Photo 1: Women who smoke the pipe

In Pozzale until the end of the sixties, it was characteristic to observe some elderly women who smoked the pipe. Why did women smoke? The explanation that is given refers to the First World War when the epidemic of the Spanish flu was spreading and claimed millions of victims throughout Europe. At that time it was believed that pipe smokers were not, or more likely to be infected with the disease than those who did not smoke. The men of Pozzale taught their women to smoke, not cigarettes, too elegant and expensive, but the pipe, which could also be built artisanally, at home. 

From "La Conca pozzalina" by Giovanni Battista da Forno Panizza

Photo 6: Gliding on the snow

Gliding along a slope with a pair of skis on your feet or straddling a sled in the snow is also considered play, sport and competition. The sleds in addition to being used for the transport of wood and hay were also used for pleasure by adults and children. Until there were few cars in circulation, it was customary to use the sled, with one or more seats, even on the roads of the villages. Males and females had different techniques; the boys, who were faster, drove on their stomachs with their heads turned forward, while the girls preferred to sit with their legs stretched forward or bent and with their feet on skates. The use of tackling snowy slopes with skis, known as "snow skates", spread to the Alps towards the end of the 800’s. It is a new way to get to know and explore the mountains during the winter, especially those who were already accustomed to mountaineering. In the space of a few decades the practice took two different paths: ski mountaineering and alpine skiing.  Mainly men tried their hand at Alpine skiing, but there were also women. There were many factors that supported the spread of skiing, especially Alpine skiing, that led to the mass phenomenon. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, many small villages in Cadore set up ski lifts to allow everyone, especially children, to explore this winter activity. 

Photo 12: Wedding Procession

The wedding processions, often noisy, which develop through the streets of the villages and accompany the spouses, are still a way to make the entire local community participate and aware of the event. In fact, marriage is never just a matter that involves two people and a small circle of relatives and friends, but has an obvious weight on social dynamics.  In the northern Apennine mountains, music and singing played an important role in wedding rituals. In the area known as "Quattro Province", Piacenza, Pavia, Genoa and Alessandria was the so-called piffero music to follow the newlyweds along the streets until their arrival at the church. The melodies were performed with the piffero (popular double reed oboe) and, until the thirties, with the müsa (Apennine bagpipe). 

The tradition, never completely abandoned, is now revitalized with the accordion accompanying the piffero.

Photo 13: Replenishing water

Before the running water was brought into the houses, towards the 1950’s and 1960’s of the twentieth century, the inhabitants of Pozzale and the region of Cadore used the water for domestic purposes by the fountains present in the districts of the villages or directly by the streams that crossed the villages. The supply of water for domestic use was mostly the task of women, who went to the fountains with buckets of embossed copper, wood or galvanized sheet metal. The containers were transported by hand or with a yoke. The parochialism, which still animates the population of Cadore, leads to judging the water of the various sources as "good" or "bad" in a process almost of identification between the character of the inhabitants of the country and its water. So the water of some sources seems to be the cause of the extravagant character of the inhabitants of certain villages.

Photo 17: Girls with pannier

The traditional activities in the mountains required frequent movements along the slopes to wait for the work of the forest, to follow the movements of the livestock, to take care of the land and the meadows. 
The transport of loads such as wood, hay, agricultural products, manure and more forced the use of means and tools which were differentiated according to the season, the slopes of the places, the availability or not of roads and not least to gender. Women mostly carried weights on their shoulders with the pannier (a basket with straps) and often these were very heavy and voluminous loads. The size and shape of the pannier could vary according to what had to be loaded and the height of the person, while a slightly padded base was used to protect the shoulders. Young and old were also hired every day to transport sand, stones, wood and much more. In the pannier, the anguane (mythological figures that populate the waters and the Cadore woods) kept their children breastfed by throwing long breasts on their shoulders. The pannier was a typically female means of transport, so much so as to enter as an identifying element of the female traditional costume, as can be seen from many vintage postcards.

Photo 22: Alpine Guide

For a long time, high elevation mountains were considered an inhospitable, distant, and mysterious place. But from the nineteenth century, the Alps began to attract tourists and hikers fascinated by the sublime and treacherous landscapes in a mixture of feeling of attraction and repulsion. Expert mountaineers, shepherds and chamois hunters, deep connoisseurs of their lands, are transformed into guides to accompany men and women on the mountains belonging, initially and for a long time, almost exclusively to an aristocratic elite. Only during the twentieth century, alpine tourism extended to all social classes, thus becoming tourism for the "masses".

The alpine people exploited their knowledge of the places to transform the activity of chaperone into a real job. The first association of mountain guides was founded in 1821 in Chamonix under the name of Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix.

Foto 64: Kalash, the last infidels of Asia

Enemies of Allah, infidels. One of the smallest and most combative populations of the Earth is called Kafir. But the thousand of Kafirs who have survived in a mountainous paradise in the midst of the rocky labyrinths of the Hindu Kush, who have never been tamed and have never been Islamized, proclaim themselves Kalash (Free Men). Three valleys in the high Pakistani Chitral remain of the ancient and legendary kingdom of Cafiristan: Rumbur, Bumburet, Birir. These valleys were full of pines, oaks, and walnut trees and swollen with rich waterways. Their existence is an anthropological rebus, a miracle of survival in an extreme environment. The Kalash Kafirs also declare themselves to be the “ last Greeks of India”; they claim they descend from the heroes of Alexander the Great's Invincible Armada which, in 326 B.C., passed through Cafiristan to conquer India. Anthropologists say that their story began four thousand years ago with the migrations of the Indo-Iranian peoples through the Oxus valleys (the Amu-Darja). Today, the Kafirs live increasingly in tight-knit communities of their eagle-nests, huddled against the mountain slope and connected by paths that flank pensile aqueducts. The Kafir fairies live in the purest lands of the peaks. They protect the ibexes, the shamans, the shepherd kings and all the wild and naked nature of the mountain tops. The Kafirs belong to a goat-based culture that preaches nomadism,the sacredness of the wilderness and the totem of the goats. Goats are a treasure to the Kafirs. A man's power is measured by the number of his goats. The symbol of the goat appears everywhere: on the doors to the granaries, on the wooden bowls of everyday use, on the embroidery of the tunics worn by the beautiful Kafir women who smile at you without veils or chador.

Italo Bertolasi

Photo 88: The Braids of Campoduno

The craft of braiders was an ancient and widespread means of livelihood for the peasant families of the Bolognese mountains. The craft was reserved mainly for women of any age who, from mother to daughter, handed down this manual skill through which simple twigs or threads of straw became long and sturdy braids. 

These braids were then sold and with them hats, shopping bags, and baskets were produced. In the winter, women were in the stables during the evening taking advantage of the natural heat of the animals. Since the wood used to heat the houses was reserved for the owners, the farmers were allowed to burn only the thinnest of sticks. While the braid was made, the whole community gathered to watch. 

We were in company and we had fun challenging each other in braid speed races, we sang and listened to the fulai (skilled storytellers who enchanted young and old with their imagination). On these occasions, under the watchful eyes of the elderly, the first loves among the young were born.

The photo portrays a group of braiders posing, intent on choosing the most suitable straw for the packaging of braids. We are in Campaduno, a village in the Savena valley, in the municipality of Monzuno, located in the heart of the Bolognese Apennines. A small and ancient village of stone houses, surrounded by oak, bramble and broom woods that is still inhabited and well preserved.

Photo 89: Madonie between religion, nature and culture

This is a photo of the sacred representation called "The Search for Christ ", which every year on Good Friday, recalls the ascent to the Calvary of Jesus Christ in Collesano, Madonie Park.  In the hands of a Brother in the congregation of the Most Holy Crucifix, to whom the organization is entrusted, nails can be seen with clear symbolic reference. 

Madonie Park, established in 1989, is located in the metropolitan city of Palermo. It is rich in biodiversity, flora, fauna, and it is of particular interest for the geological characteristics that have always been at the center of studies and research. It includes the Madonie mountain massif, located on the northern coast of Sicily, between the rivers Imera and Pollina. 

Since 2001, the Park has become part of the European Geopark UNESCO.

Extraordinary is the natural heritage that includes some endemic species such as the Abies Nebrodensis, (also called the Nebrodi and Madonie fir), an endangered species and unique in the world, that creates a microcosm in which nature and culture intertwine. 

Photo 93 Herb gatherers of Peloponneso

The small village of Kaisarion (Καισάριον) is located on the slopes of Mount Konomavra (όρος κωνομαύρα 1300 m a.s.l.m.), in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. The village square is home to a centuries-old plantain tree that with its large branches offers shade on summer days. The view from the square is a valley where there are the fields cultivated by the inhabitants. The main crops are lentils, wheat and grapes with which an excellent rosé wine flavored with pine resin is obtained. The woman in the photo is cleaning the vegetables she has collected in her vegetable garden and in the fields near home. They will need them to prepare in the wood-burning oven behind the house the spanakopita (Σπανακόπιτα), a savory pie stuffed with spinach (from σπανάκι 'spinach' + πίτα 'cake'). The cake is prepared with several overlapping sheets of flour and water, rolled very thin and greased with plenty of olive oil. The filling consists of spinach and other non-bitter leafy vegetables (such as chard, nettle, and borage), onion, wild fennel and feta, the typical Greek sheep's cheese. The photo dates back to the early 1990’s, and still today almost all the houses in the village have a wood-burning oven, which is lit every week to prepare bread and other products.