a1_In the wooded region of the Western Carpathians down to the middle of the twentieth Century certain very ancient techniques of agricultural work were preserved, which no longer occur in the neighbouring low-lying regions. The archaic character of some forms of cultivation appear above all in the methods of reclaiming agricultural land from what was originally forest land, in the way of preparing this land for the purpoises of cultivation and settlement, in the use of ancient techniques land implements, in lhe excessive use of the hoe for cultivation, in the cultivation of produce typical for older civilizations, which have been replaced by newer products in the economically more advanced regions, in lhe collective execution of cerlain work and in other relics of an older culture, whose origin lies in the prehistorical period of this region‘s development. The author of lhe present work sums up what has been as certained to date about the forms of grubbing and incineration cultivation and contributes ethnographic observations from his own research in the terrain which throw light on the beginnings of agriculture in the area of the Western Carpathians,especially in Slovakian territory. With regard to the amount of information of an ethnographic, historical, linguistic and geographical character the work contributes not only to the history of agricullure but also to Slavistics. The author acquired original ethnographic material as a result of research in the following Slovakian districts: Trenčín, Považská Bystrica, Žilina, Čadca, Dolný Kubín, Martin, Liptovský Mikuláš, Banská Bystrica, Zvolen, Rožňava, Poprad, Bardejov and Humenné. Comparative facts are drawn from literature relating to the territory of Moravia and Bohemia, furlher to the Southern part of Poland and the Western Ukraine. Comparative linguistic material from other, mainly Slavonic lands of South-East Europe (especially from Yugoslavia and Bułgaria) is also provided., a2_On the basis of concrete descriptions of grubbing in the Western Carpathians a general characteristic of this work is provided. At the determined place the trees were felled and the timber removed. In some cases the trees were felled above the surface, elsewhere they were dug out and uprooted. After the timber was removed the space was cleared of undergrowth, bushes were uprooted and surface stones removed. The surplus wood and dry grass was burnt along with the leaves. The ash thus obtained was used as fertilizer on the spot. When trees were out down, the remaining trunk was left to decay and then dug out. The furlher preparation of the clearing depended on its future function. Usually the soil was hoed over (even before the tree-trunks were removed) and used to grow various kinds of grain and from the beginning of the 19th century also for potatoes. The usual grain crops grown were oats, barley and forest wheat (Secale cereale). The choice of produce depended on the soil and climatic conditions as well as on the existing local tradition. After several years’ cultivalion the soil began to be ploughed, first of all by a wooden hook-plough (hák, hok), gradually, as the soil became more friable, by the plough. When the space was to be left for paslure, then, three or four years after clearing, grass seed or some biennial produce was sowed along with the grain., a3_The work connected with the original preparation of the clearing was known in Slovakia as klčovať, korčovať, kučovať, kopať, vyrobiť
roľu, vyrábať pole, vykoreniť, vykmenovať, vysekávať, vykopávať klče, ortovať. From these infinitive forms verbal nouns were also developed to indicate this work, e.g. klčovanie, kučovanie, korčovanie, kolčovanie, ortovanie, vyrábanie pola, vykmenenie, vysekávanie, vykopávanie kici. In the narrower sense these expressions indicate only the digging up of roots and trunks, the
removal of small shrubs and the initial boeing of the soil, in the wider sense they were transferred to cover all the processes
associated with reclaiming agricultural land from the forest, the
initial technical preparation of the newly-cleared farm land and the
clearing of grass-grown surfaces. Roots were known in populär dialecl as kle, krč, koreň, krnáč; trunks were called peň, pňak, klát,
kmeň, krnáč. The burning out of trunks and any use of fire in this
work was lermed pálenie pňov, žiarenie, ždiarenie, dymenie, cudenie. A special hoe was used in grubbing which had the same
shape and dimensions all over Slovakia. It was known as klčovnica,
kučovnica, kolčovnica, korčovnica, ortovka, vortifka, or more recently
by the descriptive term motyka na klčovanie. For felling trees and
bushes an axe was used. The stones from the felled area were carried off in wicker baskets or metal containers, sometimes in
wooden vessels for manure or in sheets of rough linen cloth. The
field prepared by grubbing was known in Slovakia as kopanice, kopanina, kopánka, laz, lazina, łazisko, lazištia, lazistina, klčovisko,
klčovište, korčovisko, ortovisko, orlvaň, ortáš, novota, novotina, paseka, pasika; when the ground was also cleared by fire, it was
called žiarovisko, ždiarovisko, žiarovišče, vypálenisko, dymeč. In
older dictionaries we are given the expressions klčenina, kučenina,
kučenica, nová rota, sekanina. Hill pastures obtained by grubbing in places originally covered by forest are also known as poľana, polianka., a4_The grubbing method considerably extended the area of agricultural soil. Since such fields usually were situated in remote places and were difficult of access, their manuring was a problem. For this purpose therefore the system was used of enclosing cattle in a wooden fold (košiar), which was regularly shifted from place to
place. As more extensive areas of agricultural soil were formed
on grubbed clearings, areas which were too remote from permanent habitations, these cleared areas were used by the farmers as seasonal supplementary farming sites, where¨cattle were kept either only in summer, or only in winter, with the purpose
of gaining manure and of consuming agricultural produce. Thus
there arose various forms of field and meadow stables, known as
poľná maštaľ, poľná stajňa, poľné¨humno, poľná stodola, bačov,
choľvarok, šopa, stodółka, etc. As the extent and economic importance of grubbed fields was greater for the owner than that of the soil he farmed in the village, there grew up on these plots on
remote parts of the village land even permanent settlements of a
scattered single steading type, known in Slovakia as kopanice, lazy,
dvory, etc. The first two of these expressions are derived from expressions signifying a plot acquired by grubbing, so that the term
for the plot of soil was transferred to the type of settlement.
The second part of the study provides a concrete description of the
incineration system as it was preserved in the Carpathian area of
Eastern Slovakia. While grubbing (klčovanie) had the purpose of acquiring soil by transforming forest land for permanent agricultural
or settlement purposes, the incineration method was used for soil
only occasionally tilled. The method was to fell the trees on the
determined spot, then grub the soil, while the tall trunks were left to
limit the shifting of the soil, the undergrowth being burnt and the ash from this used to manure the whole of the clearing. The plot
having been prepared in this way it was hoed over and sowed
mainly with a variety of millet known as ber (Setaria italica, Panicum
italicum L). This type of plot was known as pasika. It was fenced in
as a protecúon against wild animals. In the second year it was sown with potatoes, in the third with wheat or barley. It was tilled for not more than three to five years. Throughoul it was tilled by hoe without any use of ploughing., a5_The work connected with this type of cultivation was known as
polarenie. When the ash no longer supplied the necessary
nourishment to the soil, they ceased to till the plot, and left it under
grass to become overgrown with shrubs and after a few years with
young forest growth. Meanwhile the owner went elsewhere to further cleared spaces. When the young trees had grown on the plot, it was once more cleared, the wood burnt to ash and the plot
cultivated again for several years in the way described above. The
author designates this system of cultivation by the term žiarové
hospodárenie (incineration cultivation) and distinguishes it from
grubbing. In this sense ethnographic materials supplement and
even modify certain opinions which have so far been held valid in
Slavonic archaelogy. Žiarové hospodárenie can be considered to
be the most usual system of cultivation in the time before the plough was introduced. Some Slavonic investigators (P. N. Tretjakov, B. Grekov, W. Hensel, F. Graus) hold the opinion that
incineration cultivation is indissolubly bound up with the primitive
communal society because, in view of the¨unusually laborious
work entailed in felling the trees and grubbing, a large group of
workers must have participated, such as only this system of society could have provided. This opinion could be held only because no
distinction was made between incineration cultivation and grubbing. In grubbing, when the virgin forest was felled for the
first time, apparently the cooperation of a large group of people was
required. But in the course of cultivation by incineration, when the
farmers habitually returned to places already once cleared and only
temporarily abandoned, the forest growth was more recent and thus its subsequent removal did not require a large group of workers. In Eastern Slovakia this work was often done only by a group of three, in practice the adult members of individual families. The reason for the colleclive cultivation of the soil in the course of incineration cultivation was thus not the exceptíonally laborious
character of the work, but merely the common ownership of the land thus tilled. In this sense we may consider the common use and cultivation of soil, in the period when incineration cultivation is the most prevalent form of cultivation, to be a survival from the land-holding community, which represents the transitional stage between the kindred society and class society., and Článek zahrnuje širší poznámkový aparát