Enna has always been a city devoted to religion. In old times, the people of Enna buried the dead by digging small rooms in the rock, usually facing south. In the room, painted terracotta vases were placed next to the corpse. Tombs have been excavated that included well-preserved skeletons and red- and black-figure vases. Sometimes in the mouth of the skeleton was found a coin. The Greeks believed that to get to Hades (the kingdom of the dead), souls had to pay a fee of one coin to Charon, who ferried the dead across the Acheron, a river that divided the world of the living from that of the dead.
These days, the tombs in Enna look like small houses with niches inside. Sometimes an epitaph is engraved in the tomb. Here is one:
Death is a melter.
It gathers souls here and there.
Souls of the rich, souls of the poor,
Souls of the noble, souls of the plebeian.
It then puts them into its crucible where
All souls become ONE
This is an excerpt from November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily.
Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily
– A Hidden Sicilian History
– The Vibrations of Words
– Travels of the Mind
Ettore Grillo's Blog 