Description
Les devilettes (riddles) is a collection of notebooks dedicated to traditional Sicilian riddles, collected by ethnographer Giuseppe Pitrè. Each notebooks has a riddle handprinted on the cover, and inside the solution.
On the background of the cover, there are landscapes collected from the work of Sicilian painter Francesco Lojacono, an homage to Sicily. Little details that have the purpose of preserving memories and traditions in danger of being lost forever.
SIZE 14x20 cm
Edizioni Precarie (Precarious Edition) is a project that uses the traditional food-wrapping paper of the markets in Palermo to create notebooks. This paper has a very special consistency, with its patterns and colors and it gives life to unique objects that tell the story of Palermo's markets, a "precarious" reality which is slowly disappearing.
The disappearance of Sicilian traditions serves as a staring point for a deeper reflection on precariousness as a phenomenon of our time, which touches all.
Lists of riddles and their solutions (Indovinelli e soluzioni):
1) Havi lu focu n’ culu e non si bbrucia: lucciola
It has its butt on fire but doesn’t burn: firefly
2) Cunculina Cunculina 100 ova e 100 nida: melograno
Basin basin with 100 eggs and 100 nests: pomegranate
3) Mentri ca iu ti spuogghiu mi fai chianciri: cipolla
While I undress you, you make me cry: onion
4) Omu superbu, fimmina varbuta, piattu di stagnu, minestra minuta: sole, luna, cielo, stelle
Proud man, bearded woman, tin plate, soup with small objects: sun, moon, sky, stars
5) Si un mi muovu sugnu fimmina, si mi muovu sugnu masculu: aria, vento
If I don't move I'm a female, if I move I'm a male: air, wind (It's a play of words, because in Italian "air" is a feminine word, while "wind" is masculine).
6) La mandu fimmina, mi torna masculu: uva, vino
I send it female, it comes back male: grapes, wine (the play of words here is again with feminine and masculine words in Italian)
7) Cciù assai ni pierdu, cciù assai n'haju: sonno
The more I lose it, the more I have it: sleep
