Fiber Femme Focus

Romanian Fiber Femmes and Fellows

Article by Sandra Bennett

Words like fabled, enchanted, fey and mythical seem to marry well when thinking of Romania. After all, this is the land of Vlad Dracul who gave rise to the legend of Count Dracula.

Even so, Romania is struggling with its identity and its tag line, “Come as a Tourist, Leave as a Friend” seems strangely lank. Yet, it’s true. I visited Romania in August 2006 and from the first moment I entered the country, it captured my interest, my eyes and my heart.

Romania is very similar to Appalachia, where I live in the southwestern mountains of Virginia. If you saw the movie, Cold Mountain, you’ve seen Romania. Cold Mountain was filmed in the mountains of Romania because it’s extremely affordable. Romania has yet to join the European Union and, at the time of my visit, the average wage was about $250 USD a month. The Maramures Region closely resembles the Southern Appalachian Mountains and most mornings and evenings saw me a little befuddled, yet strangely warmed, because, for all intents and purposes, I was “home”.

Romania is in a state of flux and, to make life even more interesting, has three currencies…the old lei, the new lei and some businesses accepting EU currency although Romania has yet to be voted into the European Union. Many shops gladly accepted US dollars. Some say Romania will enter into the EU in 2007 while others say it will be as late as 2008 or even 2009 but everyone agrees life will change, dramatically, when that happens.

Romanian mountains framed by yarrow, a dye plant

The bluish purple cast of the early morning mist spread like one of my Romney fleeces across the hillocks and worn mountains. Before the rest of the villages began to stir, I’d rise early and go for walks so I could breath in the mountain air and look for life of the four-legged variety. On the farm, I start my days in calm and peace and wanted to do the same in Romania.

Granny at her loom keeping watch over village events

One early morning I found dozens of large snails out and about, some in the still wet, cool grass and others starting to cross the road. I only hoped the snails would make it across before the horse carts and other traffic started on the day’s activities.

Snail crossing the road in early morning

On other outings I would find sheep or lambs, crowded against the fence, waiting for their breakfast.

Anticipating breakfast, sheep and lambs wait eagerly at the gate

The last day of July, Dave, my husband, and I flew from New York to Prague, the Czech Republic where we only had time to rush through the airport to catch our connecting flight to Kosice, Slovakia. On the plane extremely good Czech and Slovakia beverages were served, gratis, and made up for the typical airline food. Once in Kosice, time began to slow and we wandered through the streets and the town square eating ice cream (for mere pennies a cone), taking deep breaths and began to adjust to a slower, more human, pace.

From Kocise we traveled by van to the northwestern Romanian Maramures region and that’s where the magic began. Days and nights are still dictated by obtaining life’s basics…food, shelter and clothing and villages haven’t changed much since medieval times. There were moments when it was very easy to believe we had been transported into the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. No telephone lines, no electric lines and cobbled roads or dirt paths lent teeth to the seeming trance. Horse drawn carts would walk by at a sedate pace with ancient Grannies and Grandpas stuffed amongst the sacks of wool or load of wood. Sons, daughters, babes in arms or others just needing a lift would, depending upon their mood, smile and wave or stare with brooding glare. Sometimes the carts held gypsies, resplendent in their gay clothing but their glances seem more glower or scowl; distrustful as they took in the sight of Americans. Perhaps they would have seemed distrustful had we been any other nationality, who knows?

Horse drawn carts still serve as major means of transportation

In Maramures we visited many villages as well as the odd town or two and in the village of Sapanta we paid the nun a small piece of money to visit “Merry Cemetery”. In the walled village cemetery, old women tended to tombs that were raised beds, each with its own curb of cement to make tidying and pulling weeds from the graves of loved ones easier work. Carved wooden grave markers showed the deceased at work when they were going about their daily business. It was wonderful seeing grave markers of spinner’s with their distaffs and drop spindles still, seemingly, as hard at work in death as they were in life. Weavers were seated at their looms, shepherds stood silently with shepherd’s hook, dog and sheep, a farmer was seated on his tractor, a woman stood at her cook stove, a man and his horses, a weaver selling her rugs and so many more. It was beautifully amazing and a wonderful testimony to both work and the worker being an honored and honorable part of life.

Carved wooden head marker of shepherd Carved wooden grave marker of spinner

and his sheep

Carved wooden grave marker depicting Carved wooden grave marker showing woman

woman at stove selling woven rugs. Notice the oval photo

of her in the apex of the carving

Spinner and daughter commemorated on carved wooden grave marker

Outside Merry Cemetery old men, like old men everywhere, sit on benches, black fedoras stuffed on their heads and gnarly hands holding pipes or hand rolled cigarettes. They would sit and chat whilst watching tourists who, no doubt, provided endless sources of amusement. Just a building or two away, a pub, of sorts, sold cellophaned snacks and sixty-cent bottles of wonderful tasting beer. The rough-hewn benches and tables provided a resting place for both bottles and drinker and the slow pace was conducive to equal enjoyment of the day and the activity at hand.

Men holding down the bench and court in Sapanta at Merry Cemetery

Small shops sold horse drawn carts carved out of wood, fine hand crochet lace tablecloths and bed linens and other handcrafts as well as a few lesser pieces.

Women and girls display hand woven rugs over fences with hand woven pillows stuffed with sheep wool tipped alongside fence bottoms. Distaff and drop spindle are used to spin and ply the yarn for all weaving projects and yarn is dyed with plant dyes. Both outside the cemetery and throughout the village women sit outside their gates, distaff tucked under their left arm, wool tied in a bundle at the top and drop spindle in right hand spinning long draw thick singles into beautiful yarn. All old women favor traditional dress of white frounced blouse, full black skirt, sometimes heavy stockings (one can only guess they are rolled down from the top and aren’t pantyhose) and headscarves of varying colors and swirls. Over the black skirt a woman might sometimes wear the traditional apron of striped woven panels on back and front. The traditional footwear, opinci, resembles a leather ballet slipper, and is slowly being replaced by sturdy black shoes or even sneakers. Only occasionally does one see a woman wearing the opinci held in place with heavy yarn criss-crossing over thick socks.

For Sunday church, many younger women revert to the old ways of dress and it looks like groups of nuns who have forsworn even older ways. Yet, every now and again I would spy a Granny with modern hosiery encasing her legs and the shock was palpable. It seemed rude, even immoral, as if the Granny had decided to leave her family and her way of life and move to the city to dance on tabletops. One particular Granny wore her exciting stockings with pride and friends would flock to her to give covert glances of either amusement or longing, it was difficult to tell.

Granny and her exciting hosiery

Women still sit, spin and gossip at their gates

Plying on a drop spindle

Textile heirlooms for sale

Spinning long draw on a drop spindle

Granny with her woven woolens

Granny spinning long draw on a drop spindle using distaff

There are many villages where tourists rarely visited and at one place we stopped, one seventy-year old woman had never seen an American. Wisps of gray hair had slipped from under her scarf and her face had crevices of such deep and varied lines that no part was left unscathed. Her brown scarf matched her brown skirt and her bare legs, then feet, were stuffed into worn and scuffed shoes. She was using a hand made wooden hay rake to glean hay but stopped to chat. Through an interpreter she said, “You’re the first people I’ve met from America but I’ve heard about America. It’s a very rich country and her people are kind and good.”

When I slipped her a few old lei, she threw up her hands and began speaking quite fast. I stood before her, gazing at her work worn face and wondered what she was saying when, all of a sudden, she grabbed my face between her calloused hands and kissed me on first the right cheek and then the left cheek. She made the sign of the cross over me and gave me her blessing leaving me with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.

Woman gleaning hay using hand crafted hay rake

Throughout our Romanian journey I would find myself with many tears in my eyes and many lumps in my throat. The people are loving, kind and generous, welcoming us time and again into their homes to show their prized possessions of icons, woven rugs, linen cloths and all lovingly hand crafted in the same way their eight generations removed kith and kin had made. They would offer their wares for sale with a quiet pride that the work of their hands was the best anyone, anywhere could offer. And they were correct in their thinking.

We visited many fine Romanian ethnographic museums where photographs held time in abeyance and depicted ways of life disappearing at a fast speed. We saw baskets used to hold small looms for weaving belts and looms still dressed as if the weaver had just walked to the well to dip a sip of water.

Basket as belt loom

We visited flea markets where piglets were stuffed into the back of hatchback cars and a granny sat at a make-shift table and sold shots of home made plum brandy. Old men sat at outdoor tables, some drinking beer but all watching the parade of people and animals alike. We saw antique spinning wheels, hand carved distaffs and spindles with bits of yarn wound around waiting for the gnarled hand to finish the task and so much more.

Small antique spinning wheel for sale at flea market

Have wheel, will travel

One market vendor had half dozen, or more, antique spinning wheels for sale

Antique fiber tools sold for a mere few US dollars

Crochet linens line the wall

People still live in homes with thatched roofs, curved gates at the entry, well and Johnny house only yards apart, barns attached to the homes to conserve the precious heat during frigid winters. Rooms will have a loom, a table and a bed - all very self contained and very compact. Painted monasteries and frescoes abound, some painted the precious blue depicting wealth, a 300-year old carved wooden roadside cross marking time beside a newly paved road, every craft store chock-a-block full of beautifully made hand crafted heirloom items. No matter where the eye rested, there was a visual feast. Museums sell fiber artifacts such as antique spindles, shepherd’s vests and shirts, dresses beautifully embroidered, woven belts, felted hats, shoes and boots, even entire costumes of folk dress!

We visited a woman who is responsible for renewing the fiber tradition in her village. Her work is quite reminiscent of the Navajo weavings and she designs the motifs for the woven products and also decides the natural dyes that will be used for the yarns. Her twenty-eight year old daughter is following in her mother’s footsteps and is now learning the craft. In the winter months, village women weave rugs, pillows, wall hangings, etc. and earn a living wage from the sale of their goods at the village shop.

Romanian motif designer and her daughter explaining a weaving

In another distant village, one woman kept a small museum where she grew a patch of hemp for spinning and weaving on her loom.

Hemp bundles propped against the door

Small patch of hemp

There were many other sights and treats for our small group, some non-fiber related. We visited a man at his still where he was quite proud of his product and sold a twenty-ounce plastic bottle of moonshine for $5 USD. Of course he had to let everyone taste test so we could be assured of the quality. It was a very good product, burning a bright blue flame with alcohol content being around one hundred ten proof. There were several gasps and even a cough or two as people drank small samples.

Grandpa and his sour mash makings The makings of moonshine, sour mash in a

copper kettle

Moonshiners the world over love playing to an audience

Throughout our adventure, I didn’t see many young shepherds and am fearful the flocks of Walachenschaf and Tsurcana sheep are close to being lost. The three large guard breeds, the Carpathian Shepherd Dog, the Mioritic Shepherd Dog and the Bucovinian Shepherd Dog are all facing smaller numbers but there are attempts being made to bring back the numbers. My concern is Romania, like so many others, Appalachia included, will embrace the new without holding onto the old. I saw too many spinning wheels or Grandpa’s ancient shepherd’s vests being sold for $100 USD so modern luxuries such as a cell phone could be purchased.

Romania truly is an enchanted land, full of mystery and myth, fable and legend. For this and any other Fiber Femme it’s a quiet step back into time, when women and men’s lives were consumed with providing life’s basics and not much more. But, times are changing and some say too quickly while others say not quickly enough and, as in all countries, the future belongs to the youth. Some, though probably not enough, are learning the old ways, keeping the traditions alive, wearing the traditional costumes, singing the old songs, learning to spin, weave and dye and embracing the old while reaching for the new. It’s always the youth who hold our future in their hands; let’s hope we’ve taught them well.

Children relax after playing and singing traditional Romanian folk songs

Children in traditional folk dress playing Romanian folk music

For more information about sheep breeds check:

Walachenschaf - http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/walachenschaf/index.htm - Also Known By: Moravian Zackelschaf, Voloshian, Valakhskaya, Voloshskaya, Valachian, Valahian, Valakhian, Volosh, Walachian, Wallachian achel, Woloschian

Tsurcana - http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/tsurcana/index.htm

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Sandra Bennett is an eighth generation shepherd and farmer on a small homestead in the southwestern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. She has a small hand spinner’s flock of rare breed Shetland, Romney, Merino and cross bred sheep as well as a small herd of hypoallergenic American Curly horses.

Curly fiber is sometimes blended with wool for spinning, weaving, dyeing, felting and knitting projects.

Sandra is compiling an exhibit of Romanian heirloom and heritage textiles and fiber artifacts. If you’re interested in having the exhibition travel to your town or city, please let her know.

Sandra has graciously been invited by Helene and Jozef to help plan and participate in a Romanian 2007 Craft and Fiber Adventure. If you’re interested in taking the trip of a lifetime, please let Fiber Femmes know as soon as possible.