Flax (Linum usitatissimum)

This textile plant is grown in almost every parish of Madeira, over an area of some 150 to 200 hectares. After harvesting, the flax is drawn through the teeth of the rippling comb (ripanço) to remove the seed bolls. It is then retted in tanks or in the waters of streams, where it stays for 8 to 10 days. After this it is set out to dry and then crushed with a flail. To separate the textile fibres from the woody matter clinging to them, the flax goes to the brake (gramadeira) and is then scutched. But it is only on the hackle (sedeiro) – a kind of comb made of metal teeth fixed to a piece of wood – that the fibre is disentangled and can be made finer, while the tow is separated at the same time.

Both the flax and the tow are spun on the distaff by women. The yarn obtained in this way is reeled into skeins, placed in the oven or in a lye wash, and then bleached in the sun. Once bleached, the yarn is wound and can finally go to the small looms scattered across various parts of the island. There the series of operations ends that country people aptly call ‘the torments of flax’.

The linen cloth made in Madeira is of excellent quality and very durable, and much of the household and body linen used by country people is made from it.

Linseed (the seed of flax) is much used in rural folk medicine, but that sold in the pharmacies comes almost entirely from outside the island.

On this subject, see the book As pequenas Indústrias da Madeira, in the chapter ‘O Linho na Madeira’, by Lieutenant-Colonel Alberto Artur Sarmento.