Lu tempu di li pisci spata

Between April and August, the swordfish goes to spawn in the warm waters that separate Sicily from Calabria. It surfaces near Bagnara Calabra, follows the coast to Scilla and then, after crossing the strait, goes up from Messina to Punta Faro and disappears.

Along this route, man waits to kill it.

The fishermen of Bagnara, Scilla and Ganzirri spy the waters ready to identify their traditional prey. The wait is long, exhausting. The men rest ready to grab the oars. The silence is punctuated by the lapping of the waves, by the monologue of the old men who remember the times of abundance. And suddenly the lookout's cry resounds, the oars hit the water and the small boats quickly plough through the waves. The lookout's voice guides the boats, it is the eye and the brain of the hunt. It must take into account the direction of the fish, the current, the light. If the swordfish are paired, they must be separated and the female killed first, as the male will then be easy prey. The chase continues, the fury of the hunt revives unsuspected energies in men. The small boats push out to the center of the strait and the mirror of the water carries the cries and incitements to the shore, hoarse and muffled. The harpooner standing on the bow spots the swordfish zigzagging ahead of the boat, three meters below the water line, bluish, gray, silvery, iridescent, and tries to escape death. Sometimes the prey sinks and disappears, sometimes, struck directly in the heart, remains inert and lifeless. Often it drags the rope with it into the deep sea. Then the voices cut short by the breath, the whispered orders comment on the anxiety of the man, anxiety for the capture that is also the reason for living and they comment on the drama of the prey that, wounded, on the bottom, tries to free itself from the harpoon by rubbing its back against the rocks. The rope transmits to the harpooner, with its vibrations, the fate of the hunt and a long experience, an ancestral, deep-rooted instinct that takes advantage of it for the maneuver. In the evening, at sunset, the men return to the shore. The women, the old men, the children crowd tumultuously on the beach. The children dance. The solemn and majestic women carry the fish on their heads to the fish market.