Making our way through a country as smiling as that which we had left behind, through common-fields of the family communities, a-bloom with sky-blue flax, and enclosed by old-world hedges overgrown with clustering wild vines, or through the common meadowland—the old English ing—we came to the village of Bukovje, and were introduced to the largest family community of the place by the kind Roman Catholic vicar.
Homestead of Family Community, near Brood, Slavonia.
Some idea of the arrangement of the homestead will be given by the accompanying diagram. We made our way into the premises by the yard-gate and found ourselves in a spacious farmyard fenced in by a stout palisade. To the left was the common dwelling-house, and around the skirts of the enclosure ranged in order the common barn, cow-house, stables, maize-garner, goat-shed, and pig-stye; the common stillery for making slivovitz or plum-brandy, which here has succeeded sour wine as the favourite drink of the peasantry; the common well, with its bucket attached to a monster fishing-rod; the common oven; and last, not least, the common goose-house. In one corner was a small patch of maize, and beyond the bottom of the yard was the common orchard with its usual crop of poor plums, pears, and apples.
We were received in the yard by a member of the family, voted unanimously to be the house-father, who cordially invited us in, and having satisfied our curiosity as to the various outbuildings, bade us enter the common dwelling-houses, of which there were two; one a long wooden erection with the usual verandah, used as a summer abode, and divided into compartments for each sub-family; the other, a palatial residence compared with the Radovac hovels, brick-built and whitewashed, and with its porch and double tiers of massive arches which open on long corridors as in some old monasteries (for there is something conventual too about these closes), and entered withal by an imposing flight of steps, was not without its dignity. The family consisted of some three dozen individuals, mostly absent at the time on field-work, insomuch that the garrison consisted of our house-father and two house-sisters all told. Thus it was scarcely more than a tenth as big as those monster families we heard of near Siszek with their three hundred members; but it afforded a good example of the house arrangements, nevertheless; for in these larger family communities, such as we saw higher up the Save, you may see several dwelling-houses ranged in a row within the common ‘plot,’ so that really only a little multiplication is needed to gain an idea of the family community on its grandest scale from a view of this Bukovje homestead. There is, however, this difference, that in the larger families the common hall and kitchen are often separate buildings.
The house consisted of two floors. Ascending the porch-steps at the house-father’s bidding, we found ourselves in a ground-floor with the fore-hall and usual tripartite division of the ruder Granitza cottages, consisting of a common hall or refectory, a kitchen and another room, used in this case, I believe, as a bedroom for the house-father. These three rooms opened on to the front corridor; and ascending some stairs, at the end of this airy arcade we found ourselves on the second storey, divided exclusively into bedrooms, of which there were thirteen, one for each sub-family. Above this again was a loft running under the whole length of the roof, and set apart for stores.
Plan of Common Dwelling.
In the middle of the kitchen, whose besooted rafters were supported by a massive beam as swarthy as themselves, was the large common hearth, the wonted square of flat stones, the logs on which were kept in place by two quaint fire-dogs; while by their embers a large green jar of earthenware was simmering with a savoury mess of chopped bean-pods, eyed from time to time lovingly by the house-sister, she who had welcomed us on entering with a bountiful apronful of apples. By the side walls were three other lesser hearths, communicating with the honeycombed stoves in the other rooms, so that one fire fed both a hearth and a stove. On these hearths reposed cylindrical pots with curious lids, and above the fire great iron caldrons, capable of providing for many mouths, were hung from the wooden arms of primitive jacks, such as I remember having seen in Finnish cottages.