Page 344 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 344
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
4. Some examples of domestic craft and other peasant
non-agrarian economic activities in ethnological literature
As it has been said, the domestic crafts represent a huge percentage of past
ethnological studies, but the research focus is each time concentrated on
the development of a single domestic craft and its present condition, witho-
ut connecting it to the economic peasant activities as a whole or in the fra-
me of the peasant economy. In this chapter I will briefly introduce some
non-agrarian peasant activities, from which we can grasp an idea of their
variety in the Slovenian regions especially in the 19th century, but also ear-
lier and in the beginning of the 20th.
An economic activity that was connected with crafts and was highly
developed, but not perceived in the same way by the authorities, was “trav-
elling craftsmen” (potujoče obrtniško delo), called also “work at home”, or
“ambulant craft in the countryside” (ambulantna obrt na podeželju). The
older name used by Slovenians, (delo na štero) primarily denoted the car-
rying out of a domestic craft without a trade license (štera derives from the
German Störer, which means charlatan, in Slovenian also šušmar). The am-
bulant craftsmen travelled from home to home where they produced or-
dered products, as for instance slaughtered animals, made meat-products,
made or mended cloths and shoes for the whole family etc. (Bogataj 1989,
10‒1, 232).
The oldest domestic crafts according to ethnologists are pottery-mak-
ing, wooden ware producing and basket-weaving (Bogataj 1989, 235; Bras
1988–1990, 214). The branch of wooden ware producers represented the
most important non-agrarian economic activity in the regions of Ribnica
and Kočevje, which supplemented the incomes of small fragmented farms
with little or no fertile soil – small farmers and cottagers (Bras 1988–1990,
214‒6). Already Janez Vajkard Valvasor in his monumental work Die Ehre
dess Hertzogthums Crain (Slava vojvodine Kranjske: The Glory of the Duchy
of Carniola) in 1689 wrote that the people from Kočevje made most of their
living by producing wooden ware (Bogataj, 1989, 8). The activity became
tax-free already in 1492, the Austrian Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa (1780)
renewed the patent, similarly to two patents from the 19th century which ex-
cluded them from taxes, so the merchants never managed to abolish their
privileges. Due to this craft the emigration to America from this area slowed
down in the 80s of the 19th century. They had interesting unwritten rules as
for instance the inheritance of family rights, such as every man had his own
territory to sell which was inherited by his relative. It’s interesting to com-
342
4. Some examples of domestic craft and other peasant
non-agrarian economic activities in ethnological literature
As it has been said, the domestic crafts represent a huge percentage of past
ethnological studies, but the research focus is each time concentrated on
the development of a single domestic craft and its present condition, witho-
ut connecting it to the economic peasant activities as a whole or in the fra-
me of the peasant economy. In this chapter I will briefly introduce some
non-agrarian peasant activities, from which we can grasp an idea of their
variety in the Slovenian regions especially in the 19th century, but also ear-
lier and in the beginning of the 20th.
An economic activity that was connected with crafts and was highly
developed, but not perceived in the same way by the authorities, was “trav-
elling craftsmen” (potujoče obrtniško delo), called also “work at home”, or
“ambulant craft in the countryside” (ambulantna obrt na podeželju). The
older name used by Slovenians, (delo na štero) primarily denoted the car-
rying out of a domestic craft without a trade license (štera derives from the
German Störer, which means charlatan, in Slovenian also šušmar). The am-
bulant craftsmen travelled from home to home where they produced or-
dered products, as for instance slaughtered animals, made meat-products,
made or mended cloths and shoes for the whole family etc. (Bogataj 1989,
10‒1, 232).
The oldest domestic crafts according to ethnologists are pottery-mak-
ing, wooden ware producing and basket-weaving (Bogataj 1989, 235; Bras
1988–1990, 214). The branch of wooden ware producers represented the
most important non-agrarian economic activity in the regions of Ribnica
and Kočevje, which supplemented the incomes of small fragmented farms
with little or no fertile soil – small farmers and cottagers (Bras 1988–1990,
214‒6). Already Janez Vajkard Valvasor in his monumental work Die Ehre
dess Hertzogthums Crain (Slava vojvodine Kranjske: The Glory of the Duchy
of Carniola) in 1689 wrote that the people from Kočevje made most of their
living by producing wooden ware (Bogataj, 1989, 8). The activity became
tax-free already in 1492, the Austrian Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa (1780)
renewed the patent, similarly to two patents from the 19th century which ex-
cluded them from taxes, so the merchants never managed to abolish their
privileges. Due to this craft the emigration to America from this area slowed
down in the 80s of the 19th century. They had interesting unwritten rules as
for instance the inheritance of family rights, such as every man had his own
territory to sell which was inherited by his relative. It’s interesting to com-
342
