When we travel around the villages of the inland Cilento, we love stopping to chat with the people sitting outside their front doors. Sooner or later the conversation always turns to the same thing: the cries that once announced the arrival of the knife grinder, the umbrella mender or the fish seller. We have tried to put these memories in order to tell you about the travelling trades in the Cilento, a world that today survives mainly in the memories of the elderly and in the odd village re-enactment.
A land of distant villages, reached on foot
To understand why travelling trades were so important in the Cilento, just look at a map: dozens of villages perched on hills and mountains, connected for centuries by mule tracks and footpaths rather than roads fit for carts. Many things could neither be made at home nor found in a village shop. So it was the craftsmen and vendors who moved, often on foot or with a donkey or mule, from one hamlet to the next.
It wasn't just about trade. The arrival of a pedlar brought news from other villages, opportunities to swap goods and, sometimes, a bit of celebration. In an economy where little money circulated, payment in kind was common: a little olive oil, a few eggs, a measure of wheat or pulses.
Those who mended: knife grinders, umbrella menders and plate menders
Among the best-remembered figures is the knife grinder, who went around with his grindstone mounted on a frame or a bicycle, sharpening knives, scissors and farm tools. His call, shouted through the streets, is one of the cries the elderly most enjoy imitating.
Alongside him were the umbrella mender, who fixed ribs and canopies, and the tinsmith, who restored copper pots and boilers by coating them with tin. A particular trade was that of the conciapiatti, the plate mender: with a small hand drill and some wire he "stitched" cracked terracotta plates, bowls and jugs. In farmhouses nothing was thrown away, and a repaired vessel could last for years.
Then there was the chair caner, who re-did seats of straw or rush, and the cobbler who, at certain times of year, toured the countryside resoling shoes and boots.
Those who sold: from the sea to the mountains
One of the most fascinating connections was the one between the coast and the interior. Fish caught in the seaside villages, especially anchovies and other oily fish, travelled up into the hills in baskets or packed in salt, carried by vendors who covered long distances on foot. Salted anchovies were valuable precisely because they kept for a long time: we also write about them in our article on Menaica anchovies, the tradition of Pisciotta.
From the interior, on the other hand, the shepherds' products went down to the markets: cheeses, ricotta and the Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento. There were also vendors of terracotta tableware, fabrics and small household items, who for women in the most isolated villages were the only way to get needles, buttons and cloth.
Cries, calls and feast days
Every trade had its own call, a sing-song phrase in dialect that could be recognised from afar. It was a kind of audible "advertising": you only had to hear it to know who had arrived in the village and to come out with the knife to be sharpened or the broken umbrella.
Some travelling figures were tied to particular times of the year. At Christmas, for example, zampogna (bagpipe) and ciaramella (shawm) players went from house to house for the novena. For patron saints' feasts and fairs, sellers of sweets, simple toys and devotional objects arrived. If this world interests you, we also recommend reading Cilento traditions.
Where to find the memory of these trades
Today almost all of these jobs have disappeared, replaced by shops, cars and disposable objects. But their memory lives on in various ways. Many villages keep small collections of rural farming tools, and in summer it is not unusual for food festivals and feasts to recreate scenes of life from the past.
For a plunge into the world of old-time games made from humble materials, we suggest the Museum of Simple Toys in Montano Antilia. And to understand how the inland communities really lived, it is worth walking among the houses of Roscigno Vecchia, the abandoned village, in Roscigno, which has remained almost as it was at the start of the 20th century.
In the surroundings
If you want to build an itinerary from these stories, the place to start is our guide The Cilento: what to do and see. From Vallo della Lucania, the heart of the inland Cilento, the hill villages and the coast are easy to reach. To see the area in the context of the province, you will find everything in Salerno and its surroundings, while at the table you can carry on with the soppressata di Gioi, another flavour born of the farming life of Gioi.
Top photo (Vallo della Lucania): Miki.mod at Italian Wikipedia (Original text: Michele Modica), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
