{96.} Collective Work and Social Gatherings

We have seen above some forms of work performed for money and for shares on the large estates or on peasant property (cf. pp. 79–90). We became familiar with the working organization within the family and with its direction. However, beside this, work in the interest of the community or joint work to help each other also played a big role in the life of the village. In many cases participation was made attractive by the combination of work and entertainment.

Since community work benefits all participants, villagers did it using their own food and perhaps at the conclusion offered a little drink to the leaders of the village. Generally, more men than women participated in such work. Thus in the Székelyland, and in other places also, if damage caused by wolves increased highly to the loss of the stock, a hunt was organized, and the men of the village, armed with sticks, axes, and fire-arms, pursued the game until they had killed it or chased it to neighbouring areas.

Caring for pastures also counted as communal work. The men went out in early spring to smooth down the molehills, to clear away bushes and dry thorns, to repair the wells and troughs, and, in mountainous areas, to clean out the springs. Everybody took food for himself, as only drink was given by the magistracy or by the organization owning the pasture. The maintenance of the roads between the fields and of the march stones was done likewise during spring.

33. Reaping hay
Szék, former Szolnok-Doboka County

34. Breakfast during maize harvesting
Átány, Heves County

In many places the village and the church also possessed land which was cultivated and harvested communally. The profit was used to cover common expenses. It was a similar situation when the lands of the {97.} priests or magistrates were cultivated by the village community, but the owners had to take care of the harvesting themselves. It was proper for such office holders to offer food and drink to those who did the work for them.

Work done on the basis of mutual help was even more important both in its scope, its social and economic reverberations. This kind of gathering is called segítség (help) and in some places of the eastern linguistic region kaláka, móvá or kocetá. We shall mention only a few of the numerous forms which extended to almost all areas of economic life.

The housebuilding kaláka was universal, and in many places people still practise it today. They start out by collecting and bringing together the basic building materials. Then, when the gazda signals that the work should begin, a start is made by those who volunteered to dig the foundation. When this job is completed, they drink a toast to it. Next the walls are erected and the roof timbers put on, and on completion of these tasks they hold a bokréta ünnepség (garland celebration), still held today even in the cities. Meanwhile the gazda diligently takes note of the participants’ names, because he knows that he has to work the same number of days in return. The biggest celebration on completion is the house warming, to which all helpers are invited. On the menu there is usually pork stew made with paprika and washed down with wine. Songs and toasts asking for a blessing are also inevitable parts of the celebration.

In the Székelyland, they held the csűrdöngölő kaláka (barn stamping {98.} kaláka) to pack down the clay floor of the house or barn. Mostly young people participated, who, singing as they went, trod with slow rhythmic steps on every part of the floor and tried to make the smoothed floor as hard as possible. One of the known dances of the Székelyland must have developed from this movement. Its name, csűrdöngölő, has preserved its origin.

Among the agricultural tasks, the hay gathering and the carrying in of hay was done with mutual help in many places, for example at Kalotaszeg. At this time, the entire village went out and dealt with the hayfields of the participants one by one. The men cut the grass, while the women gathered and then tossed the hay. Stacking and carrying in the hay were again the tasks of the men.

In cultivating the soil many things were done together, beginning with the hauling of the manure. The men carried the manure in carts, taking it from one yard after the other, and at each place the participants were given refreshment. In hilly regions they carried the manure on their backs to the steep hillsides, but this work, unlike the carting, belonged among the women’s tasks.

35. Men playing cards
Méra, former Kolozs County

36. Men having a talk in the stable
Átány, Heves County

During harvest they helped each other only on smaller properties. The so-called aratókaláka (harvesting kaláka) was customary until very recently. The gazda spoke a day before to those he had chosen, to go out to the fields together. Harvesting was done all day long, but not with great exertion, and the gazda provided food and drink. In the evening {99.} a warm supper awaited them at his house, and the harvesters stayed together for a few hours and had a dance.

Almost all the stages of treading out and threshing grain, the gathering in of potatoes and maize (cf. pp. 90, 91, 210, 213), and the processing of hemp and flax (cf. p. 302) were done with communal work, refreshments and entertainment always playing an important role. In many cases the latter was its raison d’être and its more important part.

Thus in the western part of Transdanubia, hardly any work was actually done when the young girls had the task of guarding the grapes. When the grapes began to ripen the girls would go out to the vineyards on the outskirts of the village and frighten birds picking grapes by shouting and singing aloud. Songs including the name of a maiden and a lad were often included, to the pleasure of the young men listening nearby, since these revealed which girl’s heart was attached to whom. In the Sárköz, the girls paraded out to the vineyard arm in arm after Sunday church service, and young men could escort them to the gate of the {100.} vineyard. From this time on nobody was allowed to cross the boundary of the vineyard for a week. The chosen young man saw to supplying his girlfriend with food. Around dusk, he filled his basket with eatables for the next day. At the gate he handed it over to the waiting girl, and after a brief conversation, he had to part from her.

Another branch of collective work was based not on equality but on need, and provided draught power and better machinery for the needy. Most of the poor peasants did not possess horses or cattle, so that they could not plough their land themselves. One of the gazdas or perhaps a haulier did this job for them, and in return they had to provide four to six days of hand labour per cadastral acre. The produce of the fields was transported into the village in the same way, and this put an especially heavy burden on the poor peasants. In such cases there were no refreshments or entertainment offered. When the use of the first manually handled grain-separator began to spread, they were bought by dealers. They would lend out machines in exchange for one or more days of hand labour for the use of the grain-separator.