Traditional kitchen and woodworking trades

FURNITURE

Few, austere, scarcely specialised and almost always very rustic: such was the traditional furniture of Upper Aragon.

Chests were common. When a woman married, she brought one containing her trousseau. They were usually simple, sturdy boxes made of pine. Sometimes, however, the bride brought a richer chest: some display delicate incised geometric carving, others colourful painted decoration, and some handsome iron fittings.

Craftsmen also occasionally devoted special care to the cupboards used to store clothes. Some walnut examples survive with fine panels decorated in relief.

Yet the essence of traditional Upper Aragonese furniture is not to be sought in elaborate carving, colours or gilding. It lies in practical, simple and elemental objects, made with basic tools from the timber provided by the surrounding landscape.

It can be found in the sturdy benches or cadieras around the hearth, in the jar stands that held water jars, in three-legged stools and in benches polished and worn smooth by use.

THE FUSTERO — WOODWORKER

The fustero made tables, cupboards and windows, but also travelled from village to village and house to house carrying his tools. He used only a few: a saw, an adze, a jointer plane, a chisel and little else.

Before the wood reached the hands of the carpenter, many tasks had been required from the time the tree stood in the forest. The woodcutters felled it in winter, took it out of the woods and transported it to a river. There the trunks were tied together to form rafts, or navatas, which floated downstream. At their destination, sawyers, using large saws operated by two or three men, turned the logs into boards.

In Upper Aragon, Scots pine was used above all for house construction —for floors and roof structures as well as doors and windows— and for practical, rustic or inexpensive work. Walnut was reserved for more elegant and delicate furniture. Oak was used for more luxurious carving, as well as for structural timber and window and door frames.

Other trees had highly specialised uses: juniper, like yew, for weather-resistant work; boxwood for the finest small objects such as spoons; and service tree wood for tool handles. There was a type of wood for every need.

THE SAW

For sawing, wine;
and for the saw, bacon.

Logs were sometimes cut up in the forest itself and sometimes beside a house or settlement. A supporting structure, also made of logs, first had to be built to hold the trunk that was to be sawn.

The tool used was a long trapezoidal saw with a handle at each end: one fixed to the wider end and another movable handle fitted near the teeth at the narrower end.

Because of its considerable size, the saw had to be operated by two or three men. One stood on top of the trunk, holding the fixed handle and moving the saw lengthwise up and down, while his companions on the ground guided it by the other handle and prevented the blade from twisting.