Just like nowadays, in the traditional family, the woman had an essential role. We find her in the position of wife, mother, but also housewife, involved in all household and family activities. However, giving birth, raising, educating and protecting children are the most valuable attributes of a woman. The image of the woman in the traditional society who carried her child on her back, in a cradle, while performing various works, is well known. In the glass negative made by Romulus Vuia in 1923, in Cornereva, Caraș-Severin county, a woman is immortalized carrying the child in a cradle on her back. The woman caught on the bank of a flowing water is dressed up in work clothes specific to the Mountain Banat area.

The middle-parted hair is covered with a dark kerchief, with an embroidery at the corner, commercially procured. The canvas shirt has sleeves that start from the shoulders and end with cuffs, decorated with floral-geometric motifs. The laps have corners at the bottom and are also made of white cloth. Over the shirt, the woman wears a dark, knitted, sleeveless garment. Over her laps, she wears a dark rectangular “catrință” in front, and behind her, an “opreg”, consisting of a rectangular piece of warp and long threads that hang down beyond the edge of the lap. Over the socks wrapped around her legs, the woman has peasant sandals with tips, tied with belts.

The child carried on the woman’s back is placed in a cradle made of wood bark or stripes, being wrapped in a hood. The hood for the cradle is wool-woven and worked in the mill, with woolen tassels sewn to one end. The cradle is carried on the shoulders with the help of “baiere” made of woven woolen threads.

The cliché, registered with title “Woman carrying the child in a cradle on her back”, with inventory no. 1321, is made in the gelatin-silver bromide technique on glass support, with dimensions of 9 cm x 12 cm.

Photo: MET archive