1950 Kozarišče – Stripping Cornwebs

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Foto: Fanči Šarf 1962

In August 1962, the ethnology students of University of Ljubljana did the field exercises in the town Loz, at Paternost-Bravec’s home. They took photos of the house with attached wires and carriers for drying the corn. In August of course, it was not the season yet, therefor, the wires were empty.

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On a few autumn evenings, we had to strip corn webs. We sat ourselves on the floor in my grandmother’s kitchen and around a mountain of corn webs. We looked at each other and wandered, when will we ever finish that?

My grandmother and my aunt reached for the first corn webs and started stripping
the leaves.

“Come on children, start stripping, “ my grandmother urged us. Slowly we
reached for a corn web each and started pulling off the leaves, one at the time.

“This is how you do it,” said grandmother.

“You grab few leaves at the time and break them off. Leave about five leaves, pull them back and put them on a side and that’s it, finished. Get another one straight away and do the same.” We were stripping, removing the hair and shaking them of our fingers. We pulled back the last five leaves and put them on the side. We repeated the proses thousand times it seemed. The pile did not get any smaller either. For a short time my mother and my grandfather joined us. The adults kept a conversation going between them and we listened, but our thoughts were solely, when we could go to bed.

“How much longer do we have to do this?” we complained. Our eyes were drooping, the youngest started nodding.

“Come on children, little bit more, go a bit faster,” grandmother urged us.

“When can we go to bed?” we pleaded.

Foto: Janez Zrnec 1967

My grandmother realised that we are truly getting tired, and proposed to us.

“I tell you what kids. When you find a red corn, you can go to bed.”
That’s all we wanted to hear. All three of us jumped on the pile and searched for the red corn. The thing was you could not tell what colour corn was inside through the dried, yellow leaves. We sat back and with enthusiasm stripping into the night with hope the next one will be red.

“I got it! Look at it,” my little brother lifted the red corn web with triumph. But the was disappointed when he was told he could not go to bed yet, until us two found one too. We continued stripping into the night, fighting to keep awake and our tiredness the whole time.

Written by: Emilia Truden, Melbourne

Location: Lož
Photo date: 1-15. 8. 1962
Photographer: Fanči Šarf
Collection: Slovenski etnografski muzej, Teren 19, photo no.:  19-136
Scanned : 19. 10.2012 (by Slovenski etnografski muzej)
Format: scanned photo