The ritual starts about at 8 in the morning when the procession of the statue of the Pieta begins from one of the small village churches. The "Vattienti" (beaters) are dressed in black with their head covered with a crown of thorns. Each of them is accompanied by a local boy covered by a red cloth and caring a cross called "acciomu" (Ecce Homo, in latin as said by Ponzio Pilato she he saw Jesus before the crucifixion), a symbolic sign of connection with Jesus Passion. The vattiente runs in to the village street hitting his legs with a cork containing glass bits, when he cross the Virgin Mary statue he stops and start flagellating him self