Austria / containing a Description of the Manners, Customs, Character and Costumes of the People of that Empire

by Frederic Shoberl

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.