Nagy Gyula: Parasztélet a vásárhelyi pusztán (A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 4. Békéscsaba, 1975)

Idegennyelvű kivonatok, képaláírások, képek

barn. Hay and straw was stored outside the yard as haylofts were not made here and the trading out of the seeds took place outdoors. As a result of an official order back-houses were built at most of the farms though not used in every case from the beginning of our century. The author gives the description of the winter and summer life of the farms in separate subchapters. The materials of fuel were corn-stalk, corn-cob, weeds, straw and dung as the area is rather poor of wood. People gave light to their house with an oil lamp or sometimes some candles. Wintertime they ate in the room warmed with the oven; and after its demolition in the warm kitchen. On a winter day they usually had two meals a day; first after finishing the morning works between 9—10 hours. This time they ate sansages made of chitterlings or meat, bacon, some kind of griddle cake, mush, chips or corn pone etc. Bread had a very important role in their meals. It was always eaten with the meats. It had a definite order of where to sit and how to take the helping. The second meal was in the afternoon between 3—4, when they had some soup and an other type of cooked meals. 20

th century brought a change in the repast practice as they began to eat thrice a day even in wintertime. In this system they had a light breakfast at about 7—8 a.m. a huge dinner at noon and a supper when they usually had the leavings from dinner at about 6 o'clock in the evening. The costums of sleeping is also dealt. Young lads — sons of the farmer or the farm-hand — slept in the stable, all the others in the house. One get acquainted with the winter plan of work the "alibi-works" involved when the actual working activity is as important as the social gathering. Summertime the rythm of life was different from this in allignment with the needs of the works on the field. At the period treated here people had already ate twice daily but the meal breaks were shorter as they strove to use their time most purposefully from early morning till late at night. The places of sleeping were more at variance and its duration got shorter, too. Chapter 5

th holds together those activities that were made regularly once or twice in a year or even more rarely. As so these works were not in strict connection with the daily plan of work. From time to time the buildings needed mending; not to say that all generations made some kind of refashioning on them. So the demolition of the "open chimneys" and the ovens or the removal of this later into the yard and the building of new modern chimneys as a result of these changes took place regularly. Adobes for these works and also for the reperation of the walls were made by landless specialists. The roofing made of reed also needed a permanent mending. Most of the farmers substituted it with roof tile or slate covering during the first half of the twentieth cenrury. This process made necessary in most cases the substitution of the whole roofing, too. The thin mud overlay on the walls made of adobes or mud dropped down from time to time. Its replacement had to be done yearly by the women. If perhaps to lie the walls with clay was not necessary be done yearly but it was to whitewash the walls within and without. This was women's work as well as the daily cleaning and the big house-cleanings. On Saturdays there was a bigger cleaning in the farm-house. Then they spread muddy water over the earthen floor of the room and the kitchen. Big house cleanings were done mostly before greater feasts parallely with the whitewashing. They whitewashed their rooms only once a year but more frequently the oven, the kitchen — twice — and the larder — generally before the thrashing. Dung mixed up with straw and chaff was regularly used as fuel. These materials were well trampled down, spread flat, cut with a spade into brick-like pieces or put into brick forms and let them dry out on the sun. After these it was kept in cone-shaped groups in the yard. People considered its fire of a good quality. Once or twice a year there was the pig-killing one of the greatest events of the farm. Having winter frost set in the fires the killed pigs are signed on are burning on the farm 636 •