Raising Demian’s Poarta, Sîrbi, 1999

Demian’s gate blew down in a storm. He is a shepherd and gone from his home for over six months during the spring and summer. He asked his neighbors, the Berci family, to raise a new one for him and they agreed. Two weeks of labor culminates in an impromptu gate-raising.

There exists a deep bond of trust between these two neighbors. Petru and Petru Berci made the gate without having agreed on its price, and Demian agreed to have them erect it on his land without having seen it.

The Maramures Valleys in Northern Romania are so remote that generations of peasant farming practices remained intact. As modern amenities like cable TV began to reach the region, Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin documented how the people changed. On December 15, McLaughlin will share her experience and photographs from her book “The Color of Hay: The Peasants of Maramures” at the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library in Washington, DC.

” It was always towards the humble, towards the peasants, that I felt myself most deeply drawn; their customs and habits, their joys and pains, moved me strangely—I felt a desire to know them, to understand them, to be accepted without distrust in their midst. I loved the vast spaces where they dwelt, the smell of the good earth they ploughed; I understood the poetry of the dust that lay over their labour, that never-ceasing effort towards some shadowy ideal not yet completely conceived.” Queen Marie of Romania

Corn Harvest, Satu Mare, 2002

Loose affiliations of family and friends band together during corn harvest and migrate to the neighboring county of Satu Mare. There the fields are corn-rich and they will work for up to six weeks hand harvesting the crop in exchange for a portion of the yield.

Picking Walnuts, Mara, 1999

Autumn is the time of plenty when all the year’s work comes to fruition at once.

Making a Haystack, Sîrbi, 2002

Vasile tosses the dried hay up to Ileana, who tamps it down so that it can be combed to allow the rain to run off. She must always stay within grabbing distance of the haystack’s central pole, lest she fall. When they are done, he will lay a pole on the side of the haystack, and she will slide down and into his arms.

Hay is a lifeblood for these farmers. Their cows and horses have an appetite that must be satisfied three times a day.

Pretending to Drink Like Men, Sîrbi, 1999

Though drinking can carry an element of shame, imbibing to celebrate an achievement is a time-honored tradition.

As the men prepare to complete raising Demian’s gate, the women gather to imitate the impending masculine merriment.

Three Bătrîne, Budeşti, 2000

A Maramureşancă (Maramureş peasant woman) knows that city folk do not dress or believe as she does. Even though those people may command more respect, she is certain that her way is proper for her and her family.

The Color of Hay with photographs by Kathleen L. McLaughlin and text by H. Woods McLaughlin documents the authors’ four-year stay in the Maramures Valleys of northern Transylvania. The images in this monograph are simply stunning, navigating through the different aspects of village life that exists in a culture caught between the Old World and rapidly approaching modernization. The Color of Hay is organized into several sections distinguishing the change of seasons and the unequivocal ceremonies of life. The narrative these sections weave is both insightful and involves the reader to fully comprehend the full scope of this well-edited book.

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