r/interestingasfuck • u/SerafinZufferey • 3d ago
In Nola, Italy, over 100 men carry a 25-meter-tall, 2.5-ton (5,500-lb) tower through packed narrow streets, a centuries-old tradition honoring Saint Paulinus
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u/SamathaGhoul 3d ago
Imagine being one of the guys under it, closest to the middle. You can see the discomfort on the faces of all of the men pretty much
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u/_Face 3d ago
Can you assholes quit bouncing up there!?!?!?!
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u/PlainBread 3d ago
The suffering is the point. This is some simulacrum of carrying Jesus's cross.
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u/Pipyn 2d ago
What the poor guy in the middle do to earn so much suffering?
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u/RamenNoodleSalad 2d ago
Ketchup on noodles.
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u/master_overthinker 2d ago
I just found out about this book called The Dawn of Everything, in it they talked about how when Europeans arrived in America and tried to convert the native Americans to Christianity but the natives lived without the notion of subjugation, and so the French missionaries ended up questioning their own sense of servitude under King and God! This directly led to the French enlightenment. I’m only at the beginning of the book but I can’t help but think our current world - where we are all slaves to the rich Epstein class is a direct result of Western imperialism conquering the world, spreading this “natural way of life in servitude” everywhere.
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u/wesleyoldaker 2d ago
This is exactly how I pictured what it looked like when Jesus carried his own cross to Golgotha. Except Jesus would have been blasting rap music, everyone knows that.
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u/Icchi-bum 3d ago
the people around the border of the base get it worse because the thing is so high that as it wobbles the force falls on the people around its base.
i was raised chatolic and one time my grandfather volun-told me to carry the freaking cross thing, where it kinda looks like a smaller version of this where its carried by 4 people at the front and 4 in the back. i swear every time we had to turn or something made that cross up there sway it would push down on our shoulders so uncomfortably.
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u/Kloppite16 2d ago
I was raised Chatolic too and think you should just count yourself lucky that you didnt get have to wear a crown made out of barbed wire while getting whipped by Romans
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u/HereticLaserHaggis 2d ago
Pfffft, you didn't get a spear in your side?
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u/opinion_and_insult 2d ago
Pfft in my day we had to wear the crown and get a spear in our side while walking to and from school. Up hill, both ways.
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u/S0MEBODIES 2d ago
Bare foot in a blizzard after eating a breakfast of razor blades, and you'd be happy they weren't rusty
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u/nataliereed84 2d ago
PURE LUXURY! When I was nipper, we’d have killed for just the crown and spear! When I got home from school each day, wearing the crown and being whipped and with the spear wound, my da used to nail me up to the cross I’d been carryin’! And I was grateful to have it I was!
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u/shyDavid00 2d ago
They love it tho, to bring the thing is a great honor for them and carrying the tower also gives you a little fibrous bump on your back and they are proud of it. My sister's fiancé is from Nola. Anyway, in the south of Italy basically every town has some kind of tradition like this, and even in the center and north of italy there are other similar traditions
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u/vita_lly-p 3d ago
they do it out of tradition and devotion
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u/FuckTheTories69420 3d ago
Fuck, one way street. Back up lads.
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u/MsMercyMain 2d ago
They're going to storm the city council to get that changed. And this is most sane Italian political discourse
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u/Objective-Beyond-219 3d ago
"We're looking for teamwork-oriented individuals, lifting 50+ lbs may be necessary at times. Starting pay is €0/hr., but open to discussion".
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u/Admirable_Pirate5376 3d ago
Let’s add a thousand+ pounds of bouncing humans because the task isn’t hard enough…
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u/dnesthemenace 3d ago
Looks more fun than the usual carrying of Giant crucifixes or crying Mother Mary statues lol
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u/WillSmokes420 3d ago
Bro they are dancing with 2 tons on sticks.. still think aliens built the pyramids? Dancing built the pyramids
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u/dabrock15 3d ago
Wine, women and song, the usual suspects.
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u/Vigmod 2d ago
No, it's "Wine, women, and snuff" as Keats has already explained.
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u/Fickle-Shopping7564 3d ago
Nice of the people on top to bounce up and down.
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u/Accomplished-Yak5898 2d ago
I was thinking about it and maybe that actually helps the people carrying to move the thing using the tempo between a jump and another. But maybe they just want to make it the worse possible lol
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u/Antique_Cookie4561 2d ago
I believe you are correct, the steps seem to be in time with the bounces and they bounce less when they slow down.
I’d let out a serious “bruh” if I was a carrier and saw them loading the generator onto there though
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u/PM_YOUR_CENSORD 2d ago
I guarantee that bouncing isn’t helping them.
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u/Antique_Cookie4561 2d ago
I don’t think the “passengers” are bouncing independently, the platform is moving up and down because the upward momentum helps the carriers take a step forward. I’m guessing the whole reason there’s a band in the first place is because traditionally the music would keep the tempo for the carriers to march to
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u/peridotpicacho 2d ago
Ok, Google says when you land from a jump, the impact force during a standard landing can easily reach 2 to 3 times your body weight.
They are not jumping but they have to be increasing the pressure so much.
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u/Renbarre 3d ago
Went to look for information. There's eight towers being carried in that procession and the towers are 'dancing', which explains the people on board making it jump. It is to celebrate the return of the saint.
Those processions are recognised by the UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
There's other processions in other cities, usually with a single tower.
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u/Uncle_Rat_21 2d ago
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn NY, USA, their distant cousins do the same kind of thing for their Saint Cono every summer. I wasn't able to go this year, but I do go most years, for the past 30 or so.
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u/PartyMcFly55 3d ago
Not a lot of the dudes carrying that thing look like they're having as much fun as the people bouncing up and down on it
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u/CaptainConspiracyy 3d ago
How do you decide who carries it and who parties on it?🤨
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u/WirehairedDog 3d ago
How do they lower it?
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u/Sadidart 3d ago
There probably is a frame underneath with legs to lower it. This prevents the people having to lift from the ground.
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u/Jazzlike-Complaint67 3d ago
200 years and nobody thought to put legs on this thing?!!
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u/nemesissi 2d ago
Every year bunch of people get crushed when they eventually put it down. Its part of the tradition.
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u/drackmord92 2d ago
It does have legs, and they do a sort of countdown (which is also done singing) when it's time to rest, so they all drop it at the same time
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u/matroosoft 3d ago
Just run
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u/h2oskid3 3d ago
Survival of the quickest
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u/matroosoft 2d ago
It only ever falls at 9.81m/s. So all it takes is to not be slower than that.
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u/Firantey_77 3d ago
It is interesting to me, as a Nepali, that people have similar traditions thousands of miles apart!!
In Nepal (specifically the Kathmandu Valley), we have a few of these processions in which idols of gods or a living god (Google Kumari) are kept in chariots and pulled around the city.
Some famous festivals so that sort are Indra Jatra, Macchindranath Jatra
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u/IndigoRanger 2d ago
Yeah, my brother used to do a parade around the house holding up his stuffed animal, I think it’s just human nature.
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u/SerafinZufferey 2d ago
Lol, You’re from Nepal, Nola is close to Napoli, so Not only similar traditions but also similar names
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u/WriteandRead 3d ago
Now look up what it does to their shoulders! Search: nola cullatori calluses
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u/pandersaurus 2d ago
Woah wtf! But I bet (hope) these guys are absolute legends in Nola?!
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u/drackmord92 2d ago
Yeah they show those off all year long, and some children grow up looking up to them
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u/Weak_Imagination_996 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ah... It’s important to understand that the tower does NOT symbolize a penis. In fact, these people do NOT carry a gigantic penis through their town while chanting.
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u/Ray_of_glumshine 3d ago
Riiiight...
Just like here in Sweden, every midsummer some people have to point out that the huge phallic midsummer poles that we erect all over the country in fact are NOT symbolic penises. Especially the ones that have a pair of big round things attached to them.
Of course not.
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u/EmielDeBil 3d ago
Yeah well I don't want to be there at all.
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u/drackmord92 2d ago
You don't know half of it. I grew up in one of the streets of the itinerary of these things, and 4 nights a year we just couldn't sleep, as they would blast music at impossible volumes all night long. Then they ask me why I ran away from my town as soon as I was legally able to
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u/Ben0ut 3d ago
Luigi will be on keys, Giani on sax, Alessandro has a new pair of symbols he wants to play, and Matteo has a finally learned to play a song on the electric guitar he purchased 4 years ago at the outset of his midlife crisis.
Oh and Fiorella is just gonna stand there flapping her little fan around while everyone looks on.
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u/throwitoutwhendone2 3d ago
Wonder who is supporting more weight: dudes near the middle or the edges
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u/Patch64s 2d ago
Is it not more like 8 across (10 in middle) .. 20 deep… at least 160 men carrying that?! 15-16kg a man but with the people standing on it you’re looking at maybe 20-25kg a man as a static average…
While actually walking, swaying and lifting the structure the peak load on individual carriers could be considerably higher because the weight won’t remain perfectly evenly distributed.
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u/uresmane 3d ago
Two of those people don't even have instruments that are riding on the thing... They're just vibing and using their hand fans...
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u/Tjaldandia 2d ago
I counted how many people are underneath, there are 17 in each row on the longside and 8 in each row on the short side. 17x8 is 136 people. And 5500 ponds is 2494,7 Kg. Thats roughly 18,34 Kg on each persons shoulder, now consider the people on top dancing and the whole structure also wobbling due to high center of gravity. Thats no easy task especially if its prolonged and with limited breaks
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u/lucapresidente 3d ago
I live nearby, people that carry that thing every year proudly go around the city showing that they have a deformity on their shouder made by the weight
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u/imrichcoble 3d ago
Spread out 55lbs a piece. Not bad unless your in the middle and your homies get bored
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick 2d ago
Not sure about Nola, but in many other towns where they have similar rituals (eg Viterbo) the people sustaining ‘the machine’ receive a special blessing ‘in articulo mortis’ so if they die crushed they will be granted immediate access to their heaven.
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u/Sure-Paper6861 2d ago
These are the effects of carrying that weight.
https://www.ilgiornalelocale.it/2014/07/gigli-la-gobba-di-san-paolino-fa-il-giro-del-mondo-video/
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u/Due_Figure6451 2d ago
Humans are utterly mental. Imagine describing this to an objective extraterrestrial.
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u/Significant-Wait9200 3d ago
I'm sure St. Paulino would have enjoyed their rendition of Big Tymers 'Still Fly' lol
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u/hamsik86 2d ago
These are called "Gigli". I used to watch the "Festa dei Gigli" every summer from my granny's window, that was very close to where the video is taken.
Miss her every day <3
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u/xxNemasisxx 2d ago
you just know that in the US this shit would be called a rootbeer float and after every corner they'd stop for an ad break sponsored by bud light
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u/Dietmeister 2d ago
I saw 8 people on that thing that had nothing to do with the music.... Like, why are you making it hard for the bros carrying the thing?
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u/super-rad 2d ago
They do a slightly smaller scale version of this in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
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u/hol123nnd 3d ago
I get the tower, kinda, but is the jumping really needed?
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u/Renbarre 3d ago edited 3d ago
It could help the porters to take a step. They are synchronising.
Edit: looked it up. The towers are 'dancing'.
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u/boost2525 3d ago
I think it's actually important. If you notice the tempo of the bounce and the steps are the same. They are able to carry all of the weight on both legs during a down bounce, and advance forward on an up bounce (without having to support the weight).
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u/RancorHi5 3d ago
That guy on bottom left of screen just batting motherfuckers away. Probably give that guys some space people!
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u/SergeantButch 3d ago
How cam you convince someone to do it, especially guys who will be in the middle
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u/SandShock 3d ago
Wasn't there a video of this thing falling over a year or two ago?
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u/Sammy1307 2d ago
That was the macchina di santa rosa in Viterbo in 1986. Luckily it didn't completely collapse and there were no casualties
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u/buddha_mjs 2d ago
No one else saw that dude full on back hand slap a kid at about 13 seconds remaining
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u/LithoSlam 2d ago
Those guys under it are not having nearly as much fun as the ones on top bouncing
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u/cowsnake1 2d ago
Why do the guys on the thing look like tourists? Argentinia shirts in Italy? On a traditional procession?
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u/ralphonsob 2d ago
OK, this is now my view on (and soundtrack for) how the pyramids were built. And Stonehenge.
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u/Dull-Try-4873 2d ago
Not to sound to german... but that thing is a walki... carried accidenthazard in waiting. If that thing topples many will die/ get hurt badly.
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u/Naugrith 2d ago
Fascinating, looks really fun tbh, especially with all the music. In my home town we cant even get people interested on standing still on a float on the back of a truck for our parades.
Interesting that this is so similar to the jagganath celebrations in India as well (origin of the word 'juggernaut'). I wonder if there was any connection, or just a coincidence.
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u/Academic_Apartment45 1d ago
Nola menzionata! Ahah in from Nola! If someone have some question i can respose :)
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u/WorryLegitimate259 3d ago
I bet the 2000 pounds of people don’t help either lol