Corn-flailing basket
Among the cereals often used in the traditional peasant kitchen were, besides wheat, also millet, oats, and corn. Even though it entered the Romanian agriculture later, corn quickly gained a leading place among the cereals used in the household, both in peasants’ and animals’ food. Keeping it in optimal conditions was an important concern for Romanian peasants, as there were villages specializing in making the containers used to store cobs and grains.
The artefact with inventory no. 449 is a twigs basket, provided with a wooden scroll, used to store corn cobs (late 19th century - early 20th century). It entered the museum’s collection following the first field research campaigns initiated by professor Romulus Vuia in 1923. The object comes from the village of Răchitova, Hunedoara county, and it was purchased by the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography through an act of sale-purchase for the price of 3 lei. On a wooden support fixed on four legs (20 cm), several holes were made, through which the corn kernels would fall after they were detached from the cobs. The stand supports a basket of twisted twigs, with an oval shape, in which the corn cobs were placed. After they were well dried, the grains were easily separated from cobs with the help of a wooden roll, called “pislug”, 50-cm long, provided with a handle in the middle. The cobs remained in the basket, and the grains fell through those holes into a textile placed below. The grains were winnowed to become free of impurities, they were ground, and the resulting flour and mash were used both in the food of the peasant and the animals near the house.
Text: Dana Câmpean – museographer
Photo: George Ciupag – photo-video museographer