Toccati dalle donni. Patogenesi preternaturali e mediatori terapeutici in Sicilia

The contribution completes the exploration of Sicilian folklore presented at the conference on the teachings of Tullio Seppilli (Perugia, 14-16 June 2018) relating to the concept of disease, healthcare operators, pathogenic and care pathways emerging from legal, ethnographic and reference documentation. In order to better characterise these phenomena, I consulted new data from the latest research I carried out at Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid (which holds the relaciones on black magic and witchcraft processes celebrated in Palermo and termed nigromanti, hechiceras and donas de fuera) and data from field research involving interviews with working witches known as magare, some of whom are still known as donni di notti, d. di fora, beddi signuri. The following aspects were confirmed: a considerable number of conditions show signs of a historic/collective phenomenon; society has an effect on defining their cause, diagnosis and treatment; illnesses transpire in a socio-political context, refer to historic-cultural material, and affect the public because of the threats to symbolic order that they constitute for the living; they are also an expression of physical/psychological/emotional distress due to inadequate relationships and an inability to interpret the different roles within communities.