The proponents of theory of the nuraghe-temple they claim that within the large shaped buildings truncated cone religious rites took place. Oracle, incubation, yes, but also others… Those relating to birth, puberty, marriages or the avoidance of diseases or plagues.
That seems to have been a common practice of the killing of the elderly – moreover, attested in all areas of Sardinia and in all primitive peoples – through brutal methods. Not a light death, the one that was reserved for them: beaten savagely with sticks, they were then pushed into the cliffs.
There is an explanation and it is also logical: in the tribes (who were constantly fighting for survival) we could not even think of those who, due to advanced age or illness, were no longer able to look after themselves. Let’s then think about the travel: he was more burdensome than anything else.
Some claim that this ritual took place in a climate of profound religiosity, inside the nuraghe. According to some theories, the temples arose near chasms at the top of hills for this macabre reason. This practice is remembered in many places. In Gairo, for example.
A rite similar to that of the suppression of the old is that of the killing of the sick. More or less, there are the same reasons.
“Accabbadoras”, this is the name of the women who put an end to the suffering starting from the Nuragic era and up to the last century.
Massimo Pittauin search of connections between Nuragic Sardinians and Etruscans, would have found a mirror with a depiction of Atropos in Perugia, the Fate who had the task of cutting the thread of life: in his hands, a matzolu similar to slayer’s hammer. That instrument, therefore, had a funeral-funeral function, of “Good death”.
The hammer blow was therefore the end of suffering, certainly not a punishment.
Not dying was a punishment on the island. It was worse than death itself.
“101 whys about the history of Sardinia that you cannot fail to know”, Antonio Maccioni, Newton Compton
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