Terracotta, red clay
Tubular whistle in right horn
100mm (h)
Siracusa, Sicily
20th century
One of the most striking things I recall from the Carnival of my childhood is the deafening sound of whistles in Valletta.Whistles in those days were made of tin or plastic. Noise and Carnival have always been synonymous. Devil masks were also commonly worn by revellers during this period. Carnival was the devil's hour - a time of havoc, when all the illicit took over and the normality of life was totally overturned - just as it was in the Greek Dionysia and the Bacchanalias of the Romans.
This Sicilian toy whistle is a small mask with the whistle cut into one of the horns. It was among a number of terractta whistles of different shapes being sold on a small make-shift stall close to the market of Siracusa.
