Hook for gathering spikes
Cultivation of plants, a basic economic activity, along with animal husbandry, was primarily oriented in Transylvania, until the beginning of the 20th century, towards ensuring family subsistence, which led to the late preservation until of some archaic, traditional tools and techniques.
The functional types of agricultural tools were intended for cultivating the land; crop maintenance; harvesting and selection of products.
The hook for gathering spikes is part of the category of tools used to harvest hay.
Sickle-harvesting was practised more by women who would cut bunches of spikes which formed the sheaves. After women reaping came men who would tie the sheaves which they would gather together and make stacks. After the First World War, grain harvesting with a scythe became widespread.
The size of the harvesting area determined the number of reapers. A smaller harvestable area could be reaped by family members, but for the harvesting of the extended fields of corn fields, bees were organized. At the end of the harvest, the wheat wreath was made, this being an agrarian rite of old and beautiful tradition, present throughout all Transylvania.
The hook for gathering spikes, having inv. no. 879, has a length of 86 cm, a width of 40 cm, comes from the ethnographic area of Hațeg Country, entered the M.E.T. heritage in 1923 and is part of the basic exhibition of the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography.
Text: Anca Zahaniciuc – MET museographer
Photo: George Ciupag – MET photo-video museographer