The ancient and the modern hemp weaving
Hemp used to be the most utilized textile plant throughout Valle d’Aosta. It was usually grown in the valley floor area, in well-fertilized and watered lands; just afterwards it was brought up to Champorcher, where there was a group of people dealing with its manufacturing. These hemp workers used to range from those dealing with the hemp carding (peigneurs de chanvre), usually men, to those dealing with the hemp weaving, both men and women; the “peigneurs de chanvre” used to work in other valleys and abroad as well. The weaving was at be basis of a fairly good level of canvas (“teila de meison” in local dialect, patois) trade. This canvas was utilized for bed linen, straw mattresses (garde-paille) made of more unrefined materials (sarge), shirts and thin clothes and fabrics (ritte), mainly used for babies and cheese making as well as church vestments. After having been abandoned for a while, this manufacturing got resumed and modernized in 1989 by an association of women, called Lou Dzeut and located just next to the hemp eco-museum in Chardonney. The shop/atelier is also available for weaving exhibitions. Here you can find hemp, linen and cotton fabrics as well as hand-made table clothes, towels, runners, lampshades, tailor-made dresses and souvenirs.
The hemp eco-museum
In the early 2000’s the Champorcher Municipality bought a house (Miti de Toumà, from the name Thomas, the one of owner’s forefathers) to designate it as a hemp and Alpine housing eco- museum. So far three rooms have been restored thanks to the community “Interreg IIIb Spazio Alpino” program: the barn, where there is the wooden weaving loom; the next-door where the fire was used to cook meals and make cheese; and the the basement. The weaving loom, the true protagonist of this eco-museum, represents a unique example throughout the whole Alpine mountain area.
