cookieless, no-ads, no threats canyon exploring with
Michele Angileri

Burrone Muricello

Burrone Muricello's canyon gradually becomes more tight and majestic as it approaches to the confluence into Burrone Iornito.
It has a few cascades, all located in the tightest part. One of them is stunning, surrounded by tall overhanging walls that make a dark atmosphere.
Descent continues through the majestic corridors of Burrone Iornito.

I remember ...

These hills are re-wilding, like many other parts of Italy. Many plots of land are still cultivated, but others are abandoned and more will be soon as the old people who still cultivate them will die. The agriculture and breeding that can be done on these hills no longer seem to be of interest in comparison to other more comfortable and perhaps profitable works, despite the fact that today tractors, machines and fertilizers make agriculture easier. A few decades ago, however, things were different ...

In 1949 the locals were hungry, and wanted to cultivate the untilled grounds of latifundia. They were protesting, asking for the application of the decrees issued by agriculture minister Gullo, which gave peasants the possibility to take possession of the uncultivated land. And they occupied land, traced borders through the latifundia.
The Fragalà estate, on the right bank of Iornito Ravine, in the territory of Melissa, was also occupied. The landowners asked and obtained the intervention of the police, in Melissa as in the rest of southern Italy.
On the morning of October 30, 1949, the police entered the Fragalà estate and tried to expel the occupying peasants by force. The farmers resisted, the police opened fire. Three peasants were killed, fifteen were injured.

Nowadays nobody seems to care of living here and cultivating these lands. Only a small memorial lost in the hills remembers the fallen of Fragalà, and refers us to a recent yet far time when these hills teemed with life and work.

Copyright © 2002- Michele Angileri. All rights reserved.