In the peasant household, hemp was cultivated for the fibers used in the manufacture of various clothing items, interior textiles, but also for other household items (sacks, ropes). The long and tiring process of cultivation and manual processing of hemp, an activity that was predominantly carried out by women, required skills and patience, being at the same time a pretext for socializing for the members of the community. After harvesting, the hemp sheaves melted in water, were dried in the sun and crushed with “melița” - a wooden tool, made of two parallel, spaced boards, between which is fastened at one end, with a wooden nail, another board that was basculing (“tongue”). The other end of the tongue remained free to be manipulated.
Scutching involved passing the hemp between the tongue and the two parallel boards, thus breaking the woody part and releasing the fiber. This activity was caught by Romulus Vuia, in 1923, in the yard of a household from Uricani, Hunedoara county. In the foreground, there is a woman dressed up in a traditional costume specific to Jiu Valley area, scutching hemp. The woman’s hair is combed with a path on the middle, braided in two thick tails wrapped under the ears, enriched with “pletari” (artificial woolen tails), over which is placed “tindei” - a white woven cotton towel (“propoada”), having white lace in the corners, at the exposed end, fixed to the hair with large pins. Around her neck, she wears a string of large tesselated Murano beads.
The Carpathian shirt, made of cloth, has wide sleeves that start from a narrow collar and end with a large wristband (“fodor”). The shirt decoration is located at the collar in the form of a braid and at the bracelet under the collar, sewn on curls. The woman’s dress is completed by a wide, pleated skirt at the waist, with ornamentation rows on the lap. Behind the woman, resting on the sole of a wooden construction on a stone foundation, there is a girl with her hair braided into a single tail that starts from the middle of her forehead and goes down below her right ear, being decorated with flowers. On her ears, the girl wears round earrings, and around her neck she has strings of beads and bead necklace (“lătițar”). The girl’s shirt has the decoration located on the narrow collar, from which the wide sleeves end with large wristbands. Over her lap, the girl wears a black skirt (“catrință”) with a few ornamentation rows at the bottom. The cliché, registered with title “Hemp scutching”, with inventory no. 349, is made in the silver gelatin- bromide technique on glass support, with dimensions of 9 cm x 12 cm.
Photo: MET archive