University of Tartu
Viljandi county, Estonia
58°19’17.933” N, 25°43’36.844” E
A pouch made of a ram’s scrotum Monika Hint
2019
Ram’s scrotum, woollen and cotton fabric, bone and metal accessories
Tawing, sewing, cutting, smoothing, drilling 18 cm length x 13 cm width
Monika Hint, an student of the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy, runs her own studio, Koordikamber, in Koordi farm in Viljandi county. Collaborating with fellow artisans, local farmers, and hunters, she uses bone, horn, leather, wool, and other natural, often recycled materials to create products that build on and develop further traditional technologies. Koordikamber also offers courses and workshops.
Tanning and tawing are traditional leather processing methods in Estonia. While tanning requires vegetables or flour, alum and salt are used in tawing. Until the beginning of the 20th century, these skills were widely practised domestically, though there also existed village tanners.
A gallery of images of the exhibit item.
During the 17–19th centuries leather pouches made of ram’s scrotums were used as money bags and tobacco pouches. They were tanned along with the skins and decorated with applique, beads, copper rings and fabric. Nowadays the pouch is suitable for coins, cellphone, pipe, dice, tobacco, talisman etc.
Sheep farming was spread across Estonia and tending to these animals was a women’s chore. Sheep and rams were typically slaughtered in the autumn around the feast of St Michael (September 29), which marked the end of the agricultural season. The skins of animals were preserved over the winter by means of salt and processed in the summer when water was more readily available, and it was easier to dry the skins. Cleaning and unhairing, for example, were often women’s tasks. When a ram was killed, not only its skin was tanned, but also the scrotums, which were used to sew coat pockets and pouches. It is the form of the scrotum, among other things, that fascinates the artisan Monika Hint. Seeking to make the most of this material, she combines skin with textiles for durability, functionality and looks, and with details made of bone, which is another favourite material of hers. In addition to rye, wheat, barley, and oats can be used to process leather. Flour tanning is one of the oldest tanning technologies in Estonia and is particularly suitable for sheep and ram skins.
Monika Hint’s studio Koordikamber is located in Kibeküla village in Viljandi county in the southern part of Estonia. Her aim is to keep the production process as nature-friendly, local, simple and resource efficient as possible. This means using as few resources as possible, recycling as much possible and minimising waste. In fact, much of what she works with is waste: byproducts and materials that others have no use for. Thus, she collaborates with local farmers and hunters, who provide her with leather, horns, and bones that she processes by means of traditional methods. The pouches made in Koordikamber are organic for the simple reason that nowadays only organic farms keep rams, i.e. uncastrated male sheep. Monika Hint uses scrotums that come from a small organic farm in southern Estonia and are delivered to her maybe twice a year in batches of approximately 10. Because this raw material is so precious, and the traditional techniques used to process it tend to be time-consuming and labour-intensive, Monika Hint makes artefacts out of ram’s scrotum only a couple of times a year. While these products are of high quality and exclusive, they come from an ethos of subsistence that for centuries used to define rural life in Estonia.
Authors: Monika Hint and Elo-Hanna Seljamaa
References:
Hint, Monika. “Luu töötlemine lamba sääreluust vilepilli näitel.” Studia Vernacula V. 4, Lugusid materjalidest. Stories
about Materials, (2013): 58-72. Accessed March 14th, 2024. https://doi.org/10.12697/sv.2013.4.58-72
Uus, Made. “Traditional leather processing using domestic methods in Estonia.” Studia Vernacula Vol. 11, Studying Estonian heritage craft technologies: best of Studia Vernacula 2013-2019, (2019): 164–179. Accessed March 14th, 2024. https://doi.org/10.12697/sv.2019.11.164-179
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