Notes

Scutching hemp

Woman scutching hemp with the melita, Sibu County ca. 1940.

Scutching

Scutching is a step in the processing of cotton or the dressing of flax or hemp in preparation for spinning. The scutching process separates the impurities from the raw material, such as the seeds from raw cotton or the straw and woody stem from flax fibers. Scutching can be done by hand or by a machine known as a scutcher. Hand scutching of flax is done with a wooden scutching knife and a small iron scraper. The end products of scutching flax are the long flax fibers, short coarser fibers called tow, and waste woody matter called shive.

To scutch flax by hand, the scutching knife is scraped down with a sharp strike against the fibers while they hang vertically. The edge of the knife is scraped along the fibers to pull away pieces of the stalk. This is repeated until all of the stalk has been removed and the flax is smooth and silky. When scutching was done by hand, people could scutch up to 15 pounds (6.8 kg) of flax in one day, depending on the quality of the flax, as coarser flax, harder flax, and poorly retted flax takes longer to scutch. Retting removes the pectins that bind the fibers to the stalk and each other, so under-retted flax is harder to separate from the stalk, and often gets damaged in the scutching process. Over-retting the flax causes the fibers to deteriorate and break. These broken fibres are called codilla, which can be used along with heckled tow to make yarn.

In the scutching process, some of the fiber is also scutched away along with the stalk, a normal part of the process.

Teillage

Le teillage (action de teiller) est une opération mécanique qui permet de séparer les fibres textiles du bois et de l’écorce par broyage et battage. Il s’applique également aux fibres de chanvre et de lin.

Teillage du chanvre
Le teillage est une étape du travail du lin et du chanvre effectuée après le broyage des tiges. Les fibres textiles sont séparées du bois pour obtenir de la filasse de 70 à 80 cm de longueur. À l’époque ce travail était fait à la main durant les veillées. Il faut prendre le brin de lin/chanvre à son extrémité la plus grosse et dégager la rognure de sa filasse de manière à «déchausser» la tige. Puis tirer sur le bout de ruban obtenu et arracher toute la filasse du brin. Le geste est répété jusqu’à accumuler une poignée de filasse qui est nouée pour donner une queue de chanvre. Ce travail est aujourd’hui mécanisé2

L’ouvrier qui teillait portait au xvie siècle le nom de «tellie » dans le nord de la France. On le nomme aujourd’hui «teilleur» ou «tilleur».

Notes

Le rouissage

Fiber hemp crops are harvested in late summer when they begin to flower, and then the stalks are bundled together and submerged in water to ret.

immersion du chanvre

Hanfwäscherinnen bei Gödöllö : hemp washers at Gödöllö in central Hungary.

naïser

To steepe, or soake (hempe) in water.

eaue chaude

Description du rouissage.

Notes

Heckling hemp

Skutching hemp

Le rouissage

Fiber hemp crops are harvested in late summer when they begin to flower, and then the stalks are bundled together and submerged in water to ret.

Breaking hemp

Cassant chanvre à la main

Chanvriers

Les chanvriers des bords du Rhin — La récolte (the harvest)

Combing and spinning hemp

preparation of hemp

Reliqua sunt ferulacei generis, ceu feniculum anguibus, ut diximus, gratissimum, ad condienda plurima cum inaruit utile, eique perquam similis thapsia, de qua diximus inter externos frutices, deinde utilissima funibus cannabis. seritur a favonio; quo densior est eo tenerior. semen eius, cum est maturum, ab aequinoctio autumni destringitur et sole aut vento aut fumo siccatur. ipsa cannabis vellitur post vindemiam ac lucubrationibus decorticata purgatur. optima Alabandica, plagarum praecipue usibus. tria eius ibi genera: inprobatur cortici proximum aut medullae, laudatissima est e medio quae mesa vocatur. secunda Mylasea. quod ad proceritatem quidem attinet, Rosea agri Sabini arborum altitudinem aequat. ferulae duo genera in peregrinis fruticibus diximus. semen eius in Italia cibus est; conditur quippe duratque in urceis vel anni spatio. duo ex ea olera, caules et racemi. corymbian hanc vocant corymbosque quos condunt.

There remain the garden plants of the fennel-giant class, for instance fennel, which snakes are very fond of, as we have said, and which when dried is useful for seasoning a great many dishes, and thapsia, which closely resembles it, of which we have spoken among foreign bushes, and then hemp, which is exceedingly useful for ropes. Hemp is sown when the spring west wind sets in; the closer it grows the thinner its stalks are. Its seed when ripe is stripped off after the autumn equinox and dried in the sun or wind or by the smoke of a fire. The hemp plant itself is plucked after the vintage, and peeling and cleaning it is a task done by candle light. The best is that of Arab-Hissar, which is specially used for making hunting-nets. Three classes of hemp are produced at that place: that nearest to the bark or the pith is considered of inferior value, while that from the middle, the Greek name for which is ‘middles’, is most highly esteemed. The second best hemp comes from Mylasa. As regards height, the hemp of Rosea in the Sabine territory grows as tall as a fruit-tree. The two kinds of fennel-giant have been mentioned above among exotic shrubs. In Italy its seed is an article of diet; in fact it is stored in pots and lasts for as much as a year. Two different parts of it are used as vegetables, the stalks and the branches. This fennel is called in Greek clump-fennel, and the parts that are stored, clumps.

le rouissage

C’est le rouissage, toujours en usage dans l’ouest de la France.

L’enseignement premiere de Pantagruel

Pline, XIX,56 (cf. C. Estienne, Praedium rusticum, 436).

Traditional European hemp fibre harvesting and processing

p. 163 Traditional European hemp fiber harvesting and processing are illustrated in these nineteenth-century British and French engravings and an early twentieth-century Hungarian ethnographic report. Fiber hemp crops are harvested (A) in late summer when they begin to flower, and then the stalks are bundled together and submerged in water to ret (B). After soaking for a few days, the stalks are removed from the water and dried in the sun. The dry stalks are broken (C) to free the fibrous bark, the bark strips are skutched (D) to remove bits of woody pith and hackled (E) to split the strips and remove short fibers. The individual fiber bundles were combed and spun from a distaff much like wool (F). Images A-C are from L’illustration Journal Universel (1860), D and E are from Wissett’s A Treatise on Hemp (1808), and F is from Domokos (1930).

p. 164 The world’s great navies and merchant sailing fleets relied on strong hemp rope rigging for hoisting sails and lashing down cargo. Engraving from The Illustrated London News, November 23, 1861.

Notes

æquinocte automnal

« Semen ejus quum est maturum, ab æquinoctio autumni distringitur. » Pline, XIX, 56. (Paul Delaunay)

æquinocte automnal

Reliqua sunt ferulacei generis, ceu feniculum anguibus, ut diximus, gratissimum, ad condienda plurima cum inaruit utile, eique perquam similis thapsia, de qua diximus inter externos frutices, deinde utilissima funibus cannabis. seritur a favonio; quo densior est eo tenerior. semen eius, cum est maturum, ab aequinoctio autumni destringitur et sole aut vento aut fumo siccatur. ipsa cannabis vellitur post vindemiam ac lucubrationibus decorticata purgatur. optima Alabandica, plagarum praecipue usibus. tria eius ibi genera: inprobatur cortici proximum aut medullae, laudatissima est e medio quae mesa vocatur. secunda Mylasea. quod ad proceritatem quidem attinet, Rosea agri Sabini arborum altitudinem aequat. ferulae duo genera in peregrinis fruticibus diximus. semen eius in Italia cibus est; conditur quippe duratque in urceis vel anni spatio. duo ex ea olera, caules et racemi. corymbian hanc vocant corymbosque quos condunt.

There remain the garden plants of the fennel-giant class, for instance fennel, which snakes are very fond of, as we have said, and which when dried is useful for seasoning a great many dishes, and thapsia, which closely resembles it, of which we have spoken among foreign bushes, and then hemp, which is exceedingly useful for ropes. Hemp is sown when the spring west wind sets in; the closer it grows the thinner its stalks are. Its seed when ripe is stripped off after the autumn equinox and dried in the sun or wind or by the smoke of a fire. The hemp plant itself is plucked after the vintage, and peeling and cleaning it is a task done by candle light. The best is that of Arab-Hissar, which is specially used for making hunting-nets. Three classes of hemp are produced at that place: that nearest to the bark or the pith is considered of inferior value, while that from the middle, the Greek name for which is ‘middles’, is most highly esteemed. The second best hemp comes from Mylasa. As regards height, the hemp of Rosea in the Sabine territory grows as tall as a fruit-tree. The two kinds of fennel-giant have been mentioned above among exotic shrubs. In Italy its seed is an article of diet; in fact it is stored in pots and lasts for as much as a year. Two different parts of it are used as vegetables, the stalks and the branches. This fennel is called in Greek clump-fennel, and the parts that are stored, clumps.