Basque ethnography at a glance

Implements for linen making. Zeanuri (Bizkaia), 1931. Felipe Manterola Collection. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

Subsequent chores required to extract the fibre from the flax plant by hand and traditionally process it to be spun into linen were undertaken during the autumn.

Beating it, mazoz jo

Once retted and dried, the bundles of straw were crushed with mallets by one, two or even three beaters, their beating so becoming all the more effective and bearable. A stone called liho-harria would be expressly used for the said task in many houses.

Scutching it, ezpatatu

Rubbing the stalks against each other with the hands caused its coarse outer stem to drop away from the inner fibres. Next they were beaten with the scutching knife.

Alternatively, instead of scutching it, flax could be beaten under the blades of a breaker, the so-called tranga. Either way, it was about breaking up the woody stalks and separating the shives from the fibres. And to further refine the fibres some resorted to a pair of wooden scissors known as suhatsak.

Hackling it, txarrantxatu

The almost fully loosened strands were pulled through a hackle named txarrantxa to polish and split them. Remains of shives and broken fibres, or amelua, fell through to the ground, and short fibres that came off on the hackle provided a lower quality product, or amukoa, still of some value.

Spinning on a wheel. Felipe Manterola Collection. Labayru Fundazioa Photographic Archive.

Spinning it, goruetan egin

During the winter women dedicated themselves to spinning the hackled flax fibres into yarn. While chatting animatedly with fellow women, they would spin together under the dim light of a lamp from dusk till night. For that they used spindle, gorua, and distaff, ardatza.

Flax yarn was wound into hanks, matazatu; the hanks of raw yarn were bleached, egosi, in boiling water and ash; once bleached they were wound into balls, harildu; and the balls of yarn were finally taken to the local loom to be woven, ehundu, into cloth, out of which all household linens and various clothing items would be sewn.

Here we transcribe an account of the challenges of flax processing —including those described in the immediately preceding post—, according to an old legend from Bizkaia which Barandiaran gathered in 1922:

Lehenengo soloan atara, gero sikatu, gero garramatu, gero pozuan beratu, gero sikatu, gero jo hageaz edo mazuaz, gero ezpatatu, gero txarrantxatu, gero goruan ipini, gero hari egin, gero matazatu, gero egosi, gero errekan jo, gero harildu, gero ehun egin, gero josi jantzia…

First pull it out of the field, then dry it, then ret it, then dry it, then thresh it, then beat it with a stick or a mallet, then scutch it, then hackle it, then wrap it around the distaff, then spin it, then wind it into hanks, then bleach it, then rinse it in the river, then wind it into balls, then weave it, then sew the garment…

As they said, this man fell into the hands of a lamia at midnight, and by the time he finished enumerating the many stages involved in the long and arduous process from flax plant to linen cloth, the morning rooster crowed and saved his life.

Jaione Bilbao – Ethnography Department – Labayru Fundazioa

(Adapted from Agriculture, part of the Ethnographic Atlas of the Basque Country collection)

Note: The original story, as transcribed by Barandiaran, holds that flax was retted before being rippled —… gero pozuan beratu, gero sikatu, gero garramatu…—, which seems highly unlikely.

References for further information: Julián Alustiza. Lihoaren penak eta nekeak [The labour and toil of flax cultivation and processing]. Oñati, 1981; and José Miguel de Barandiaran. “Liñuen penak [The sorrows of flax]” in Eusko-folklore. Materiales y cuestionarios [Basque folklore. Materials and questionnaires], no. LXIII, 1925 [re-ed. 2006].