At the end of the 1500s, in an age of dark superstition, witches, spells, the Inquisition and bewitched amulets were the echo of a distant world, steeped in magic and mystery. Even in Sardinia, the shadow of credulity stretched through alleys and squares, where people believed in witches and these women were hunted, tortured, tried and killed in the name of a twisted God, a God who lived only in the minds of men.

Julia Carta, born in Mores but who lived most of her sad existence in Siligo, was one of those women unjustly accused, questioned, tried and condemned without proof. Her life, once no different from that of many other girls raised in poverty, had turned into a calvary. She had learned the art of spinning, weaving and sewing. Then her grandmother, feared and respected as a ‘bruxia’, passed on to her the secret knowledge of plants and their effects, along with arcane spells that Julia had to memorize.

Marriage to the farmer Costantino Nivola and the move to Siligo marked the start of a new life, where she met Tomasina Sanna, a powerful healer. From her, Julia learned methods to treat ‘dolor de costato’ and the art of amulets: the ‘punghe’ that protect from enemies, made by gathering in a little bag the ashes of a linen handkerchief that held some coins. And from wandering gypsies she learned to watch the fire and the tongue of the flames.

It was the late 1500s when, because of a denunciation by a girl who told the parish priest she had heard Julia voice particular ideas and beliefs about the sacrament of confession, Julia ended up in the dock: arrested, tried and deemed guilty of heresy. After atrocious torture, she was forced to recant and wear the sambenito, a garment used by Christians to show everyone their repentance. Declared a formal heretic, apostate from the faith and idolater of the devil, the papers do not make clear what the final sentence was, but some sources claim she escaped the stake and was sentenced to wear the sambenito for the rest of her life.

The AmmaJare festival (ammajare, in Sardinian, means to bewitch) was created with the aim of dealing with those who, over the years, have been unjustly persecuted, tried, mocked, insulted and forgotten. The witch hunt, a phenomenon that has crossed the centuries, today shows itself in virtual stonings on social media of people who, at times, have expressed only their own opinion. But not only. There are those “persecuted by justice” who, because of an incredible judicial error, ended up caught in the prison net while innocent. 

The festival, however, also wants to examine the magic of time, of what happens in small villages, their traditions, their religiosity mixed with their paganism.

Sometimes we are bewitched by horrible or magical events; we are fascinated by the unknown, the world of the dead, the unconscious, what we do not know, the labyrinths of human misery. 

With the Ammajare Festival, we would like to draw close to a world that seems gone, destroyed, covered by the shards of history and that, instead, reappears forcefully wearing the clothes of an ancient modernity. 

Ammajare festival  aims to be  a new place where we can find all the little pieces of a puzzle to rebuild through the frame of existence. Old and new inquisitions, new ways to read society through false myths and old beliefs.