Italian Cowboys Keeping an Ancient Practice Alive
Andiamo, little dogies, andiamo! Photographer Gabriele Fanelli rides along with modern Italian cowboys keeping an ancient practice alive.
Most 21st-Century Ranchers move their livestock by truck or rail, but in Southern Italy’s Molise region, cheesemaker Carmelina Colantuono is steadfastly preserving a tradition that goes back at least 2,500 years. As summer approaches, Colantuono and a couple dozen friends, family members, and hired hands drive her 300 Podolica cows to cooler mountain pastures the hard way, traveling more than 100 miles along ancient herding paths in about five days – a journey called the transumanza. These trails, or tratturi, are practically etched in Colantuono’s DNA. The fourth-generation cattle rancher didn’t meet her father until two months after she was born, in April 1969, because he was in Puglia tending to the herds. Colantuono, dubbed “the last cowgirl,” couldn’t participate in the annual pilgrimages until she was 20. “Women were not allowed to ride,” she explains. “It was considered men’s work.” Ironically, she rarely gets to saddle up anymore because she’s too busy with logistics. Three months before the drive, Colantuono starts making calls to secure permits and arrange to stop or divert traffic in the 20 towns through which the cows march. “We do it,” she says, “out of respect for our history, respect for the sacrifices of our family, and to bring greater awareness of our culture to new generations.”
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