Social and Anthropological Aspects of Amorgian Craftmanship and the Art of Dry Stone Walling

Dry stone retaining walls, both in Amorgos and in the wider Mediterranean region (Petanidou 2011, 2015, Karekou 2019), constitute fundamental infrastructures that have historically enabled the use of land for agriculture and livestock farming. For the anthropologist Nikhil Anand “while infrastructures are present, they also continue to reproduce the political relationships of the times in which they were constructed” (2017), something that is evident in the case of the Amorgian network of terraces, paths and other agricultural and pastoral structures, which resonate the lived experiences of our interlocutors and their personal relationship to their land, to agriculture and to dry stone building. The art of dry stone walling and the art of cultivating the land appear organically connected according to the words of all our interlocutors. More on that -as in all agricultural economies- land labour, e.g. farming, livestock breeding etc, was intrinsically dependent on the seasons and the specific climate and weather conditions. Drawing from our interlocutors’ narrations: the rainy season, for most of the 20^th th century, generally began in autumn (specifically in September) signalling the winter crops’ period. That was when beans, garlic and onions were cultivated, when seeds were sowed, and when the olives were harvested. At that time, the dry stone walls’ stability was also “tested” by the locals and any restoration would most likely happen at that period, since autumn and winter were less demanding than spring and summer when the farming was more intensive, e.g. harvesting, threshing, vineyard farming, etc.

Since the occasional heavy rains and strong winds of the winter were likely to cause minor or major damage to the walls and other structures, our interlocutors pointed out some of the reasons such a destruction could happen. As they say, with the first rains and the strong winds, the gradual destruction of the walls would begin if the foundation and the moloma^[1] (meaning the small connective stones) were not properly constructed, if the stones in the building were not straight, laid correctly on the inside, if the walls did not have the right counterweight or if the gaps between the stones were not big enough for the wind to pass through. As Nicholas Gavalas (Sorokos-Panagos) more specifically notes “if there are elevated edges on the dry stone walls that the winds “attack”, you should not cover them, [because] the wind will tear them down. [The wind] needs to be able to pass in between [the stones], there should be gaps, holes… In the parts of the wall that the winds “attack”, the wind should be able to pass through. If it doesn’t, no matter how strong and solid the wall is, the wind will tear it down”, while according to Kostas Grispos : “we used to build the walls leaning towards the wind that affects them” and depending on the direction of the wind, north (vorias) or southeast (sirokos), “they «pushed» the stone towards that direction for more strength”.

Taking care of the dry stone walls, restoring or rebuilding them in cases of total destruction, appears to be deeply embedded in the year-round rural labour. Stone building in inaccessible areas with steep slopes and “downhill soil” (Christos N.) is clearly not a simple process. “The thing with the dry stone, with the walls, is that people didn't do it somewhere conveniently, in the fields for example, they did it wherever they needed it” says Antonis V. who acknowledges -as all of our interlocutors- the great effort and labour that stone building required. Extracting, carrying, breaking, loading and transporting stones in situ is a hard and demanding job. On the same note, Nicholas Gavalas (Sikalas) points out that working with stone “is not something easily done by an amateur, by someone who does not know the importance of stone”. An amateurish, inexperienced stone building technique will most likely not endure the first rains according to him, and even if it did, “in any case of heavy rain, the river-like water filled with parts of soil would sweep the walls away”, that’s why the “goal” of a good craftsman was to build strong, stable walls. Notably and with great kindness in his voice, the oldest of the craftsmen with whom we conversed, Christos Nomikos, says “I don't want to boast, but no wall I ever built -even from a young age- has ever been destroyed (salepsi)”. Even though endurance and stability were required, as shown above and by numerous other examples, “the walls were often destroyed during the winter. No wall was left for the next year. We had to build it straight away. Unless we had already sown the fields, so we had to wait until after the harvesting. Then we would go and build these retaining walls (ebasses)" (N.G. [Sikalas]). The members of a family, typically the men,^[2] “were in the farming fields from a young age and whenever a wall was destroyed, they had to restore it” (A.V.). This example clearly illustrates how farming and dry stone building had an organic connection within the local land dynamics and how both were inextricably linked to the different seasons, meaning both the weather conditions / seasons and the various farming seasons.

[1]  moloma = small connective stones

[2] In the narrations of our interlocutors dry stone building appeared to be an exclusively male practice and from what we accounted, boys started to participate in building and apprenticing from a very young age. On the other hand, the women of the family would participate in agricultural labour at large (for example, in olive picking-related work) and seem to have had an active role in the local economy, but we believe that further data should be collected in order to gain more insight on the gender roles, gender performances and everyday life of the people in Amorgos.

“In the old days it used to rain, that’s the whole point… It used to rain, so everything down there would flourish. The older people had vineyards -everywhere you turned-, they had fig trees, the old people were in the fields day and night. Now we can only «see such thing with binoculars» and you can't do anything about it... you can't learn this thing in a school… what can you do...?” (A.V.). Taking into consideration the extensive transformative process of the rural landscape (Kizos & Vlahos 2012) of both Amorgos and the Greek countryside in general, especially from the 1960s onwards, which was largely characterised by urbanisation and the abandonment of the primary sector, our interlocutors confirm - as exemplified by the aforementioned quote - the paradigm shift in the relationship of the local society with the land itself. This sort of abandonment of the agricultural activities goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the wall restorations, since, as noted above, these two practices were interconnected on a cultural and practical level. In that sense, the field was, in the past, not only a place of agricultural and technical work, but also a place to learn the art of dry stone building.

Our interlocutors belong to the last generation of craftsmen who learned stone building from the old craftsmen, in the field (in situ) and from an early age. According to what we recorded, the apprenticeship of dry stone building began during their pre-adolescence (11-12 years old, “from school, from a small child” [C. N.]) or their adolescence, while accompanying their fathers, uncles etc in the fields. That was usually the first contact of the young boys with dry stone building. Antonis Gavalas very aptly describes this process when he says: "how come and Nicholas builds walls? He builds them because he learned from his own people, he continued building, this thing has been going in a chain - the same as I did." This chain of knowledge and techno-practice seems to have evolved together with the need for a sustainable farming landscape in the Amorgian agricultural setting. The same craftsman continues: “Back in the old days almost everyone, almost everyone, was in the fields and a lot of people were building. Most people in the old days were building the walls, it was a necessity, they didn't do any other work and people were always in the fields back then and learning”. 

The transformation of each of our interlocutors into a craftsman was of course a personal journey. Important in the recognition among the Amorgian craftsmen themselves seems to be their respective experience with the older generations of craftsmen. Their training with them from a young age was an experience that seems to “seal” a successful apprenticeship. In our conversation with Nicholas Gavalas (Sikalas) it is clearly demonstrated by what he states about other craftsmen: "he knows because he was from a young age..." and elsewhere "'his father was a master craftsman too, he was among the craftsmen since childhood, he knows too". He himself had learned both from his father and from other old masters, but he believes that experience is ultimately what makes a master craftsman, and as he observes with great insight “no craftsman is perfect. As you get older and grow into a job, you gain experience and find new technologies by yourself. By yourself. What I know is by experience, by my own experience. That’s it, you start from a point on your own and slowly-slowly-slowly, you correct yourself. If you love this work. If you don't…If you do it just because you have to work…then don't do it...don't do it...especially the stone. The stone is love”. More on that, the stone building techniques are demanding and as Kostas Grispos notes, the building of dry stone “needs hands, needs strength, needs art” while according to Antonis Vlavianos “if you want to learn the art, be patient, that's it...and then on your own… you start practicing it on your own, you improve (your work), you learn. Craftsmanship is not easy”.

Apprenticeship combined with individual practice, hence, offer experience to the craftsman. Additionally, the proper use of tools, is a recurrent issue in the narrations of all our interlocutors and is clearly encapsulated in the words of Christos Nomikos: “The craftsman (is) the hammer...if he has no hammer...”. Over the years, through hard work and experience, the craftsmen in Amorgos developed a level of expertise that was important not only for ensuring the sustainability of the cultivated lands, but was also an expertise that seems to have served as an internal link in the structuring of the local circular economy and shared common infrastructure. “Look... I’ll come to the vineyard, you ‘ll come to the harvest (theros). You'll come to the harvest, you'll come to mate the animals since you have ones for mating, you'll come Dimitri to build the barn, you'll come...to harvest for me. People were close to each other, Maria, nothing like today. Nothing like that. I mean, in the techniques, the intelligence, in managing to do things well”. This reminiscence of Kostas Grispos carries a clear nostalgia for a past, better way of life. The relations of intimacy and mutual offering and aid within the community that emerge in his narration, highlight therefore that the generation of our interlocutors is not only the last generation of craftsmen who apprenticed to the old craftsmen from a young age, but also the last generation of people who experienced an agriculturally oriented everyday life.

According to Kizos and Vlahos “the agricultural landscape is the result of interactions between farming activities and the natural setting in an area” (2012:133) therefore, during the second half of the 20^th century a two-fold paradigm shift took place in Amorgos. Both the natural landscape of the island (“It has all been deserted, the whole place” [N.G. Sikalas], “it has dried out” [ C.N.]) and the farming activities alongside the dry stone maintenance and building (“the Amorgian way of building with stone is lost, the old master craftsmen are gone” [A.V.]) changed radically. This shift incorporates a sense of loss to our interlocutors who often refer to the current situation as completely different from the situation they received from their precursors.

 “I found everything the same way my father found it (from his predecessors)” (N. G. Sikalas)

In our research, it has clearly been demonstrated by various examples that the intergenerational material and immaterial heritage links the dry stone structures to both the farming practices and the network of paths. Therefore survival, self-sufficiency and prosperity were enabled throughout the history of the island. In a multi-species framework, dry stone retaining walls often appear as a synonym with the island itself and stone seems to carry symbolisms that are deeply embedded in the cultural and historical-social local context. We believe that in an increasingly precarious world (Tsing 2015) of climate and wider crisis, retaining walls are a vital, albeit neglected, key infrastructure for the island's land. Besides, “soil is essentially a non-renewable resource and a highly dynamic system that performs many functions and provides services that are vital to human activities and ecosystem survival” (Myronidis 2012: 60). Therefore, in any effort we make to restore and preserve the old paths, the walls, the terraces, we are indeed trying to preserve the wider local ecosystems.

Nowadays, “discussions of renewable energy, fossil fuel, climate change, extreme weather events, water shortage, loss of biodiversity, the Anthropocene” (Chakrabarty 2021: 1) and more on that, discussions of food insecurity, of the intensification of global industries and the depletion of natural resources, bring the issue of the survival of local ecosystems urgently to the forefront. Such issues eloquently appear in the words of our interlocutors, when Kostas Grispos says for example: “just think how many years these things have been standing” when referring to the retaining walls. Thus making us reflect if survival would even be possible on a Cycladic island without these infrastructures. Without the terraces, the wells, the cisterns, the cobbled streets and the whole network of paths that were built over time, decisively reshaping the natural landscape and the human activity within it.

   “Our island itself is standing because of all these artifacts […] when dry stone walls collapse, our island collapses” (A.V.)

In conclusion, the narrations of our interlocutors and the valuable time we spend apprenticing to them in our annual workshops, have brought out pluralistic examples on various socio-cultural topics such as the material and technical heritage of the island, the environmental and climatic changes and many more. From our perspective, these craftsmen give us the chance to learn an art form, which although dominant and historically valuable over the generations, it has nowadays been subject to significant transformations and tends to pass into oblivion. However, as Antonis Vlavianos characteristically and with great sensitivity observes, dry stone is the island and the island is dry stone. We therefore observe that the deep relationship between the local people and the stone is still alive in the hearts and minds of the Amorgian craftsmen and we believe that the value of this relationship remains crucial for the longevity of the island itself.