A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 3. - 1960 (Nyíregyháza, 1963)

Nyárády Mihály: The Grave posts from the Cevetery in Szatmárcseke

In the same place I found three posts quite old without any date of year. They probably date from the end of the 19-th century. They had again six edges above their eaves and five ones below them. In other respect, however, they were very different from the newer posts. On the front-edge of one kind of the old posts I did not found but altogether three „lace"-indents (vvv). (Table XII 1.) On the front-edge of the other one — going to fall out at that time — there was an indent similar to a bracket (Picture 59,2) and as above as below it an indent each, both like to a lace-indent (v). Table XII. 2.) The third kind of posts strikingly differred from the others. Though its top likewise edged but this edge ran through between the two sides of it. There was a front-edge on it but the indents did not take place on this but on the two side

—edges of its front. And as to these indents they were not similar to a single bracket but a series of brackets (Picture 59,4). Further, on the eaves there was a series of lace-indents. (Tabl. XV. 1.) 2. Of the inhabitants of Szatmárcseke too, I was inquiring about the posts. The most interesting of the informations was I got from Joseph Boné, one of the postcarvers. As he said the posts for people of the community were made by carpenters and wheelers of this place. It was he who began to make the large-sized posts (with verstson them) in 1920. He explained the mode of post-making. The most interesting of his explaining for me, was they called the indents on front-edge „hungarian moustache". This stands for the simple indents of the three old posts (Pict. 59,2) as well as for the longer complex ones (Pict. 59,1) of the rest. He showed me also a rack with a like indent (of „hungarian moustache"). He mentioned that too, that the post-carvers of Szatmárcseke made grave-posts of their special form also for other villages. A middle peasant — Sigismund Kajdi by name — said me that people like he entrusted post-making to artisans. Old Frank Borbély, a poor of 95, told that in his childhood not everbody got at such a „flowery" (i.e. „hungarian moustache"-adorned) grave-posts. It was later too, that the artisan did not make such a one but for that by whose family he got a splendid board or who was a dear chum of him. 3. Hereupon I was visiting the reformed churchyards of several villages in the county Szabolcs-Szatmár. I really found in Fehérgyarmat a 2 m. high gravepost of the Szatmárcseke type. And near to it, much to my surpise, I found also a copy of the post with three laceindents from the old part of the churchyard of Szatmárcseke (ср., Table XII. 1.) In Penyige I found again a post similar to the second old post from the churchyard of Szatmárcseke, which did not differ but in depth and definiteness from its prototype of Szatmárcseke (ср., Table XIII. 2, XII. 2). In Mátészalka I found posts, with several indents similar to those on the third old post from the old part of the churchyard of Szatmárcseke and with a middle-cut decoration of „hungarian moustache", running through the two side-edges of them (ср., Table XIII. 1). In Vámosoroszi I had already to observe that there was not necessary but succeeding of two or three generations to enable the changing of the four-sided-logshaped grave-posts into six-sided ones with „flowery", i.e. ornamented front-edge. For all that, on the front-edges of the posts of this village did not run but the short line of the „hungarian moustache". (Ср., Table XVII.) On the faces of the grave-posts in the churchyard of Tiszadob I came to see already such a short „hungarian moustache", wich reminded me of the „voluta" (snail-shaped ornament) of Baroque. (Picture 4,1) Beside the top-parts of two four-sided grave-posts, one — as I was told — from Apagy, the other from Paszab, there was the short „hungarian moustache" carved out horizontally. (Table XVIII, 1,2). 4. It is strange but a fact that I found these post-ornaments of „hungarian moustache" on utensils too. From these I want to mention here the following ones: They were present on cart-ladders (so-called „bürfa"), stake-braces, and gangladders („ferhéc") of carts made in Szatmárnémeti about 1914. They were like weise present on the same parts of carts from Szabolcs. One has to see them also on beetles and yokes in the Jósa András Museum of Nyíregyháza. (Table XIX, 1 and 2.) 216