'Where Donkeys Go to Die'

• In Event: Islands of Memory and the Memory of Islands

Abstract

The dialectal word kulah, which is still attested in the Kornati Islands, resembles other similar words in villages along the Dalmatian coast (e.g., Sveti Filip i Jakov) and in the Elaphiti Islands to the south. The fact that this word designates open sea on the Adriatic alone is explained by its derivation from the old Venetian “colfo” or gulf. It is an old reference to the water “out there” as the Gulf of Venice. This is one example among many others of the ways in which the language, or languages, of the islands and coastal region in question often retain aspects of history and historical practices long since past. In this presentation, I wish to explore a curious aspect of the association of Dalmatia with the donkey, which is so well-known as to be both a stereotype and an insult. But I wish to do so through the prism of island life, where a good donkey, as Vladimir Skračić puts it in his 2021 “intimate lexicon,” Kornati, kad su bili Kurnati, could “like a boat, have the status of an institution.” The very long history of donkeys in the islands is also reflected in the practice, which is older than anyone living could possibly remember, of naming islands after them—thus the many Ošljaci (singular Ośljak or Ośjak) in the eastern Adriatic. That this word is not a name for a donkey used in any of the languages of the region today helps to indicate both the age of the naming practice and the respect accorded the donkey in the region. Finally, I’ll return to the stereotype and the diminishing role of the donkey in the islands of today.

Author

• Russell Scott Valentino, Indiana U Bloomington