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Paper short abstract

Two songs from the Arbëresh-Italian villages of Puglia and Molise contain rich images of the natural world that evoke both longing for their ancestral homeland and a strong sense of belonging that centers their identity as custodians of Albanian language and cultural traditions deeply in place.

Paper long abstract

The people of 500-year-old Arbëresh communities in Puglia in southern Italy, whose ancestors fled the Ottoman invasion of Albania, have long navigated their dual identity as Italians and custodians of their Albanian language and heritage. Two songs in particular are rich with images of the natural world that evoke both longing for their ancestral homeland and a strong sense of belonging that centers their cultural traditions deeply in place. Their relationship with traditional songs allows connections with the past to be continually negotiated in the present.

In “Rine Rine,” a young girl is lured away from home by the charms of a distant, cloud-enshrouded mountain, and seeks to conceal her adventure from her mother. The mountain may represent Albania or the Apennines just visible on the horizon that, along with tantalizing images of olives and apples from orchards that span the hills and valleys between Arbëresh towns in the region, symbolize the generational fissures that have led young people to migrate away from southern Italy, and the painful experience of language shift that threatens the survival of Arbëreshë dialects.

In contrast, “Qifti” recounts the tale of a girl who ventures into the wild on a sunny spring day, and speaks with a hawk (qift), whose language she understands. The hawk leads her to a garden, where a special flower attracts her. Instead of being lured away, she returns home to her mother, content to “bloom where she is planted,” and finding joy in the language she shares with the hawk.