Serranía de Cuenca · 5 places
Ethnography: trades, mills and festivities of the Serranía de Cuenca
The ethnography of the Serranía de Cuenca is that of woodland and river trades: gancheros driving logs downstream, mills and fulling mills, Priego's woollen blankets, resin from San Martín de Boniches, and festivities such as La Candelaria with Talayuelas' torta de turroncillos or Reíllo's stick dances.
Woodland and river trades
The Serranía lived from what the hills provided. The gancheros, river timber drivers, took timber down the Escabas and Guadiela, and the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha listed the Gancheros del Alto Tajo as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain’s highest heritage listing) in 2021: The gancheros of the Escabas and Guadiela. Resin tappers tapped the pines, shepherds moved livestock along cañadas (drove roads) and veredas (narrower drove roads) and enclosed them in tinadas, livestock shelters, and in the woods lime was made in lime kilns, pitch in pitch kilns and tiles at tile works such as Valdecabras. Mills and fulling mills worked on the rivers: the Molino del Batán in Huerta del Marquesado still beats cloth.
In Tragacete and Vega del Codorno people remember the home: resinous splinters in almenaras, holders for lighting, the oil lamp, firedogs and pot chains, winter evening gatherings beside the fire and sewing in the street in summer. It is told in The hearth, school and the road to Valencia.
Museums and sculptures
Priego keeps woollen blankets and hooked poles in its museum; Cardenete has an ethnographic museum, and Valdemeca has La Puentecilla. The Paisajes Ilustrados of Huerta del Marquesado and Valdemeca put the washhouse, mill or cutting of browse out in the street as sculptures.
Festivities and voices
In the mountain verses collected by Tu Comarca magazine, the cuckoo is expected by 25 April: if it has not arrived, excuses are jokingly found for it, that it has died, married or is not allowed to come. Another verse reproaches it for leaving its young to other birds. In the mountains of Tragacete people earned a day’s wage uprooting bujes (box) for the forest wardens, and good rootstocks were taken home for the stove and open hearth.
La Candelaria in Talayuelas, with the torta de turroncillos prepared by the mayordomas, women responsible for the festivities, and the stick dances of Reíllo remain on the calendar. The oral memory of Valsalobre tells of bread, the pig slaughter, resin and salt: the memory of the Serranía.
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Frequently asked questions
What are gancheros?
The men who drove pine logs down the rivers to the Tagus at Aranjuez. Their trade was listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest heritage listing) by the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha in 2021.