CZECHOSLOVAKIA 



137 



argues well for its permanence, if their 

 instincts are not outraged by too rapid 

 change. They are the common people. 



Slovakia is a vast museum of folk art. 

 Songs that have sprung from the hearts 

 of the people and have passed from lip 

 to lip for centuries have a haunting 

 quality which is the soul of art, because 

 it mirrors the soul of the people. Capti- 

 vating measures that sing of stamping 

 boots and voluminous skirts whirled in 

 the picturesque dances of the Slovakian 

 peasant have long since reached the out- 

 side world, though often disguised as 

 ''Hungarian rhapsodies." 



Pottery with native designs of dis- 

 tinction and purity decorate the walls of 

 many "best rooms" in Slovak villages, 

 and the wonderful products of Slovak 

 needles rank with the most beautiful em- 

 broideries and laces in the world. 



Sabbath-day Slovakia is a picture which 

 even an Uprka cannot paint — the colorful 

 picture of a people whose culture was not 

 learned in the school-house, but was born 

 in the hearts of hard-working folk, often 

 bowed before the shrines and altars of a 

 very real and intimate religion. 



One of the distinctive Slovak villages 

 is Cataj (pronounced Chatai). The 

 tinted walls of the houses have a darker 

 color for some distance from the ground, 

 and there is a narrow line of clean- 

 scrubbed bricks bordering the foundations 

 to keep the water from the thatched roofs 

 from spotting the base. 



Not only are the outer walls of several 

 colors, with the windows clearly lined in 

 contrasting tints, but some of the old 

 women of the village have painted origi- 

 nal designs on the w T alls of their kitchens. 

 Some haughty users of ready-made fur- 

 niture might sneer at these sometimes 

 crude patterns, but they show imagina- 

 tion and meaning as well as care and 

 housewifely pride. 



MORE WOMEN THAN MEN VOTE IN 

 CZECHOSLOVAKIA 



The painstaking embroideries eloquent 

 of patient skill, the spotless white of the 

 men's costumes, and the stiff white ruffs 

 with which the infants are lovingly pro- 

 vided constitute a great tribute to the 

 energy of the women of Czechoslovakia 

 in the home. That they are not lacking 



in political privileges, however, is shown 

 not only by the fact that they have equal 

 franchise but also that they use it. In 

 the June, 191 9, elections 2,746,641 women 

 voted in comparison with 2,302,916 men 

 voters. Thirteen of the 302 members of 

 the House of Deputies are women and 

 three of the 150 Senators. 



AS A GUEST OF THE MAYOR OE A SEOVAK 

 VIEEAGE 



We were guests of the hard-working 

 mayor of Cataj and his barefooted wife 

 and mother, and had the privilege of ex- 

 amining his house. One wall of the 

 guest-room was a mass of pottery and 

 the opposite wall was obscured behind 

 the great pile of bedding which is an 

 earnest of the hospitality one finds in the 

 humblest Slovak home. 



The long red bench was made in 1856 

 and bears the picture of Adam and Eve 

 and the serpent. This well-known trio, 

 sometimes painted in all the grotesque- 

 ness of early Italian drawing, is found 

 in every home, for Adam and Eve are 

 held as the patrons of marriage. 



The mayor showed us his harvest 

 crown, which the people brought to him 

 as a seasonal tribute. It was a huge 

 affair, constructed of the choicest stalks 

 of grain, and that and a beautifully 

 carved piece of common wood, which 

 dated from 1714 and which served as a 

 sort of scepter or badge of office, were 

 the only emoluments the worthy man re- 

 ceived. 



Returning to a spotless room in Prague 

 after weeks of toilsome travel in which 

 comfort was as scarce as interest was 

 general, I heard that a festival was to 

 take place in the Slovak town of Tur- 

 ciansky Sv. Martin, nestling at the foot 

 of the Tatra Mountains, only a short dis- 

 tance from the romantic valley of the 

 Vag (see page 155). 



The comforts of Prague had a peculiar 

 appeal to one who had almost forgotten 

 what a bed was, but I thought of the 

 sleepy little town with grass growing 

 between the cobblestones of its great 

 square, vacant as a yawn, and with its 

 churches dominating the skyline as t hex- 

 dominated the thoughts of the people. I 

 thought of the lovely valley of the Vag, 

 with ruined castles jutting upward from 



