Rankšluosčiai : lietuvių liaudies tekstilė

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Liaudies tekstilė; Rankšluosčiai; Audiniai; Ornamentai; Šeimos tradicijos; Lithuania; Folk Textile; Towels; Fabrics; Patterns; Family Tradition.

ENTowels are considered one of the most beautiful of the Lithuanian white woven fabrics. They delight the eye for their variety of patterns and decorations, and also demonstrate the astounding diligence of Lithuanian women, their ingenuity and sense of beauty. These white ornate towels hung in 19th-century village houses added lightness and cosiness to the otherwise rather dark interiors. [...] The majority of towels have been collected during expeditions. The first such exploratory expeditions (1948-1950) were not very successful, as there were no funds, allocated for the acquisition of exhibits. Stationary expeditions were organised from 1951 to 1967, after which date route-based expeditions were held. The museum organised its first stationary expedition in 1951 in the village of Poškonys in Šalčininkai District. As single-farmstead dwellings were being eliminated, with inhabitants being transferred into new settlements surrounding collective farms, there was an urgent need to record and collect our material cultural heritage. Two expedition groups ventured to different locations every year from 1966. In addition, almost every year there were several shortterm excursions. From 1990, due to various circumstances, the museum ceased organising its own expeditions, while the museum's personnel would participate in expeditions run by other institutions (the Historical Research Society, the Versmė and Žiemgala publishing houses, etc.). During the Soviet years, exhibits would be purchased during Republic Folk Art Shows. The first such show took place in 1953. Of the 383 various works planned for acquisition, there were 98 towels. [...] In Lithuania in the lS^first half of the 20th centuries, towels would be woven from linen, cotton, and less commonly, from hemp thread. By the second half of the 20th century, viscose and acetate fibres also came into use. Linen towels dominated in the 19th century.Linen for towel-weaving could be bleached or natural in colour. Towels woven in the 19th century, like cloth in general, would be bleached in the sun in early spring, when the orchards were in bloom. In the first half of the 20th century, towels meant for special occasions would not be bleached, but the linen thread used for the weft weave would be dyed grey using natural plant-based dyes, bogbean (Menyanthes) or oak bark. This method for bringing out the pattern was widespread across all of Lithuania. In Dzūkija in the mid-second half of the 20th centuries, women preferred to use various shades of brown thread for the weft weave, less commonly - blue-coloured linen or viscose. Spinning the yarn was a task carried out after all the outdoor work had been completed. The women wanted to spin all the oakum before Christmas, after which they would spin linen. If they were not so skilled at spinning yarn, farmers' wives would get other women to spin their yarn and pay in kind, usually with food products. A very skilled spinner could spin yarn for veils or the warp weave for shirt fabric, so fine that it could fit through a wedding ring or be used on a sewing machine. [...] Over a majority of Lithuania, in the 19th-first quarter of the 20th centuries, such woven towels were called abrūsas1, or less commonly - renčnikas, rancninkas, renčninkas, ručnykas, renčnykas, while in Lithuania Minor the term marška was used. Approximately from the second quarter of the 20th century, this item was mostly called a rankšluostis (towel, literally hand-wiper). As was the custom with other textiles, towels would be divided into everyday and towels just for special occasions. Ordinary, daily towels were woven at home until around the outbreak of World War Two and in the first postwar years. They are usually of a sackcloth standard and were woven on a two-shaft or four-shaft groundcloth with various twill plaitings. [...].Towel decoration also reflected the fashions of the day and local traditions. It is very difficult to discern a clear boundary for between locations or periods when one or another decoration or weaving technique was most popular. Towel decorations may be divided into broad groups: woven-in decorations, and embroidered or added decorations (fringing, frills, lace, needlepoint). Towels were very often decorated with red cotton factory-made thread woven in at the ends, which were usually called a žičkas - patterns woven in to the textile using a pickup or rep technique. Old 19,h-century Žemaitijan towels had up to 50 cm long ends woven with these žičkas decorations. In Aukštaitija, besides the red stripes, blue stripes of linen thread would also be woven in, the width of these added weaves varied between 2 and 20 cm. [...] In the south-eastern part of Lithuania, multi-functional textiles were widely used in everyday life in the late 19th-mid-20th centuries. These were scarf-like, sewn from leftover ends after cloth weaving, or less commonly, left over from a four-shaft twill cloth. The length was around 70-110 cm, its width - around 60-70 cm. The warp threads would be plaited into frills with tufts or fringes at the ends. [...] Over the course of time, towels changed. More distinctive patterns and changes to material used for the weaving and decorative elements are noticeable after World War One. The proportions of towels woven for everyday and celebratory use also changed gradually - textiles serving purely an everyday-use purpose were woven less frequently. As various customs changed, towels gradually lost their significance as a gift or interior decoration object. Decorative, or representational towels given as gifts or for decorating rooms have become a rarity. [From the publication]

• Etnologija / Ethnology
• Menotyra / Arts
• Istorija / History