Kijanka – Laundry Beater / Ethnography

The Polish word kijanka comes from the word kij which means stick, and this term was used in many regions of the Slavic language as a substitute for the word hammer. It was often joked that the kijanka was the indispensable weapon of every village woman. For centuries, a kijanka was the simplest of laundry tools, most often used in open bodies of water such as rivers and lakes. The laundry, dipped in water, was repeatedly hit with the kijanka and rinsed with cold water, dirt was thus mechanically knocked out of the fabric fibres and washed away. Sometimes, various ash and tallow liniments were added to the laundry to facilitate the process.

In the Slavic region, there were and still are in many houses prohibitions on doing the laundry at specified times and of certain textiles. This was not related to the usual ban on working on public holidays, but to a ban on performing a specific activity. Doing the laundry created a loud beating / slapping noise. The loud noise was characteristic of washing clothes with a kijanka by the river.
As a rule, women went to do the laundry together, mainly because they were afraid of meeting the goddesses who might approach them and steal their underwear. During Corpus Christi, women were very careful not to tap with their kijanka, as this could cause dangerous storms and bring misfortune to the entire village. The sounds of a kijanka at night were also greatly dreaded. It was a sign that the goddesses were there and river should therefore be avoided.

Kijanka – laundry beater

a substitute for the word hammer