Magic, death and the bite of the tarantula - Ernesto De Martino's studies in South-Italian folk culture

The scientific heritage of Ernesto De Martino has been received in Europe in many ways. In this study, the authors describe the subjects, the methods and the results of De Martino's three most important studies in South-Italian folk culture: 1. of the evolution of the funeral lamenting from antiquity to the present day (1958); 2. of the magical practices still in use in Lucania and surrounding regions (1959); 3. of the history of the so-called tarantism of Puglia, a magic-religious practice concerning the treatment of crisis originating in the bite of a mythic spider, the 'tarantula' (1961). The authors intend to highlight the originality of De Martino's contribution to the methodologies of field research and of data analysis in the realm of magic folk culture.