DOUKHOBORS: A COMMUNITY RACE--Continued.
_Early in the morning...._
Early in the morning of a Sunday when daylight still leaves the shadows
deep under the fruit-trees in the orchard, and the grass is wet and the
air full of the dewy freshness that only melts with the sun, the
Doukhobors may be seen--a figure or two at a time--stepping lightly
under the apple-trees, clad in their homespun suits of bleached linen,
the men in their Russian blouses and bareheaded, the women in full
skirts, and tight “bodies” with snowy plotoks on their heads, all
barefooted, all converging upon the church. Inside, gravely bowing, the
men range down one side of the empty room and the women line up on the
other. In the centre of the aisle between, stands a table always
supplied with a little dish of salt, a loaf of bread, and a jug of
water, the three elements that are the Trinity of life. In season, these
three simple elements are supplemented by offerings of a plate of the
most perfect specimens of tomatoes, a plate of the finest peaches,
another of the largest plums, a fullgrown watermelon, and a bunch of
asters. This dash of colour against the simple purity of the white linen
suits of the congregation is indeed effective.
The Doukhobors are very fond of singing, and this carries one back to
the daily life in the “villages”. For at almost every meal the
Doukhobors, in addition to saying a solemn “grace”, end the meal with
the singing of old religious chants. At the evening meal in particular
the singing is never omitted. It is worth while going among these people
just to listen to this sweet community part-singing gathering in volume
as it goes rolling through the miles of the “Valley of Consolation”
caught up from village to village, and borne away on the romantic wings
of the dusk enfolding the mountains, the rushing river and the orchards.
The garments of linen worn as the ceremonial dress at these early Sunday
morning services, are the offering upon the altar, as it were, of the
epic of flax. The Doukhobor women though “Doukhobor” in religion are
Russians in their knowledge of flax. This knowledge is their own special
contribution to Canada. Other wheat-wizards there are, other masters of
mixed-farming, other specialists in stock, others who would find them
children at the fishing. Perhaps no Doukhobor has ever been a sailor,
(because this is a strictly earth-loving people) but nowhere else in
Canada is the complete story of flax, from the seed to wearing of the
woven linen, to be come upon, without moving outside a settlement! Flax
knowledge is the Doukhobors’ gift to Canada but up to this time,
apparently, there has been no attempt to employ these people as
Flax-teachers.
In the fields at Verigen one comes upon the figure of a woman stooping
over and seizing in her strong hands a full handful of the tall plants.
These she pulls and ties with a twist of green into a sheaf. “Flax must
be pulled”, she tells you. In response to inquiry as to the quality and
length of the fibre in this Canadian flax, she raises herself to rest
awhile, and drawing a wisp through her fingers says half-reminiscently
“Oh, good, vera good. Vera long fibre.”
The British Columbia woman “rets” her flax in the river. And she keeps
the swift current from running away with her precious plants, by
weighing them down with the rounded river-stones, the smoothed product
of the ice-age. These smooth stones serve the Indian-woman as pestles
for the stump-mortar wherein she grinds her corn, and this Russian woman
turns them to service for anchoring her flax, as though they were made
to order. A week or ten days and the flax, now clear of all wood-fibre,
is given the final washing and then carried up the steep bank of the
river to sway in the wind, the while it dries on some “village”
clothes-line. After this it comes into the hands of the heckler and the
spinner, in every odd moment between drying fruit, picking beans,
winnowing seeds, gathering aprons full of ripened millet and the
thousand and one tasks the hand finds to do on these almost
self-supporting farms.
The spinning-wheel is as common in every household here as in Quebec.
Indeed, in the big yards, one often happens on several women at their
wheels, while indoors, other women are sitting at the big handmade loom
that their husbands have concocted of the B. C. cedar log. The Russian
flax-wheel appears smaller than the wheel of _de laine_ in Quebec. But
its whirr and blurr of action is no less musical and rapid, and its
measure of spun thread as long. The only difference between the spinners
of the East and West is that the Russian woman spins flax and her
habitant sister--wool.
The Doukhobor woman is also a spinner of wool but as yet the keeping of
sheep on the Doukheries is in its infancy.
The Russian woman’s flax-wheel is light so that she can easily take it
under her arm, spinning here or there, as she wishes, indoor or out. In
the heat of the midsummer day, when work in the fields is only pursued
early in the morning or in the late afternoon, you find her spinning in
her bedroom or on the porch. Or she sits out of doors among the flowers
abloom in her dooryard enjoying the blossoms and the shade thrown by
peach-trees--laden boughs bending, a symphony in fruit, to lay
themselves across the heart of their Earth-mother. Indoors, the blur of
the flying shuttle hums a minor accompaniment to the song of the bees
busily planing from flower to flower, gathering up the nectar, that, as
honey, is later to come to home tables. Then some morning the bolt of
linen is finished, the linen that will, with ordinary care, long outlive
the women whose industry has brought it into being.
[Illustration:
CLOSE OF THE SEASON.]
[Illustration:
CHRYSANTHEMUMS A-BLOOM
BY A STEVESTON DOOR WAY.]