Story Number 1: The Žalac House and Mill
Tomo Žalac is also known by the name Zdravko. He was born in Karlovac in 1957. He worked as a millwright in Zagreb and Slunj and is retired now. He grew up in Rastoke in the Žalac Mill, where he lived with his parents until he was a teenager and later, they moved a little farther away from Rastoke, where he still lives today. He goes to Rastoke every day in order to see it because Rastoke – a miller’s village – has fed many hungry mouths. If it were not for the millers and their mills, Rastoke would not have survived or been what they are.
Tomo remembers many stories and even as a child, he knew how much cleaning each mill and each house needed and how much care for the water flow was necessary.
“We had a concession for maintenance of the water flow in the length of 100 metres from the house to Žalčeva glava, where the main sluice gate (dam) for the mill was located,” he says and stresses that the care for it required a lot of work.
“Namely, if the šlajsevi (sluice gates) were not closed in time, the water could flood the mill, the house and run under the barn, the so-called šajer. We also took care of the volta (a vaulted bridge) under which the water ran towards our mill. Another sluice gate was important for the operation of the mill and the regulation of the water. That was a channel under the stable where water flowed. That sluice gate was opened when the water level was high. I remember that channel really well. I always had to clean it in the summer because the water brought tree branches and other debris so the water could only trickle,” Tomo says and adds that the water and its currents were the most important thing.
“Digging and changing the water flow was not allowed because that would cause quarrels between neighbours. Agreements were necessary and everyone had to adhere to the rule – what is yours is yours and what is not should not be touched,” Tomo says.
He remembers and knows that high level of water was never a problem in Rastoke, rather the problem occurred when there was no water for the mill to run. The Žalac mill was connected to Petrovićev slap (The Petrović Waterfall), which is dry today. He remembers that, a long time ago, the river Slunjčica, also known as Slušnica, flowed into the river Korana in that spot. For that reason, Tomo’s father Janko and grandfather Franja used to put planks there so that water would not flow over the waterfall into Korana. When the water was dammed, most of the water went back by the Holjevac mill (Zvonina) and flowed to the first volta towards the mill. During a dry year, sometimes only one milling stone would work.
How the Žalac Mills Came to Be
Tomo Žalac, 1990.
“The Žalac mills have been here since my great grandfather Janko from Gnojnice – a village near Slunj – moved here and married Bara Belković, my great grandmother, at the end of the 19th century. He bought the mill from Jareb. He had to feed nine sons, who were born in the Žalac house with the mill. Each one of them, one by one, later went out into the world.”
In the renovated mill, after the death of the great grandfather Janko and great grandmother Bara, only their son Franja was left.
“He had four children, two daughters who got married and moved to Rijeka and two sons – my father and uncle – who stayed in the mill with their families. I am only mentioning this because the right to mill had to be determined in the families with more than one heir. Every heir had the right to a certain amount of milling. In our family it was like this; my grandfather Franja had the right to two weeks of milling and each son had the right to one week of milling. My grandfather lived with us so we milled and took care of the mill for three weeks every month. My uncle and aunt had the right to one week of milling.
When talking about the mill, everyone should know that in addition to the water, the people also had to take care of the mill itself. Apparently, another thing was in the care of the family running the mill and that was a koš (a type of barrel for laundry) in which rugs and other heavier clothes were washed. Older members of the family told me about that. The koš was actually a perforated barrel in which the clothes were spun like modern-day centrifuge. Everything was properly washed without detergent or other aids,” Tomo says.
For a very long time, they did not have the main water supply. “We drank Slušnica and used it for washing clothes. We also washed ourselves there because no one had a bathroom. Everyone did it. We washed ourselves in the skela – leat – which is a water channel bringing water towards our mill, next to the bridge, in the summer and in the winter.”
White Milling Stone and Black Milling Stone
Milan Holjevac, 1988.
“There were three milling stones in the mill. The white milling stone was for the wheat and the black one for the corn. Sometimes we milled mixed grains, usually corn and wheat. The third milling stone was also black. It was mostly used for milling rye, oats, old corn or old wheat, which could no longer be used for flour. That mixture was used for feeding the pigs, sheep, cows and calves. The white milling stone was the slowest because only wheat was milled there. We were meticulous about separating the flour from the bran. When the wheat was milled, the bran was put into a feeding hopper with a sieve so that more white flour would come out. But the flour was the best and whitest if it went through the mill only once. The miller was the one in charge of assessing whether the flour was good and whether there was enough of it. The bran was mixed with pumpkins and cooked potatoes, creating meća, which was food for the pigs.
The white milling stone consisted of a feeding hopper for wheat and grušt – a type of scaffolding holding a sieve into which the flour was poured. Millers had to be careful that the sieve was whole and without any damage so that the bran would not mix with the flour. The bran went into a container called kabal and was sieved again. The miller would know how much flour and how much bran he could get from a bag of wheat. He would take the ujam (a grain container of a certain size in which the grain was measured) for payment, but no one ever knew how much the miller took. However, everyone was happy because the milling stone did not muddle the wheat, so the bags were always full. The miller had to put effort into making better flour or melja. That was the reason why the miller had to klepati mlin, that is, use a special hammer to flatten and sharpen the surface of the milling stone.
The mill would be disassembled, the feeding hopper taken off, the stone taken out of the axle, which was connected to the spindle and turbine with the paddles. The axle was connected to the milling stone with a wooden holder – the so-called paprica – which could be adjusted with šćike, that is wooden props (pieces of flat wood tapered on one side) so that the spindle would be as straight as possible and would not fall out of its bed.
The paddles in the turbine also had to be placed in a way so that they could turn as easily and evenly as possible. Everything was made that way in order for the mill to use as little water for its operations as possible. The milling stones were flattened with klepci (a type of stone working hammer), which were made by blacksmiths and the sharper the klepac was, the easier it was to flatten the milling stone. The milling stone was marked by wet bricks so that the spots that needed sharpening were visible. Millers had to know a lot of things.
The paddles sometimes broke and in that case, someone had to go under the mill, both in the summer and winter. All the paddles had to be connected to the trupina (waterwheel). Sometimes the šiljak (spindle) would fall out of its bed. All of those things happened, were repaired and the milling work was continued. Everything was made from beech wood; paddles, spindle and waterwheel. For the paddles, healthy beech wood was used, which was cut into four pieces, the so-called bande, which were soaked in water for a year or longer. The wood got its strength from that process, from the water. And when they were put into the waterwheel, they got extra protection from the outside. Not everyone knew how to make a good paddle! There were some good craftsmen in Rastoke. They did not have chainsaws before. Everything was done by hand,” says Tomo and adds that the main tools were bradva (a type of axe used in woodworking), tesla (adze), glijeto (chisel) and wooden drills. “The craftsmen also needed to know how to make a good sketch. When someone was looking at it from outside, it always seemed so easy and of course, there was a lot of jesting and some rakija (fruit spirit) involved,” Tomo says.
When a Person Gets Used to the Sound of the Mill, It Is Hard to Forget It
“The milling stone was always rattling so my grandfather Franja used to fall asleep leaning on the grušt and started snoring and the mill would keep working while empty. Someone would warn him about that and he would jump and say he was aware of it (even though he was not).” And so, it went day after day. In order to hear it rattle, the miller had to know how to open and adjust the mill to operate properly. When the šlajs is being opened, the milling stone must not be completely lowered (stone must not grind against stone). “Therefore, the runner stone (upper stone) needed to be raised so that the spindle had as little resistance as possible. That was done by using a mačak (a wooden lever); the milling stone was raised a bit and a šćika (prop) was pushed in.
“When the mill started working, the miller had to adjust it according to the type of flour he wanted. For example, he could choose between coarser flour for cracked grain or šrot (coarsely milled corn, barley or other type of grain for chicken feed) and finer flour for polenta. The stone would be raised for coarser and then lowered for finer flour.”
The Žalac mill was located at the entrance to the house. “There was a sluice with three gates for three milling stones. From the mill, one would enter into the kitchen and from the kitchen the stairs led up into the bedrooms so, the mill had to be cleaned. Someone always had a broom in their hands because wheat would spill, there was dust and during the winter, there would be snow. It was cold in the mill, especially in winter, because rime ice would sometimes form on the wooden beams. If someone had to go under the mill, someone did. The life of a miller was not easy. That is why I told you everything,” Tomo says.
The Žalac Millers (Customers)
“People who came into our mill were our customers; we called them millers. They were usually from the Slunj surrounding area (Lađevac, Furjan, Popovac, Cvitović, Zečev Varoš, Podmelnica, Slušnica) and I remember they even came from Močile, which was far away. The wagon full of flour was usually drawn by oxen, and people who came from afar had horses instead. I remember Braco Oštrina, he was an older man who came to the mill with a donkey. The donkey would fare well until it reached the bridge. Then it would sometimes stop in its tracks. Not a single step forward or backward. Then people would take the flour off the donkey’s back and bring it to the mill and the donkey would keep standing there, on the bridge, for a long time. I guess it was afraid of water. The millers who had to stay with us longer (usually a day or two), until their wheat was finished milling, stayed under the šajer (barn).” The barn burned down during the war, in 1992. Šajer is the name used in these parts for a wooden building utilized for storing hay.
Everyone took care of these people. They ate with the hosts and slept in their wagons. In the winter, they slept in the mill or on a sećija, a bed made of wood and an old straw mattress.
“My grandfather Franja was the one who made appointments with people, who would come to the mill and when. He usually did it on a Thursday. It was a holiday. My grandfather would dress up as if he were going to church. With his šćubara (fur hat or ushanka) on his head, he would be on his way to Slunj. He would meet various people, but they would all end up in Skukan’s tavern. My grandfather would spend the entire day there with his millers with a glass in his hand. In the evening, when he would come home, my grandmother would check whether his fur hat was floating in the water, which would mean that my grandfather fell into the skela, leat. However, he would keep to the other side of the channel, where there was a boulder by the road so that he would not fall into the water. When he came home, my grandmother would yell at him that he was drunk again and he would defend himself saying that it was not his fault, that others paid many rounds of drinks for him. He would say, ‘Zapuvali su me.’ And that was how it was, every Thursday until my grandfather reached old age. The life in the mill was special, because of the murmur of the water, the sound of the mill and the smell of grain. All of those things become a part of life for someone who lived in a mill and they carry it with them wherever they end up,” Tomo stresses.
