| Chapter 4: | Sicilian Folklore and American Comics |
the Sicilian Vespers. In 1282 the Sicilian people rebelled against their French oppressors in what came to be known as the Sicilian Vespers. My grandparents told me that the French couldn’t pronounce a Sicilian word and were killed because of that deficiency in their speech. In their accounts of this popular uprising they never told me that Spanish oppressors replaced the French oppressors. As a child I believed the conclusion of this rebellion was an independent Sicily ruled by Sicilian freedom fighters. Years later, my grandfather said, Garibaldi, “the greatest leader in history,” convinced the Sicilians to join a united Italy. And they joined willingly because of their high regard for Garibaldi.
East Harlem didn’t have puppet theaters but grandpa and grandma had been exposed to puppet theaters in Sicily in their youth and knew many of the stories presented by Sicilian puppeteers. My grandparents introduced me to stories based on the chivalry the Normans transplanted in Sicily. Since my childhood I have been fascinated with Charlemagne and his paladin court. Norman stories often reappear in American comic books. Verga’s Don Candeloro, a puppeteer, is one of the most unforgettable characters in Italian literature. My behavior toward women was influenced in part by the puppet theater stories I learned from my grandparents in East Harlem. The idea that women deserve respect was a part of my Sicilian-Norman education in New York.
Many of the Sicilian fables would be considered science fiction stories in our time. I became a storyteller since I was exposed as a child to Sicilian folklore. I invented stories as a child for my friends. I became an historian in my adult years. Historians are storytellers