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Secondary Occupations

In the Transylvanian rural space of the last three centuries, the fruit and mushroom picking, the hunting, the fishing and the bee keeping had a reduced economical weight, being practiced constantly only by a small number of specialized persons, for the rest of population representing occasional ways to complete their gained incomes by agriculture and animal breeding.

The first exhibition unit contains pieces of inter-war bee keeping inventory: horn for finding and catching the bee colonies (corn de barcuit), one trunk recipient (lacruta) with honey combs and linen (1), used for hunting out and catching of the wild bee colonies, hollow trunk (2), adapted as shelter for the beehive, knitted bee hive (3, cosnita) with the same role, knife for taking down the honey combs (4), press for wax (5), recipient for honey (6). In the context of the natural economy, the wax and the honey were valuable, reason for what till the middle of the 19th century the dependent peasants who owned beehives had to give a portion to the local feudal.

The exhibition unit II illustrates the fruit and mushroom picking and contains combs for picking bilberries (7), knitted polifunctional baskets (8) for picking hazelnuts, bilberries, raspberries, blackberries etc., baskets made of cherry-tree bark used for the same aim (9), hazelnut cracker (10). The picking of the medicinal plants for the family usage was generally practiced but there were also some specialized Transylvanian villages which sold dry plants in the markets. The mushrooms and some wild comestible plants (wild garlic, colt's foot, garden sorrel etc.) were picked both for personal use and for selling.

The following exhibition units on the left side of the room contain pieces related to the practice, by the peasants, of the passive hunting (with traps) and active hunting (with range and cold weapons). The interdiction, in the Middle Age, of hunting the useful species by the dependent peasants had a contribution to the development and refinement of the techniques concerning the passive hunting. They captured the animals in holes, with different traps, with lateral parts, with metal traps activated by an arch. The hunting with cold weapons was considered the appendage of the noble class but it was practiced also in the areas with free peasants, with military attributions.

The exhibition unit III presents a trap for martens (11), made in the forest between two trees, in which the animal, hunted even in the Middle Age for its precious fur, was lured and crushed between two wooden pieces for not affecting its fur. The piece is accompanied by two vârzoabe (12), attached by hunters to their boots on wintertime for walking on the snow.

The exhibition unit IV contains recipients for keeping the gun powder, dating 18th and 19th centuries, made of stag's horn (13) or cattle horn (14) and a steel trap for catching bears and wolves (15), dating from the middle of the 19th century.

The exhibition unit V contains an iron trap (16) with the same function and date as the previous one, and two spears made by a rural black smith (17), dating middle of the 19th century, used for hunting (bear, wild boar) and for killing the predatory animals caught in holes and traps.

The exhibition unit VI includes the individual inventory of a hunter in the middle of the 19th century: gun (18), recipients for gun powder (19), horns for beaters and hunters (20), hunter's bag (21). After serf age abolition (1848), the restrictions of social order concerning the hunting and use of the cold weapons were cancelled, the access to such weapon depending only on the economical power of the peasant family.

The exhibition unit VII contains a hollow trap (diob), in which the marten is caught alive (22) and a pair of vârzobi for snow (23), both pieces being dated at the end of the 19th century. On the right side of the room there are exhibited the pieces that illustrate the Transylvanian traditional fishing in large and small rivers, between 18th and 20th centuries. In the feudal time, the dependent peasants had the permission to go fishing in rivers, excepting the parts rich in fish that were reserved to the local feudal. The deviation of the river flow and the emptying of the water from deep parts were practiced on streams, poisoning of the water with plants, and on the big rivers - the catching of the fish with fish spear, with fishing rods, with tools of net or knitted rods.

The exhibition unit VIII includes two knitted baskets (24) for storing the caught fish. The tools of rods and net were made in every village by the specialized peasants or even by the users.

The exhibition unit IX contains fishing forks of various types used for catching the big fish by pricking (25), fishing rods (26), hooks of various types and sizes (27), shuttles (suveici) for knitting the fishing nets (28), baskets for storing the small fish (29), shovel for taking out the water from the boat (luntre) (30), rafts (plute) for fishing net (31).

The exhibition unit X presents a one-trunk boat (luntre) with oars used on Somes river in the 18th century (32), a net specific to large rivers (33), used with the help of the boat, a bow net (vârsa) (34) and a blind basket (cos orb) (35), in which the fish was caught by luring.