The
Foundations of Strega
The origins of Strega is shrouded in mystery. One of the main reasons is
secrecy. One can say that it began on August 13, 1313 with the birth of Aradia,
"La Bella Pellegrina," but it is much older than that. People in the
Mediterranean had local gods and local folk lore. There were many ethnic groups
including the Latiums, Italics, and Etruscans who are directly connected to
Italian folk lore and were probably the ancestors responsible for the Italian
Witchcraft called Strega.
Way back in antiquity, people viewed Nature as sacred and there was no
difference between the sacred and profane. That is true all over the world.
Every group worshipped Nature in its own way. That's why one cannot assume that
Stregheria is a form of Wicca. It is a tradition that encompasses many tenents
of Wicca because of the commonality of experience and belief. The line does not
progress North to South in Europe, but perhaps, as I may tempt to show, the
other way around. At least in Modern Wicca, many authors, including Grimassi,
and others see the similarities of tenents and the Charge of Aradia. Charles
Godfrey Leland's book, "The Gospel of Aradia," mirrors in many ways
Doreen Valiente's" Charge of the Goddess." Since Leland's book was
written before Gerald Gardener's, one can safely assume Gardener probably took
the charge and Doreen reworked it. This is not the beginning of Strega,
although it may be the beginning of the modern version of Strega most Wiccans
adhere to.
Those of us who are from families which have been Strega for hundreds of,
maybe even thousands of years, do not call Leland the father of their
tradition. It is an oral tradition handed down from grandmother to mother to
daughter over generations. Yes, it is matrilineal. In Strega, there are also
many traditions. The Tuscan witch practices differently from the Sicilian
witch, or the Neapolitan witch. Why the word witch? It is not solely Wiccan to
be a witch. A witch is a wise woman, keeper of Nature's secrets. It is modern
Wicca which defines witch as a follower of witchcraft. A witch living in Italy
does not call him or herself Wiccan. He or she is Strega. A male witch is
called a Stregono, a female witch a Strega, and collectively they are Stregoni.
In Sicilian witchcraft, of which I am a member, only females can initiate.
That means a mother can initiate all of her off spring. A father cannot initiate.
The males are initiated by any member of the family who are initiated and who
are female. I know this sounds sexist, and perhaps it is, but this is the way
it has been done for centuries. The reasoning being that females hold the key
to life. Perhaps in the dawn of time, women were seen as magical beings in
which a baby sprang in the absence of the menstrual period. Or perhaps in the
mythology of the Stregas, Uni, the goddess of all, gave birth parthenogenetically,
a without male input, and so a new life, which is what initiation is, must come
out of the female. Also, every family has their own traditions and each is
different from the other, so one cannot say mine is correct, or yours is wrong.
This has been an argument for so long not only among Stregheria, but among all
Wiccans--sounds familiar doesn't it??
ROMANS, THE LARE AND THE LASA
There is a misconception that Strega is somehow connected with Classical
Roman religion. It is not. As I said earlier, Diana is an Etruscan deity first
and then subsumed into Roman mythology, and then Artemis, the Greek maiden deity,
is thought to have been copied by Romans and given the name Diana. The Romans
probably encountered Diana in Etruscan temples, and she was so similar to
Artemis that later archaeologists just thought they were the same.
In the Etruscan religion, much of it was ancestor worship. People honored
their ancestors and made them gods. They set up little shrines in their homes,
and worshipped and honored them. They were called the Lare. If you have ever
seen the movie "Gladiator" there is a scene in which Russell Crowe
honors his ancestors. This is a remnant of Etruscan worship. When Rome exported
its religion, those peoples they conquered were added to the empire and their
religious customs were added to the culture. However, conquered peoples, could
not use the term Lare for their ancestors so non-Roman citizens had Lasa
shrines. In the Imperial age of Rome, the religion became orthodox, or
organized much like today's religions; it was reserved for the elite, the
patricians, the nobles. The people or the plebians, still had their little Lare
shrines.
Finally, at least for now, Strega's roots can be found in those local folk
religions, in the peoples who colonized Italy. They developed the concepts
which can be found globally in all cultures in which Nature is sacred. Where
sacred space is found locally and not in a central place, in gods and goddesses
accessible and immanent, and not out there somewhere.