Favignana
REIS: Sicilian Intangible Heritage Register
Gioacchino Cataldo: Rais of the Tonnara
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Gioacchino Cataldo: Rais of the Tonnara

Given his passion for the sea and being 1,93 m tall and very robust in build, he was called by his fellow villagers "the giant of the sea". Because of his peaceful and overly friendly character, he was sometimes simply called "the gentle giant".

In 1997, together with thirteen other tuna fishermen, he founded the cooperative "La Mattanza" which took over the tuna fishery in the hope of being able to reorganize the tuna fishing and keep alive the tradition of the island.

He was a profound connoisseur of the sea and in particular of tuna fishing through the use of fixed traps, a millenary tradition that is now disappearing. He gladly told the traditions of this fishing, showing the connections with religion, through prayers, he explains the technical secrets of the nets, the paths of the tuna and rattles off all the numbers of what was also an industry.

Thanks to his size and imposing physical appearance as well as to the position of rais della tonnara, over the years, paired with deputy rais Clemente Ventrone, he has carved out the role of testimonial of the slaughter appearing in the postcards and in the most famous photos of the slaughter, while they harpoon and pull up huge tuna in their arms, dodging the blows of the fish's tails.

For his activity as a disseminator of the knowledge and traditions of this type of fishing, Gioacchino in 2006 was included among the "Living Human Treasures" of the Intangible Heritage Register of Sicily, a document prepared by the Sicilian Region to preserve the intangible riches of Sicily. island, and for this he is often cited as a "cultural heritage" man.

He was often called on television (he was a guest, among others, of Lineablu, and in an episode of the fifth edition of MasterChef) to tell the story of the slaughter and the typical products made from tuna and is cited as a source in several books on traditions of tuna fishing, both of recipes of Mediterranean cuisine.

Cataldo was one of the 18 protagonists of the permanent video installation TURIN at the former Florio factory in the Favignana and Formica tuna stations, now a regional museum. "TORINO" was born from a project to collect oral testimonies presented in visual form, conducted between a group of elderly workers from the Florio factory in Favignana. (SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA)

 

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Technical sheet prepared by: Region of Sicily - Department of cultural heritage and Sicilian identity - CRicd: Regional center for inventory, cataloging and documentation and Sicilian regional film library

34
Gioacchino Cataldo: Rais of the Tonnara
REI - Book of Living Human Treasures
25-01-2006
Living human treasure
Trapani
Egadi Islands
Favignana
 
The island of Favignana, south-west of Trapani, is the largest of the Egadi islands. Here a millenary rite is celebrated, the first historical memories of which date back to the last dark years of the Middle Ages: the slaughter of tunas.
Seasonal
From March to July
Tuna fishing during their passage along the Mediterranean coasts
Coordination of the slaughter
 
Island inhabitants and tourists
Gioacchino Cataldo, born in Favignana in 1941, is a profound connoisseur of the art of slaughter. Ex rais (from Arabic ra'is, or "boss", as the head of fishing operations), is a great promoter of the millenary tradition of tuna fishing.
By means of the construction of a "palace in the sea" (thirty thousand square meters large and thirty to forty meters deep), increasingly dense mesh nets lead the tuna, through a set path, to the death chamber, or to slaughter.
The instinct for reproduction brings tuna from Atlantic waters across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Mediterranean. They are tuna smaller and smaller and in much lower numbers than in past decades. This is also because only tuna arrive in the Mediterranean, escaping the gigantic nets of fishing boats, especially Japanese, settled in the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar.
Gioacchino Cataldo is also a profound connoisseur of the numbers of the slaughter, that is how many peaks, nets, boats, tuna, days and men, the so-called "tonnaroti". In the Camparia (from Sicilian live, so named by the workers of the tuna pbecause it gave work to many inhabitants of the island of Favignana), the tools of the trade are stored, mountains of nets and peaks, all made by hand, all expertly placed according to the destination and use. And Gioacchino Cataldo knows all his nets: those that are arranged first, crosswise, according to the four cardinal points; and then, gradually, the others, with increasingly dense meshes up to look like carpets, hoisted or lowered by the tuna fishermen, while songs of the work of ancient Arab origin support the fatigue of a job that combines physical strength and human intelligence.
 
AA.VV. 2008. Tuna fishing in Sicily. Palermo: Sellerio.
 
Round, Lorenzo. The old man without the sea, the last rais become a posterin  La Repubblica, August 18, 2015.
 
 
Sicilian folk music and songs, 1. Songs of work 
Eds. E. Guggino - G. Pagano. VPA 8206 (1974), ed. Albatros.
 
Paula Barbata
 

Web card insertion: Ignazio Caloggero

Photos:  

Information contributions: Ignazio Caloggero / Web

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