Book
Homemade world of Zagaj
Sosialantropologisk institutt • (18) • Published In 1979 • Pages: xvii, 249
By: Minnich, Robert Gary.
Abstract
This is an ethnography on peasant-farmer households in the Haloze region of Slovenia. Using the concept of 'indigenous technology' the author describes the material and social relationships of a settlement of small farms. Farmsteads (domaca gruda) are passed down intact to selected heirs -- not necessarily the oldest son -- accounting for a rural landscape that has remained unchanged for the last two hundred years. Although the farmstead is the exclusive domain of a nuclear family, its operation depends on the exchange of goods and services among other households and 'guest workers.' Minnich shows how a Christmas time pigsticking ritual and feast (furez) makes explicit the dependence of the nuclear family on a wider 'peasant' society. According to Minnich, an egalitarian peasant culture is evoked in the common skill of butchering, and for the day at least, the transfer of authority from the household head to the visiting 'head butcher.'
- HRAF PubDate
- 1997
- Region
- Europe
- Sub Region
- Southeastern Europe
- Document Type
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- Ian Skoggard ; 1996
- Field Date
- 2/1974-12/1975, summer 1977
- Coverage Date
- 1945-1975
- Coverage Place
- Zagaj, West Haloze, Slovenia
- Notes
- Robert Gary Minnich
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-246)
- LCCN
- sn88017044
- LCSH
- Slovenes