Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Upper Tisza region (Regional Units of Open Air Museum. Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1980)

3. THE MUSEUM VILLAGE

kept here in a bread-basket. There were various methods and containers for storing things: shelves on the wall for plates, hanging boxes for ladles and spoons, rods fixed to the ceiling for throwing things over such as towels, drying linen and cobs of maize ready to be shelled. The room was lit by a wick fixed to a holder on the main beam, soaked in oil of sunflowers, hempseeds or pumpkinseeds. There is a ledge for cooking along the wall below the wide chimney („kürtő") of the fireplace, with a large hole for ashes in the rear part (used for washing linen), and a place for the cauldron when making plum-jam. Earthenware and wooden vessels are hung on the walls, and there is an iron tripod on which to put casseroles when cooking on an open fire. The pantry contains things necessary for pickling cabbage such as large cabbage planes, also wooden barrels for storing the pickled cabbage, together with sacks of flour and maize, various vessels and utensils, churns for making butter („zürbölő"), glazed pots and jugs, and wooden mortars. There is a ladder leading from the space under the eaves up into the attic („kispad" or „little attic"), where various products are stored and simply poured onto the floor: wheat, barley, oats, maize, sun flowers, or put into various vessels, as walnuts, dried prumes and pears. The majority of the wheat, however, was kept in huge granaries in the building standing behind the dwelling-house („szuszék szén" or „gabonás szelep") (4—4). „Szelep" signifies a construction of four posts and a roof, the walls consisting of boxes holding grain. The one exhibited is a copy of a „szelep" in Kispalád which was built at the end of the last century (also called „pelyvás" or „chaffplace", as chaff was stored in it in large chests). The post of the well standing opposite the house ends in a „tulip" and was carved in 1905 (4—5). The rim of the well is a reconstruction, the original being secured with large wooden pegs to its posts. Not far from the well is another structure similar to a „szelep", in which four posts support the roof of this „bake house" which has no walls (4—8). Under the low roof, the oven is of an older type, its shape being the frustum of a cone (111. 47.). A long barn stands at the end of the plot (4—6). Its columns are made of oak-trees chosen for the purpose, having branches to support not only the so-called „wreath-beams" but also the crossbeams. The columns having a curve are in place of interior posts and form a larger central space. The barn derives from Tiszabecs. 64