Greg’s Reviews > Granite island: portrait of corsica > Status Update

9. Heretics and Revolutionaries
The desolate interior - the Giovannali - a Franciscan heresy - a Corsican revolution - village welfare states - Carbini in decay

7. Penitents and Bandits
Aftermath of a murder - storm and illness - the gentry of Sartène - vendetta and violence - death of a bandit - Franciscans - a penitential procession

6. Law of the Land
Unwritten law - code of the vendetta - domestic animals - archaic honour - appeasing the dead - church versus vendetta - law versus vendetta - funeral rites - bandits of honour - the death of honour

5. Aristocracy and Honour
Living from the land - Sinucello della Rocca - Vincentello d'Istria - Olmeto and Propriano - the Evil Eye - a murder - honour of women - marriage

4. Night-Hunters Of Souls
Prophetic dreams - spirits of the dead - mazzeri - bilocation - exorcism - Destiny - similar beliefs in Africa - in Australia - meeting a mazzere
'Every detail of my first visit to Filitosa is deeply engraved in my memory, for on that day I entered Corsican life and became part of it.'

This is brilliant, an education.

"The prevailingly egalitarian character of Corsican society ensured that there was no landless proletariat, no hard-and-fast class structure, and in spite of a general low standard of living, no destitution. Alone among the peoples of Europe the Corsicans avoided feudal and capitalist oppression."