What could be made from a stalk, a log or a horn

A dictionary made in the village

In Masegosa, in the Cuenca part of Alto Tajo, Joaquín Rihuete Caballero published a Vocabulary of Masegosa and its district in instalments in Mansiegona. It lists words, meanings, occasional examples of use and stories of outsiders who understood nothing.

The best concerns a man arriving to ask for Cueva de los Griegos. A resident kindly explained: follow the road to the source of the Cuervo as far as the gamellones, climb the cingle and find the hoya; there it was. Had he understood? Yes, the man replied, but now tell me what gamellones, cingle and hoya are.

Read together, these words show what mountain life was made of.

Rye: bread and baskets

Rye was grown for food, but its straw made things too. An escriño was a two-handled basket of rye stems and cord. Encañaura, a bundle of rye, provided vencejos, the ties binding harvest sheaves. Wheat travelled to the mill in costales, sacks; the remains after sifting were granza. Hard bread was corrusco, and harinao a baked bun filled with flour and grapes. The hornera, the woman running the village oven, baked it.

Logs: water, bees and seats

A hollowed log was a gamellón, a drinking or feeding trough for livestock; a place on the Cuervo source road is called Los Gamellones. Hives had their own tool, the escodrijo, a giant gouge hollowing wood into vessels for bees. Shepherds sat on an escañeto, a three-legged stool made from the cobolla, a pine’s crown.

Pine woods: from forest to ceiling

Masegosa lies among pine woods, and its woodland vocabulary is extensive. Corta meant a timber auction. During felling, a pine sometimes remained engallinado, upright and supported by another tree. Espicazar meant sending trunks over a rocky cliff; esgalgar, throwing large stones downhill. A forcípula measured trunk thickness. Gamucha was a little pine branch; cucos, juniper berries.

Nothing from a pine was thrown away. Its bark, corcha or toza, fuelled stoves and filled plaster ceilings. Rihuete tells of outsiders warming themselves in a house where they would sleep. The owner said he would bring corchas so they would not be cold that night. They replied that there was no need: they slept without colchas, bedspreads. The similar words had confused them.

A horn for salt

A colodra was a hollowed cow horn in which a gañán, a farmhand, carried salt or oil to the fields. In the Serranía the same word had another meaning: the blows a sacristan gave newlyweds while placing the stole, the wedding yoke, over them. According to Rihuete, the custom lasted in Masegosa until 1950.

The house and hearth

Indoors, the cauldron hung from the llares, the hearth chain, and the fireplace’s lower section, the fraile, was enjalbegado, whitewashed with lime. Sausages dried on the lata, a long pole suspended horizontally. The entrance floor was lodado, spread with soft clay soil and left to dry. A pot lid was a cobertera, a small cup a jícara. Grapes were hung for winter on garranchos, dried burdock stalks. What fitted into a gathered apron was an halda.

Fields and livestock

Waterlogged fields received an encaño, a stone drain. A gasón was the grassy clod turned up by a plough; hence engasonao, figuratively drunk, like a stuck plough. The costillas, curved pieces attached to the yoke, formed the collera, and a lavija, a pin, secured the beam to the yoke. Villagers’ working animals were gathered in the dula and tended in turns. Gamón, a thick-rooted plant, was collected for pigs, as in Checa. The last-born piglet, remaining undersized from suckling the last teat, was the guarín.

Children played with gachupes, mud made of earth and water, and searched for gallinicas, Masegosa’s name for fossils. More games made with nearby materials are in An old pack of cards, an elder branch; everyday plants in Plants for daily life; and hives and firewood in the woods that fed people.