The Procession of snake-catchers
Cocullo is famed in Italy and abroad because a most characteristic event takes place there yearly on the first Thursday in May, which is the feast-day of Saint Dominic the Abbot, Patron Saint of the village. Namely this event is a Procession, a form of ancient ritual, in which the main “actors” are real, live snakes. This ritual was originally connected to the marsican dwellers’ ascent oer snakes, as described by Pliny the Elder, but it was subsequently assimilated into the Cristian tradition and was placed under the aegis of Saint Dominic the Abbot. He was a Benedectine monk who lived around the year thousand, and was named the protector against all natural dangers, in particular those causedby wild animals such as poisonous snkes, wolves, rabid dogs and so forth. The climax of the feast-day is when the statue of the Saint is brought out of the church, draped in live snakes, and carried in procession through the village.
