An Innocent Catharsis

This article examines a traditional sporting game played only during carnival that is based on the symbolic hunting and killing of a dummy ox in the streets of Offida, Italy. The Bove Finto (literally Fake Ox) attracts hundreds of players scrambling in crazed pursuit of a large dummy ox carried by an athlete from the committee who organizes this event once per year. The hunt is held in main streets, and, as the dummy ox fights back, it is cornered in the town square, where it is symbolically slaughtered at the end. This traditional pantomime hunt is part of a European legacy of bull sport rituals (corridas and encierros, that is, bullfights and bull runs) but is more recent than it might appear. A historical reading of this event highlights that, in the 1900s, local groups of youth in Offida used this rite to assert their presence and carve out a new role for themselves, challenging the upper classes through the hunt. Today, the younger generation is still the driving force behind this bloodless corrida and amusing encierro linked to carnival, with its characteristic excitement and alcohol consumption. This article offers an overview of the role of this fake hunt in relation to the town’s urban space and argues that further significance of this traditional pursuit lies in its promotion of local culture outside the globalized hegemonic sports sphere

Aesthetics · Art · Catharsis · Hegemony · Liminality · Literature · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Spectacle · The Symbolic · History · Law · Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society · Wine Industry and Tourism

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