The Butcher and His Tools

Heir to a material culture transmitted for millennia in exclusively oral form, the butcher played an essential role in peasant civilization: to ensure, through the preservation of pigs, the survival of the family during the winter period.

Wrapped in his cloak that protected him from winter cold air and mists, with the work tools below, the butcher passed from farm to farm to bring his service.

Here he found a family, a small community, ready to start an ancient rite, almost a collective feast. At the center of the scene the pig that has been cared for a year, fed in abundance, cared waiting for the day when the masèn would arrive, the butcher to transform his meats into delicious cured meats that would have satiated the family for a whole year.

The butcher got up at sunrise and mounted on the bicycle, to go to carry out his task, in the seasonal rite of killing the pig.

He went home, protected from the heat hood of his traditional Emilian cloak (photo 2), the cloak used to defend against the rigors of the colds and mists Po Valley winters.

Half-wheel, long to the calf, of heavy fabric often made waterproof with the fulling, it hasn’t sleeves to put on, is was easily worn over the shoulder and allowed to keep upper limbs indoors - already protected by the rustic hand warmer knobs of overturned rabbit skins applied to the handlebar of the velocipede - and the tools transported.

In fact, to the cane of the bicycle he had firmly fixed a crank bagging machine with ropes to chop the meat and bag the salami, while on the front luggage rack he put the “butcher’s bag”.

This typical woven vegetable fiber container (straw, marsh reeds, corn scraps) was made with a weaving technique similar to weaving.

It was used by the expert itinerant craftsman to contain and transport all the necessary tools to carry out their job: cutlery, needles and other minute tools. As well as on the bicycle, the butcher could transport it by hand or attaching it to a rod and transporting it on the shoulder.