On the evening of the first of November at Orsara they set pumpkins out in the streets, the cocce priatorje, and light broom bonfires, the fuocacoste: the souls of purgatory come back that night, and the fires are there to comfort them. The sweet eaten then, boiled wheat with pomegranate and walnuts in cooked wine, is called muscetaglje here, perhaps from the French.
Orsara has not been Apulian for long: until 1927 it was in the province of Avellino, and between 1861 and 1884 it was called Orsara Dauno-Irpina. Next to the parish there is a Waldensian church, opened in 1934: the faith had been brought back, in 1900, by emigrants returning from the United States. Above the village, in the cave of San Michele, Basilian monks were praying as early as the eighth century.
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Near Orsara di Puglia
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