wish them well or pay their respects to the dead with bowed heads and the playing of "Auld Lang Syne.' In effect, the line of march is a mapping of the key giglio network, both past and present, for all to see. Families send off their men with kisses and confetti and flowers. The capos arrange displays for their climactic appearances. In 1981, capo number one's nephews and nieces emerged from his house before him, the boys dressed as Italian honor guards and medieval courtiers, the girls as angels. He and his wife then came out to be hailed by fireworks and bouquets of flowers. The neighbors witness all this fanfare and display, shouting their greetings or simply watching at their windows, becoming part of the ritual themselves.
The capos' pomp and flourish in the line of march and in front of the giglio and boat are part of the significance of the Feast of Saint Paulinus in Brooklyn. The capos are older man who have advanced through the giglio hierarchy over a period of thirty or forty years; their involvement in church and neighborhood work has brought them into personal contact with nearly every member of the community. Not only is a capo known by practically everyone; he also represents the ideal successful male. He is a good organizer, he functions well at the center of attention, and he has personal style and dignity. A man of many talents, he is generous with his money, he bears the good will of the church in his appointment as capo, and he enjoys the support of the community and the tough affection of the men he has associated with over all those years.
When the capo takes up his stick and performs in front of the giglio, dancing lightly before the grimacing lifters who do his bidding, he is the personification of social power in the community, the embodiment of mature authority exerted with self-control and seeming ease. One of the great clues to the role of the capo is the stick, or cane, that he carries at all times and uses to direct the dancing. Every capo has his own cane, designed to suit him. What the giglio is to lifters, the cane is to the capo. It takes as much power to wield the cane as it does to lift the giglio, but it is a different kind of power. Being a capo is not just a matter of picking up a cane, giving the orders, and getting a perfect lift from the men, any more than being an orchestra conductor is a matter of mounting a podium, waving a baton, and having beautiful music flow out of an orchestra. The capo's performance, like the conductor's, is a culmination of long work and association, force of personality and style. At the heart of the performance is the willingness of the lifters to follow the capo, allowing him to exercise his power effortlessly and with consummate grace.
In Brooklyn the celebration of the Feast of Saint Paulinus expresses religious commitment, family tradition, manhood, and the passage from childhood through maturity to old age. The exultation at the end of each day of dancing is not simply a matter of masculine high spirits or youthful release; it is a remarkable display of pride in, and affection for, the men of all ages who, in dancing the giglio, have renewed for the community its sense of order, values, and continuity. As one woman puts it, "It's something that's inside, a warmth and a feeling of belonging you never get anywhere. It just sets me in orbit. I have to be there when they lift, and I sing and I clap and I dance and I pray and I do everything that goes with it.'
Photo: Opposite page: In Brooklyn, Italian-Americans "dance the boat' to a climactic meeting with the towering giglio. The spectacle is a reenactment of the welcome home from captivity given to Saint Paulines in the fifth century. Below: In Nola, Italy, where the celebration originated, many towers compete for honors.
Photo: Below: In Brooklyn, at the end of a "life,' men drop the giglio onto its supports, which sustain the platform just below shoulder height. Bottom: In Italy giglios are constructed of wood, not of aluminum as in Brooklyn, but they have been moderinized to include a sound system to amplify the band.
Photo: Below: A lifter in his official T-shirt--a cap and scarf will complete the uniform--socializes at the feast in Brooklyn. Generally, women play a supportive role while the men are at the center of the action. Bottom: In Italy, a costumed couple participate in the giglio activities.
Photo: Male virility and power are among the community values celebrated in the Feast of Saint Paulinus, which may have its roots in Dionysian worship. In Brooklyn, left, at the end of the day, exultant lifters carry their companions and one of their leaders, or capos (waving his cane of office), on their shoulders. Similar high spirits are evident among the lifters in Italy, below.
Photo: Directed by a capo, lifters in Italy, below, perform their task in unison. One of the honorary capos in Brooklyn, right, lightly bears his cane of office as he leads the men shouldering the boat. The role of capo is bestowed on men who have demonstrated their leadership through years of community service.