Women in Alpine Agriculture

In reality, even when the men were present, the women were always quite busy. They bore many heavy loads on their shoulders and their heads or in the gerla, a basket Trentino Woman Tilling the Soil attached to their backs. The gerla was their companion even as little girls, the balancing rod to carry pails of water from the fontane, the one and only source of water in the village. On their backs, they carried large hay nets down from the fields to the haylofts above their homes. Their tasks and obligations away from the hearth of the home were many and varied: they sowed seeds, attended to fertilizing the fields, they harvested crops, milked the cows and goats, attended to their vegetable garden, they shucked corn, harvested the crops, took care of the stables refreshing the farlet, the bed of hay and leaves for the animals, fed the animals, grew flax seed and hemp and performing all the successive tasks to render the canepa into twine to make chairs. All these were the tasks and the functions of the women. Most of the haymaking process was exclusively the skills of the women. After the men cut the grass, the wives, mothers-in-law and daughters as well as the younger children of the family spread the grasses to dry them, turning them over several times before stacking it for the evening. Hence, the many steps of the haymaking involved the gathering of the hay, its rotation, gathering it in large nets (see illustration), bringing it in from the fields and arranging it in their haylofts situated on the upper levels of their homes. All these difficult and time consuming tasks were the work of the women of the household. In the Trentino, in particular the Vallagrina, there was a specific and exclusive function of the women: the cultivation of mulberry trees and silkworms which was usually inside the homes of these women farmers. The difficult and demanding work involved the selection of the seed and Gathering the Hay the incubation and rearing of the silkworms. Obviously, these functions were integrated into in all that was entailed in their domestic economy and household managementthe daily tasks and the feeding of their families, educating children in manners and religious education. A task particularly assigned to the women. Women were seen as the guardian of family traditions. Her activities were fundamental to the social relationships of the family and the transmission of the ethical and cultural values across generations. This was the female role and function in the Alps: a love for the work and the family, sacrifice and physical fatigue of the tireless Alpine woman. Daniela Finardi - Daniela Finardi, Communications Dept -Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina 12

Alpine women, especially those areas where there had occurred a great deal of emigration by men, engaged in the multi-faceted job of Alpine farming. Younger women tended cows and oxen as well as the flocks of sheep and goats while the older women cultivated the fields and crops, processing the sequences of chores to create and store hay for their animals without their neglecting their household tasks and families. This gave women more autonomy and independence in agriculture, previously carried out by men. In the Trentino, the emigration of the males was widespread. At first, seasonal migration to the Po Plain south then the migration spread to Central Europe. Finally, as conditions demanded, the males began their emigration from the Trentino to North and South America. Due to the wartime draft, womenfolk had assumed not only the ordinary tasks but traditional male tasks.