TRANSYLVANIA.
EXTENT AND POPULATION--MANNERS OF THE WALACHIANS--THE
GIPSIES--COSTUMES.
The grand principality of Transylvania, about one-sixth of the extent
of Hungary, contains a population of about a million and a half. It
presents as great a diversity of nations and religions as Hungary,
being inhabited by Hungarians, Germans, Walachians, Greeks, Servians,
Armenians, Bulgarians, Poles, Slowaks, Jews, and Gipsies, and
containing, besides the four religions established by law, namely,
those of the Catholics, Reformed Lutherans, and Unitarians, also
disunited Greek Christians and Jews. The Armenians and united Greeks
are numbered among the Catholics. It may naturally be supposed that
the variety of nations may be perceived in the variety of their
peculiar costumes, of which we shall present some specimens.
The Walachians, a great number of whom are spread throughout the
Hungarian counties, are the most numerous race of the inhabitants of
Transylvania. They may be divided into three classes. To some of them
all the rights of nobility have been granted by different kings and
princes of the country. They are ranked with the noble Hungarian
landholders and enjoy the same rights; and among them are found
several families of importance. Others belong to the class of knights
who, on account of certain military services entrusted to them at
different times, have obtained limited privileges of nobility: but by
far the greater part of the Walachians are, like other peasants, bound
to the service of the owner of the estate on which they live. Besides
these, there are two Walachian frontier regiments, and a third part of
the Szekler hussars is formed from this nation.
The Walachians are considered as one of those races which are
tolerated in Transylvania, and according to the laws of that country
cannot possess the rights of free citizens: but the free families are
reckoned among the number of that established nation in whose
territory they reside. Their religion is the Greek church, either
united or not united, the former being in the proportion of about two
to nine of the latter.
The total number of Walachians in the Austrian dominions is calculated
at 1,600,000: of whom 900,000 inhabit Transylvania, 550,000 Hungary,
150,000 the Bukowina. The latter are, more correctly speaking,
Moldavians, but they differ little in language and manners from the
genuine Walachians.
The Walachian is short in stature, but of a compact muscular frame of
body. The savage mode of life to which he is accustomed from his
earliest infancy enables him to bear hardships with fortitude. Heat
and cold, hunger and thirst, make no impression upon him. His features
are strong and expressive, his hair dark and bushy. His countenance on
the whole is not disagreeable, and both men and women, as well as
girls of great beauty, are often seen among these people. They arrive
early at maturity, yet frequently live to an advanced age. At
seventeen or eighteen the Walachian marries a wife who is seldom above
thirteen; before he is thirty he is a grandfather, so that the race
multiplies rapidly, and the Walachians are already more numerous than
all the other inhabitants of Transylvania.
In regard to character the Walachians are sly, reserved, cunning,
revengeful and indolent. With the appearance of the greatest
simplicity they well know how to profit by every opportunity of
overreaching their neighbours. Indolence is a failing of the men
rather than of the women, who perform all the labour of the house,
make clothes for the whole family, and frequently afford their
husbands much assistance in agriculture: whereas the men, after
performing the most indispensable operations of the field and
vineyard, pass the remainder of their time in idleness. The natural
indolence of the Walachians receives much encouragement from the
frequent holidays of the Greek church, which they usually spend in
prayer, drinking and sloth. To work on such days would be criminal.
They are much addicted to drink, and the Walachian will frequently
consume in wine and brandy in a few hours the produce of the labour of
a week. If he is fortunate enough to find a pipe or violin, in
addition to a full pitcher, he seldom ceases from revelry till he is
quite intoxicated, and is carried home senseless. It rarely happens
that many Walachians are assembled under such circumstances without
fighting, for they are very quarrelsome when drunk.
The idleness of their disposition is naturally connected with an
inclination to plunder; and if the Walachians are not such professed
thieves as the gipsies, they never suffer a favourable opportunity to
pass, and are particularly dexterous at stealing cattle; so that many
laws passed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are directed
against them by name, and at the present time the inhabitants of the
countries in which they reside take strong precautions to prevent
their depredations. When they leave their homes, for fear of
punishment or to avoid military service, they often retire to the
forests and mountains, where, singly, or in bands, they become the
terror of the country. Perfectly acquainted with every hiding-place
and every by-path, they are always ready to fall upon passing
travellers, or to plunder lonely houses and villages, exercising the
most inhuman cruelties: and in spite of the greatest precaution on the
part both of the civil and military power, it is generally long before
the depredators can be secured or expelled from their haunts,
especially as the inhabitants are prevented by fear of a cruel revenge
from affording effective assistance.
The Walachians are in the highest degree superstitious, but make no
scruple of employing shocking oaths on every trifling occasion. The
stupidity and avarice of the greater part of the clergy, who find a
rich source of profit in the ignorance of the common people, tend to
encourage the failings and depravity of their flock. The ignorance and
want of cultivation in the inferior Walachian clergy exceeds all
belief; and there can be no doubt that the first step towards an
improvement in the morals of the people must be a reform in that
order.
The habitations of the Walachians are small and confined; their towns
are generally built of mud and timber, very seldom of stone. The
houses have seldom more than one room, besides which there are a small
kitchen and an oven. The stable and other buildings belonging to a
peasant’s yard, are universally ill built, low and dirty. They keep
their grain in pits; and some sorts, particularly maize, in wicker
baskets, suspended on a pole some feet above the ground, and protected
by a lid of the same material, covered with straw. They pay little
attention to gardening, and besides a few vegetables irregularly
planted, nothing is to be found in their gardens but fruit-trees,
which are left entirely to the care of nature.
The internal arrangements of their houses are extremely simple. The
furniture consists of the family-bed, formed of straw, sacks and
coverlets, or according to the circumstances of the possessor, of
feather-beds and bolsters, with covers ornamented with coloured
stitch-work, which are objects of extraordinary luxury. Besides these
articles they have commonly a rude table, benches arranged round the
room, and one or two wooden chests, adorned with rudely painted
flowers, in which they keep their clothes and other valuables.
Pitchers, plates and dishes are ranged or hung against the wall,
together with pictures of Greek saints, before which lamps of coloured
glass are sometimes suspended. The windows are very small, and the
light is usually admitted through a piece of bladder instead of glass.
Of all rural employments, the Walachians are most attached to the
rearing of cattle. Their natural indolence causes them to prefer this
to all other occupations. All the changes of weather, and all the
privations to which the life of a herdsman is subject, in distant and
uninhabited countries, which he is forced to explore in order to find
good pasture for his cattle, are easily borne by the Walachian, whose
bodily frame has been hardened from his childhood; and the exemption
from labour, which he enjoys as he follows his herd, renders the
difficulties he has to encounter still less irksome.
The Walachian cultivates the field or the vineyard only when the
climate or other circumstances prevent him from attending to the
breeding of cattle. The grain chiefly grown by him is maize, a
principal article of diet in Hungary, because it is more productive
than any other kind of corn. Still the produce of the fields and
vineyard seldom exceeds his immediate wants; while on the other hand,
the Walachian cattle-breeders amass property. They have but little
inclination for handicraft-business and the trades which are carried
on in towns; probably because in former times they were not suffered
to become members of any of the companies or guilds. This disability
was removed in 1802, and much benefit is expected to result from this
measure.
The women spin and make the greater part of their own clothing and
that of their families. A stranger, seeing a Walachian woman going to
market with a basket of goods upon her head, and spinning with her
distaff as she trudges along, would be apt to conceive a favourable
idea of the industry of these people, which, however, is soon lost on
a nearer acquaintance, particularly as it respects the men.
The clothing of the Walachians varies in many points according to the
district in which they reside; but may generally be described as
follows:--The summer dress of the men consists of a short coarse shirt
with wide open sleeves, which reach partly over the thighs and hang
outside of the trowsers.
The latter, of coarse white woollen cloth, or in summer sometimes of
linen, are very large and descend to the ankles. Round their feet they
wrap rags, and over them put a piece of raw hide, bound on with thongs
and thus fastened to the foot and leg above the ankle. Instead of
these sandals, the more wealthy wear short boots reaching to the calf
of the leg. Round the waist the shirt is bound by a leathern girdle,
generally ornamented with brass buttons, in which they carry a knife,
a flint and steel, and a tobacco-pipe. Over the shirt is sometimes
thrown a jacket of coarse brown woollen cloth. They wear the hair
short, suffering it to hang down a little way in the natural curls.
None but old men, or such as from their situation or office are
particularly entitled to respect, suffer the beard to grow. Among the
common people this usually takes place after the age of forty, and
such persons are distinguished by the appellation of _moschule_,
grandfather. The head is generally covered with a woollen or white
cloth cap, or a low round hat; but while the Walachian is in mourning
he always goes bare-headed, be the weather what it may. He carries a
knapsack, containing provisions and necessaries, slung across the
shoulders, and a strong stick in his hand.
The women wear a long shirt reaching to the knees, and ornamented at
the bosom and sleeves with coloured stitches. From a small girdle are
suspended two aprons, one before and the other behind. These are
somewhat shorter than the shirt, and are made of striped woollen
cloth, bordered below with fringe. Over the shirt the bosom is often
covered with a stomacher of cloth or leather. They also wear,
particularly in winter, under their shirts, long wide drawers; and in
the mountain districts cover their feet with the sandals already
described, but commonly wear boots in the plain. The girls have no
covering on the head, but their hair is plaited in braids, which are
disposed cross-wise on the head, and fastened with pins. Married women
wear head-dresses of white linen, and the richer part of them of
muslin.
The Walachian women are very fond of ornament. They paint their cheeks
red, and this addition is deemed even by the poorest essential to
beauty. They often colour the eyebrows black, and wear ear-rings of
different kinds: but the chief ornament of the rich consists of
several necklaces of silver or sometimes gold coins, instead of which
the poor use base coins and glass beads, strung on threads and hung
round the neck and breast. Their number is indefinite, and they
frequently reach quite to the girdle. The embroidery also upon their
shirts and their many coloured aprons is esteemed by them an
indispensable part of ornamental attire.
Children of both sexes wear in summer nothing but a long shirt
reaching to the ankles. In winter they are seldom better clothed, and
may be seen playing and leaping about in their shirts in the snow. At
the age of six or seven years, they begin to dress like men and women.
In winter the Walachian provides himself with a sheep-skin cloak with
the wool turned inward, and having a fur cap instead of a hood; or he
throws over him a white or brown cloth mantle, which descends to the
knees, and has a large hood to put over the head in bad weather. Under
this cloak he wears his usual dress. The women likewise wear
sheep-skin cloaks with sleeves; lined inside with wool and adorned
outside with coloured patches and coarse embroidery, and held
together in front by laces and buttons.
The gipsy tribe is also very numerous in Transylvania. They may be
divided into two classes, the itinerant and the stationary. The former
having no fixed habitations, wander in summer and winter from one
place to another. In summer they generally live in tents; in winter in
wretched huts of clay, or in holes which they excavate to the depth of
a few feet in the declivity of the hills, and cover with branches,
moss and turf, to protect themselves from the weather. It is easy to
conceive how miserable the inside of one of these dwellings must
appear. Air and light are almost wholly excluded; and the only
apartment is a cave, in the centre of which is a fire serving at the
same time for warmth and cooking. Household and culinary utensils are
scarcely to be expected. The inmates sit, eat and sleep on the bare
ground, or at best lie on a heap of rags. On a fine winter day they
open their cavern for a few hours to the sun; but if the weather is
cloudy they keep themselves shut up, nestle round the fire, cook and
divide the food which chance or theft has placed at their disposal,
and pass the remainder of the day in chatting and smoking, for the
latter of which they have a particular predilection. Men, women and
even children know no greater happiness than to smoke tobacco out of a
short pipe, or to chew a piece of the wooden pipe when it has been
well impregnated with the essential oil of tobacco.
Their furniture seldom consists of more than an earthen pot, an iron
pan, a spoon, a water-jug, a knife and sometimes a dish. If the father
is a smith, which is most frequently the case, he has a pair of small
hand-bellows, a stone anvil, a pair of pincers and a couple of
hammers. Add to this a knapsack, a few rags for clothing, a tattered
tent, formed of a piece of coarse woollen cloth, and this is a
complete inventory. But if he is so fortunate as to possess besides
these an old foundered horse, he puts the whole establishment on its
back, and thus rambles from place to place.
The wandering gipsy is generally clothed in rags, and the women are
more remarkable, if possible, for their want of cleanliness than the
men. Wrapped in their tattered garments, which scarcely suffice for
decency, carrying their infants in a piece of cloth suspended from
their shoulders, and driving before them the elder children, naked, or
at most covered with a torn shirt, they visit in all their filth,
particularly during fairs, the towns and villages, to dispose of the
paltry produce of their labour, or rather under that pretext to
exercise their skill in pilfering. Their stations are generally by the
road side, where the naked children lie and beg; or by following
travellers, by tumbling and by locking the wheels of carriages, they
obtain a trifle or seize an opportunity of purloining something. Their
usual occupation is making coarse iron articles. Some cut spoons,
shovels and little troughs out of wood; others make brooms of twigs,
weave baskets, and gather herbs, rushes, or juniper-berries. In this
manner they contrive to gain a scanty subsistence, and if, after
providing absolute necessaries, there is any surplus, it is expended
in brandy of which they are very fond.
The settled gipsies, who are termed _Neubauern_, or new peasants, live
much better than their wandering brethren. They reside in the
outskirts of suburbs and villages, where they herd together, and their
habitations contain a greater variety of conveniences than the dens
described above. Their occupations are in general those of the
wandering tribe. The greater part are smiths, and in spite of their
imperfect apparatus they perform their work well. They visit also the
neighbouring towns and villages to mend iron and copper utensils:
others make a profession of music, and pass in companies from place to
place. Some of them are tolerable performers, and collect large
contributions from parties which amuse themselves with dancing and
other festivities: others are engaged in mending shoes and in working
in wood, or assist in agricultural occupations, in which, however,
they are seldom industrious. They are usually employed as
executioners, and in the business of flaying animals which have died a
natural death. The women mostly trade in old clothes, in which the men
assist them; or they levy a tax on the superstition of the peasantry
by fortune-telling and pretensions to magic. Another occupation in
which they are much engaged in Transylvania is gold-washing, in the
many rivulets of the country which yield that metal.
UNMARRIED FEMALE OF THOROCZKO.
Thoroczko, pronounced Torotzko, is a village in the county of Thorda,
with an iron mine which is not wrought by means of regular shafts, but
by passages cut in the side of the mountain. The inhabitants are
Germans from Styria, who have settled here to work in the mine, but
have ceased to speak their native language; and Hungarians belonging
to the Unitarian church.
The females of this place are distinguished from their neighbours by
their head-dress, by the singular and tasteful embroidery on their
chemises and corsets, by the red sash which encircles the waist, and
by the peculiar manner in which they plait their petticoats. They wear
occasionally a blue cloak, without arm-holes, plaited like the
petticoat.
UNMARRIED FEMALE OF OBERASCHA.
The head-dress of the young female of Oberascha, or more correctly
Obrasa, is composed of variegated ribbons, which are fastened round
the head, and the ends of which hang loose over the bosom and
shoulders. Above each ear are generally fixed a couple of peacock’s
feathers. Round the neck she wears a fine sort of net-work to which
are hung pieces of silver coin. The gown is adorned with embroidery
on the shoulders. To the red sash which holds the black apron are
attached several rings, probably tokens of love. Red boots complete
her costume, the general appearance of which proclaims her a
Walachian.
A PEASANT OF OBERASCHA.
The inhabitants of Oberascha and the environs, are distinguished from
other Walachians by the custom of wearing their hair tied in a club on
the right side, and also by their tight pantaloons, and half-boots
turned down at the top. The shirt, which the Walachians wear over the
pantaloons, is fastened on holidays round the waist by a variegated
scarf and a leathern belt, decorated with a profusion of metal studs,
from which are suspended the tobacco-pouch, flint and steel.
AN ARMED PLAJASH, OR GUARD OF THE FRONTIERS.
In Transylvania, as well as throughout all Hungary, proper precautions
are taken for the security of travellers against the attacks of
banditti. The guards employed to patrole the roads for this purpose
are called by different names in different parts of the kingdom. In
Transylvania they are styled Plajashes, from the Walachian word
_Plaja_, a foot-path, or road. The duty of these Plajashes is to
escort travellers and goods over the mountains, which are frequently
very unsafe: hence they always appear completely armed. Their weapons
consist of a musket, two large sharp knives or daggers, and the
national _buzogany_, or mace. They carry their ammunition, tobacco,
materials for striking a light and other articles attached to their
belt. In other respects their dress resembles that of the Walachians,
to whom they indeed belong.
[Illustration: ARMED PLAJASH.]
Upon the whole, there is scarcely any country in which travelling is
safer than in Transylvania, because the inhabitants of every place are
responsible for all the losses and injuries which travellers may
sustain in its territory.