HOUSE OF THE VIOLANTES

The mention on the title refers to a small old house situated house in the creek of Ribeirinha, with a kitchen with oven, living-room and one room with old furniture. Next to the house there is a store room where is a loom more than 100 years, being considered one of the oldest looms of Terceira Island and have all the utensils that belong to this craft, to the side there is a corral of hens, on the other side deep in the yard there is a corral of pig and sheep and a clothes-line. In this house a family called "Violantes" lived, it was a house where all worked in the weaving, it was of this craft that this people lived. In this house is one of the one of the oldest looms of Terceira Island and have all the utensils that belong to this craft. Nobody lives there anymore and is in a very degraded state, a member of that family wants to rebuilt it, making it a small museum so that all emigrants, tourists and population in general could visit it, because it was there, that some of the prettiest and coloured bedspreads, blankets, skirts and woollen suits were manufactured in the loom.

THE LOOM AND THE WEAVING INDUSTRY

For its antiquity, for its artistic value, abundance of decorations and technique, the weaving was the first industry in Terceira Island. Some years ago you could distinguished the rural people, our "men and women of the country", easily enough just by taking a look at that they wear. And this because while the "people of the country" used its "clothes" of work and Sunday best, even underwear clothes, with cloths manufactured in the loom, the city people dressed with fine national, English or Breton fabrics, brought by the merchants came here in the second half of the XVI century, to exchange its merchandises, by the wealth carried in by the English Urcas (a kind of cargo frigate, the interior consists of an enormous empty space without partitions), Galions from Flanders and Spain, and the caravels of Scotland and the vessels coming from India, fugitives from the Provedoria das Armadas Reais e da Fazenda (Purveyor's office of the Real Fleet and Land ).
The weaving tradition in Terceira go back to the period of the settlers.
In centuries XVII and XVIII, the Azorians couples, gone to Brazil, took the weaving techniques and there it prospered. The weaving is a very old activity since always to the domestic activity, developed mainly by women, complemented with the wiring of the wool and linen. And using old rags as raw material. The weaving is the final phase of a cycle that starts with shears and the harvest of the linen and finishes with the wiring of the wool and the linen, passing both previously for the same phases. In the traditional weaving, the gestures and the sequences testify the collective work that allowed to select and to pass from generation to generation the ways to make more appropriate, better effect, more beautiful standards. In long the sequences of tasks with that the weaver has to deal the wool to arrive at the wire, the wire of the memory that crosses generations joining them for the learning, such as, in each cycle of life, if reaffirms the processes to deal with the way and with what is at their disposal . When the familiar subsistence depended on the production of the necessary fabrics woollen and linen to make clothes. The use of the old and heavy looms is still maintain is for the production of bedspreads woollen of multicolours and with geometric shapes, widely used for all the island, to cover the beds and also to decorate the windows in festivities days. One of the manifestations most characteristic of the workmanship of the Azores - the bedspreads from the loom, also called "bedspreads of high point". Of an intense colouring, where it takes advantage the red and the yellow, the "bedspreads of high point" are a mosaic of squares and rectangles that cover all fabric, laborious carried through in old looms, using ancestral techniques. Made of wool to shelter us from the cold days of Winter, they are a mark of colour that cheers the plain rooms, of whitewashed walls. The manual weaving in Terceira is an incalculable patrimonial wealth. The bedspreads worked in the loom with the minutely patience of many hours of small handfuls of perfect effect of lines, are in my opinion, the most rich and beautiful pieces of workmanship. However, the rugs, the sets of cloths, the coloured stair-carpets and rugs, are a wealth to never lose. Its necessary to preserve this patrimony. In some places of the island, we find an isolated woman weaver, or in partnership with a friend. They use a rudimentary loom, installed on their house. Besides the loom, where is still some instruments that although are not a part of it, intervene in a significant way in the execution of the preliminary tasks of weaving, the dobadoira, the caneleiro, the restelo, the urdideira, the burra or arames and the espadilha. The loom, artisan utensil where they weave bedspreads, cloths, the towels, the carpets, the stair-carpets and the curtains. The rags blankets made in the loom use fine fabric straps of some colours. In the carpet confection cotton wires are used, (in the old days it was used linen or estopa) that are presented rolled up in hanks, this go later the loom, urdindo the web, that serve of "support" to the carpet. At the same time tatters are used from clothes and old fabrics, they are cut fine, in order that the carpet is more perfect. These tatters are amended and rolled in hanks, that later are interlaced in the web, and are they who give the diverse colours to carpets. In the loom one works with the feet, making to raise the heddle, passing the tatters among the heddle and the comb and later beating the comb very well with the hands so that the carpet becomes more compact. The same operation is repeated changing the foot, coming back passing the heddle, and beating again the comb. These gestures are repeated, until giving the measure (length) intended to the carpet. It can have a fringe, leaving a part of the web, or it can leave the loom, being thus without fringe. These carpets were used only in rich houses. Today they are used as carpet, on the beds of iron or as curtains. To make the blankets of rags, that old people used in their beds as blankets, two of these were sewed, getting thus the blanket of rags.

THE LOOM

The loom is entirely made of wood, in a very rough and rudimental framework. Four woods are placed high from the ground, two of a side and two of the other, at equal distances, are arrested in the top by a rectangle formed of bars on which they seat three crossed rulers at equal distance that are called crosspieces. Of each side, relatively to who works, the four perpendicular woods, above mentioned, are connected by two bars, one of each side called of tables and making a direct angle with these, are more two woods, that turn on itself when moved by the woman weaver , to which give the name of orgãos. As it describes by Virgílio Várzea, in its book "Santa Catarina, A Ilha":
"... the device was all wooden and was composed in a rectangular scaffolding of 2,20m of length for 1,80m of height, divided in two parts - one immovable and another movable. The immovable, called varal, if formed by four moirões or columns fixed to the ground by two lateral crosspieces, with two other parallel bars at the height of 80cm, and still two others in the high, closing and strengthening the device so that it endure the hard and continuous beating of the comb, during its use. In the immovable part, to each headboard, it has a cylinder - of the front where it rolls the web to the ratio that is manufactured, having for this a winch to one of the extremities; the other, that is in the posterior part of the scaffolding, is called pregador and is the place where is fixed the urdidura, that it unfasten in a gradual way as the web grows. Later it comes the lisses, that are suspended by ropes in sheaves to the crosspieces from above, for a movement of the premedeiras or pedals they go up and they go down vertically, making to cross the wires of the urdidura, that is arrests in the low extremities on its double screens. The comb is also one of the main parts of the loom; it is composed by thick sarrafos in a frame and is arrested in the high by two superior crosspieces, in a entalhado that it exists there, in order to give mobility with lesser impulse, so that on the hands of the labourer function to press the tram in the urdidura, after passing of the lançadeira. Followed by a crosspiece where the labourer supports the chest when in activity, seating on the rough stool that is in front of the loom.

The device was manipulated by the woman, that was since colonial times occupied the textile industry.

The device where they weaved, in all the Island as in the mainland, the napkins, towels, bedspreads, as many cotton pieces, is the rectangular loom, that it appeared soon after the vertical loom. Before of the appearance of this devices it were weaved by hand. But the loom, although archaic and in disuse, represented for the inhabitant of islands a great conquest in the branch of the weaving times.

The more common is the horizontal loom, of pedal, although in the North of Portugal the vertical loom is still used. To describe the loom is a complicated task. An important task to make the fabric is the number of heddle used as a pattern that one wants. The comb where runs the wires of the urdidura also presses the repassed wire. The fabrics are made under drawings called "repasse". The names of the drawings are many and known between weavers caramujinho, laranja partida, trem de ferro, chocalho de cascavel, guingau and very others. The directions are conserved and reproduced in paper straps, where you can see small vertical traces, grouped at intervals, in different numbers. Its reading is undecipherable for other persons. Looking at the traces, you cannot have an idea of the final drawing. The rectangular loom, was armed always in the houses in ground compartment, it was found in all the parishes and festivities of the Island.

In front of one of the orgãos it has a seat for the weaver known as sedeira. Next to it, to the reach of the hand, it is queixa a wooden rectangle that frames the comb, at means a series of canes in comb form that give passage to the wires of the weave. The orgãos are set in motion by handspikes, the keys of the orgãos, that go putting in rabbets compels to give them one quarter of a turn. The key of the orgão that is next to the weaver does not have a handspan and the opposing one is constituted by a wooden piece of cylindrical form, with little more than half meter of length and that it is settled on the table of the right side. When is necessary to move it the weaver fits one of the extremities in an orifice of the orgão and give it the necessary turn.

Pendants of the superior central rectangular crosspiece that it binds four vertical woods of the scaffolding of the loom, there is two moitões - the fradinhos - that in turn they support, each one of a small crosspiece - the balancinhos or cachorrinhos - that they are arrest, by means of laces, to the two heddle that work alternatively in vertical and parallel direction. The heddle, entirely made of cotton wires, are arrest in the upper/lower part by rulers. To keep them always right, in the inferior rulers it has two round woods the one that call trambolhos. The movement of the heddle is made by two premedeiras pedals that work alternatively and that are arrest for two ropes called tamissas. The web after urdida in the urdeira, is placed in the loom from the behind orgão, it passes for the heddle and it is held in the orgãos by means of the composteiras, that are wooden rulers that are tied on them. Placed and adjusted the urdidura that rolls in the posterior cylinder and it fixes in the one of the front, after passing by two lisses and the comb or beater; prepared the lançadeira - shaped like a canoe, that the French call navette with the carretéis that involves the trama, the weaver sits down in front of the device, in the bank with the feet in the premedeiras puts into motion the mechanism, making to lower a heddle while the other is risen forming then two cloths of the urdidura a parallelogram, for where the lançadeira runs that is thrown dexterously, - after what the comb beats hard the tram, in a first rhythmic collision, one after the another, and another one, and many others, that echoed for days in that place.

ACCESSORIES OF THE LOOM

This is that we find in the houses of weavers the complements for wiring and weaving, all very rustic and rough, of domestic manufacture.

Escaroçador (seed removing): In a rectangular seat of four feet, two vertical montantes are installed, between which they place two horizontal cylinders, armed of winches.
Operation: A person (always a child is in charge of this stage) of each side goes placing "capucho" (capulho) of cotton was it was harvested, of a side, between the moendas. With the movement that was given to the winches, the pulp that fall of the other side, remaining the seeds on the other side. The cotton is seedless.

Arcos or cardas: The impurities of the cotton to be cleaned, used the arco or cardas. The arc is the same that is use for arrows. Operation: With one of the hands, the arc is held, and with the other it extended the seedless cotton. The result is a homogeneous fluffy paste. For the same end they use the cardas (the ones who can buy them). The cardas are two small shovels in one of its faces had a kind of brush with points of steel, good together, covering all the area. One places a little of cotton between one and another and brushing thus the impurity, that contained the cotton, is separated, resulting a clean fluffy paste. The more used cardas or the ones that we know are of English origin. They are very old, but we believe that already was mounted cardas in Brazil with imported steel.

Spindle and Wheel (roca e fuso): Are unnecessary descriptions of this two instruments, because they are very well known. A clean cotton paste as put into the spindle and it transforms it into a string of cotton.

Dobradeira (dobadoura): Its a device to changed string into a hank. It is made by a vertical wooden cross supported by a connecting rod. In extremity above this connecting rod, it was placed other mobile cross (that it turns in the connecting rod, that is a axle), having in each tip a vertical rod (20 cm). Operation: It tied a one of the end of string in one of the rods, and with an impulse of the hand it turn the cross, and the string involves into the dobradeira. The hank must be flabby to be dyed, receiving the ink from equal form. To weave "guingau" (a fabric standard), the hank is isolated in a part, dying only to another one. Thus the wire is with two different tones.

Urdideira - wooden rectangle where the urdidura was tied.

Casal - Box with six divisions for others hanks, whose wires after passed by the six punctures of a wooden ruler, - espadilha - they follow for the urdeira in order to form the web.

Rastelo - Narrow and long part, of a rectangular form that splits the web in the loom. The strings that pass in rastelo are called cabecilhos.

Passaricos - (In the Ribeirinha are called espichos) - small pieces of bamboo cane that function as lançadeiras, where they roll cloth straps of cotton between itself and that are made to interlace in certain fabrics Canelinhas (canilhas, like a reel): They are small connecting rods that fits in canoinhas. The name came from the appearance that it as with the cinnamon bone (slim body and rounded extremities). It is told that the old ones use bones, but today the used material is the bamboo.

Lançadeira - All wooden, is constituted by two parts: the drill, oval box without cover and the canela that is put in the drill. Canoinhas or lançadeiras: The lançadeiras shape are in the form of a canoe, where is placed canelinhas with the coloured string to the tapume or the "repasse". The canoinha with the strings of tapume is launched between wires of the urdidura, that are passed between teeth of the heddle and the comb. The pedals raise and lower wires of the urdidura to give passage to the strings of tapume and to compose the drawings or "repasse".

PREPARATION OF THE WEAVING WORK

As preparation of the weaving work it appears in first place shears of the sheep that are made in the summer. The wool is washed with water and soap for take off the fat. After it dries to the sun is opened by hand and later it will be escarduçada (hatcheled). Well the hatchel is done is put on layers or as its called in the weaving terminology, it goes being printed, act that consists in putting diverse small piles of wool on the others without tracing them, this way the wool stays untied for the stringing process, that usually, result in an authentic regional party that attend many boys and girls, they dance and sing the regional songs and they eat cooked maize, a must in these meetings that the people of the Island gives the name of fião.

Before starting weave, in the handle of the spindle a paper is rolled, later when its full, is more easy to take off the wool that goes out in an oval form, called massaroca. After the wool is passed to dobadoira to make hanks.

In Terceira, in times gone, the weaving reached a high degree of perfection in such way that the City Council, to not lose such merit, deliberated as municipal positions, to forbid the used of that craft for who did not possess letter of examination passed by the City Council .

TYPES OF FABRIC MANUFACTURED IN THE LOOM

The types of fabrics were several and according to a work of Luís Drumond Ferreira, the main cloths manufactured in our Island were fiampua and the full web.

Fiampua - the name given to this type of fabric, seems to have its origin in the fact that for its production, had to make it pass only one string for each drill of the comb.

Um fio em cada pua (A string in each drill)
Um fio em pua (A string in drill)
Fio em pua (String in drill)
Fiampua (Strill)

Fiampua this fabric was used generally for the confection of blankets,
towels, stair-carpets of remains, string blankets, aprons and cloths of kitchen and a general way all the rough cloths.

Fiampua was urdida with cotton or linen strings and covered with wool, cotton or remains of diverse used cloths, that wore hatchel weaved again.

Full Web: In this type of fabric, the understood space between two drills of the comb took two strings. It was used for the confection of regional bedspreads of half three, cloth of the land and linen cloth, etc. The bedspreads were urdidas with strings of cotton and covered with woollen strings and another one of cotton; the half three, with linen or cotton covered with wool; the cloths of the land were urdido and covered with wool; and linen, only with linen. A few years ago it was made a white fabric, urdido with linen or estopa and covered with cotton, from with was made the shepherd shirts, also known as the milkman shirt, for the fact that years ago, it was obligatory by the men who distributed milk for door to door, presently only used by bull handlers that go to robe bullfights. Also it was used in the confection of interior clothes, mainly for men.

AS THE FABRICS WERE DYED

To get the pigment to dye the line, many wore the natural resources. The colours most common are gotten with vegetables extracted infusions or bakings and/or other processes. In our island, the strings that entered in the confection of webs of loom, previously were dyed. The cloths of fiampua were urdidos with linen or white cotton and covered with the desired colour. For the confection of the three cloth, the linen or cotton to the urdidura was dyed black colour first, or was made with wool of the sheep with that colour, called wool in the colour of the sheep. Much of the cloth of the land was made with white wool and later if it dyed black colour.
The colours were made by the following processes:

Black colour - (half three and cloth of the land). This colour was made by crushing a plant called sumagre and that the people alter for sumaigre. This plant was very well crush was put on the fire in a great pan, with some water, joining an aniline called caparrosa, vulgarly known for "capa rosa". When the cloth was boiled it was strained and piss was added, and it was boil again, once it was boiled, was poured on the cloth or fiado, previously disposed in one wooden clink. The cloth was later apesoado (knead) as the bread, to be well soaked, stifle with a thick cloth.
This operation happen the number of necessary times, until it get in the intended colour.
Finally it was put to dry, were was who gave it a water bath on the sea, or salted artificially, and it joined walnut rind. This process provoked one loathing smell.
Colour to the Carmo - This colour of a chestnut tone, its was given this because of the habit of the brothers of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Carmo, and was gotten adding a woollen pound to it, moss of the walls, rinds of onion and tobacco leves. It took about to two hours until this mix was boiled, and later strained. It was taken out of the fire, joining it wool, going to boil again until it reaching the desired colour.
Light Chestnut - it was gotten by the tobacco boil.
Light Gray- it was gotten boiling the cloth in rind of eucalyptus.
Yellow - it was dived wool in an infusion yellow irises flowers, rock Hume (alum) and vinegar.
Light Yellow- the strings were boiled in onion rinds.
Yellow tea - the strings were boiled in onion rinds and black tea.
Colour of cinnamon - (for man clothes). It was gotten for the boil of rind of faia of the land, eyes of hiss and salt.
Green - It was gotten for the baking of urze.
Gray - (another tone) - Was gotten for the baking of the cedar rinds.
Beige - One got with a aniline called cochonilha, alum and cremor tartar.

Knowing the used rudimentary processes for our ancestor to reach the diverse tonalities of the chromatic scale, cause great admiration not to find any mention to the use of the pastel (plant with the scientific assignment "Satis Tintória, L") for the blue colour, , introduced in the Azores by Captain Dutra, of the Island of Faial and that was cultivated in wide scale in this Island. This plant is similar to the lettuce, after submitted to some operations in devices of pastel, was moulded in balls, that looked like pastéis, hence the name. The culture of such plant constituted a wealth to our land and weigh significantly in our trade balance, with a wide exportation for England, Holland and Spain.

However what we told were are common tasks in the loom houses. Some hatcheled, others weave, others make fringes and others still make remains of fabric of remaining portions, that later give colour to the blankets, to carpets and bedspreads, artistically elaborated by these hands of fairy.

Its one of the fewer professions that we still have possibilities to observe today, thanks to the Groups of Folklore, that with their orders demanded that the old looms were mounted again and until young people took taste for this art that made the delights of our ancestor.


A Senhora da Ajuda ( The Lady of Aid )
Tece fitas amarelas, ( Weaves Yellow ribbons)
Se a Senhora me der uma ( If the Lady gave one to me)
Hei-de fazer-lhe as canelas.( I will make Her canelas)

A Senhora da Ajuda ( The Lady of Aid)
Tem tear na ribeira, ( Has the loom in the ribeira)
Dá-lhe a chuva, dá-lhe o vento, (Give her rain, give her wind)
Faz-lhe andar a lançadeira. (Make her lançandeira run)