Shipping ethnological in Lucania 
Ernesto De Martino arrived in the land of Lucania in the 50s along with his team, which included also the photographer and film director Franco Pinna Luigi Di Gianni.
The ethnographic expeditions
demartiniane touched the community of Stigliano, Albano, Grasonville, Irsina, Viggiano and Savoy. In these places the ethnologist Naples started a thorough analysis of living conditions, both psychological and material, the peasants of the South
numerous writings, among which the essay "South and magic" where you look at the religious significance psychological and magical practices which they made use of the peasants of Lucania. One of the magical rituals are most often was that of fascination: the physical condition of exhaustion and fatigue, accompanied by headache. A real phenomenon characterized by the presence of so-called "agent charmer" and the victim, his ritual included the establishment of "magickal" (witches), who advised to treat fascinatura with a special ceremony, which varied from country to country. A Grottole, for example, they proceeded, after finding the evil eye, to discard the water used to see him being sick in the street in front of a pass so that he took upon himself the wrapping and free the victim. A Colobraro, however, the sorceress who work on the patient of the signs in the shape of a cross, pronouncing a specific formula. During the recitation of the spell, then took the yawn detector precise meaning and, depending on when this occurs, it could determine whether the appeal was the work of women or man. According to the analysis
demartiniana the use of magical practices was motivated by the need for protection in times of material insecurity (poverty) and psychological (madness, depression, etc.).. The ritual magic is particularly relevant, since the presence of individual protected from the risk of "lost". De Martino found that farmers were among the many phenomena of somnambulism, and dissociation of the personality and hallucinations caused - according to the scholar - the repressed impulses during the state of "wakefulness," which found expression in times of "no" individual . In these phenomena the identity of the person is lost or otherwise becomes very unstable, since the individual is lost as a center of decision and choice. In such conditions of instability of the presence of disintegration of personality engages the protective function of magical practices. In magic, then, institutionalizes the magical figure of specialist operators who have the task to absorb the negative and to restore the identity that is going to lose. The ethnographic explorations show the survival of several villages in Basilicata magical rites, not only the fascination, but also the possession, exorcism, the bill, which were closely linked to the insecurity of daily life and its moments. De Martino
By far the world's "archaic" and "subordinate" becomes the protagonist, breaks overwhelmingly in history and, although linked to superstition and prejudice, seeking redemption through rebellion. In this he differs from the neo-realist view, accusing them of "raising the dust rags, the mere staging of poverty, achieving effects of emotion, but isolating the misery in a total vacuum of significations." His philosophical training Croce De Martino led to the historicist interpretation of religious events, in contrast with the positivist theories. He started a "history of inferior societies" to deepen the knowledge of modern civilization by comparison with the traditional ones. According to De Martino humanity is conducted through the path and the contribution of the individual, the story is a continuous creation, momentum is vital and only if the people become the protagonists and can implement a social revolution. De Martino's work is an innovation in the field of ethnology original Italian and is a source of inspiration for many scholars of folklore, ethnomusicology and the study of popular religiosity.
