MASCHE
E MASCONI
E MASCONI
Illustration
Masche e Masconi is an ongoing personal project about the popular belief of the Masche, in the folklore of Piedmont area.
The masche are a prominent figure in Piedmontese folklore and popular belief: generally they are apparently normal women, but with supernatural faculties handed down from mother to daughter or grandmother to granddaughter, or by voluntary bequest to a young woman.
According to tradition, the powers of the masche include immortality but not eternal youth or health: they are therefore vulnerable and prone to disease and aging. When they decide that they have had enough of this life, in order to die they must transmit the powers to another living creature, which is often a young person in the family, but sometimes it can be an animal or a vegetable.
The masche have the power of bilocation and transformation into animals, plants or objects, they sually lived on the edges of the villages, almost always very close to the woods.
This research investigates the theme of Masche and everything connected: the rural life, the superstiction, religion and the thin border between sacred and profane.
The masche are a prominent figure in Piedmontese folklore and popular belief: generally they are apparently normal women, but with supernatural faculties handed down from mother to daughter or grandmother to granddaughter, or by voluntary bequest to a young woman.
According to tradition, the powers of the masche include immortality but not eternal youth or health: they are therefore vulnerable and prone to disease and aging. When they decide that they have had enough of this life, in order to die they must transmit the powers to another living creature, which is often a young person in the family, but sometimes it can be an animal or a vegetable.
The masche have the power of bilocation and transformation into animals, plants or objects, they sually lived on the edges of the villages, almost always very close to the woods.
This research investigates the theme of Masche and everything connected: the rural life, the superstiction, religion and the thin border between sacred and profane.
