{"id":214675,"date":"2016-03-28T17:50:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T20:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/?p=214675"},"modified":"2016-03-28T17:50:38","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T20:50:38","slug":"well-milled-wheat-and-corn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/well-milled-wheat-and-corn\/","title":{"rendered":"Well-milled wheat and corn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vertical-wheel

Francisco Andrade<\/span><\/a> Vertical-wheel watermill built by Italian immigrants, Gramado, state of Rio Grande do SulFrancisco Andrade<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Introduced to Brazil by its European colonizers, water powered stone mills became a\u00a0 common feature throughout the country\u2019s Central-South region. According to the earliest available records,\u00a0 the fist mills were built in S\u00e3o Paulo between\u00a0\u00a0 1614 and 1616. The largest of these mills were used to grind wheat, while other, smaller ones (found throughout neighboring states after the 18th century) specialized in grinding corn for human consumption and to feed livestock. With the advent of electricity and the industrialization of food production, the mills became less useful.\u00a0 Most disappeared, while others\u2014like one on a farm in Santana do Parna\u00edba in greater S\u00e3o Paulo\u2014are today nothing but ruins. Although dozens of mills are still in operation on farms and ranches, most play either a marginal role or serve as tourist attractions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stone mill today is practically a technological dinosaur,\u201d says historian Franscisco Andrade of the University of Campinas (Unicamp). \u201cThey represent a link to a technological tradition in Europe that dates back two millennia,\u201d he adds. Andrade found three working watermills in the municipalities of S\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alo do Rio das Pedras and Ouro Branco, both in the state of Minas Gerais. In \u00a0Boa Esperan\u00e7a he met Gilson Jos\u00e9 Guimar\u00e3es, a craftsman who fashions millstones\u2014the mill\u2019s most important piece of machinery\u2014from blocks of granite. Guimar\u00e3es was also able to explain the importance of the stones\u2019 surface patterning in the process of grinding corn.<\/p>\n

\"Ruins

Francisco Andrade<\/span><\/a> Ruins and reassembly of the S\u00edtio do Morro watermill, Santana do Parna\u00edba, S\u00e3o PauloFrancisco Andrade<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Although Andrade found standing mills on old coffee plantations in the Para\u00edba Valley and Itu region of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, most were abandoned. In the town of Silveiras he met Josias Mendes Flor\u00eancio, born in Minas Gerais in 1931 and one of a rare breed of mill operators, or millers. Former herdsman and basket-weaver,<\/p>\n

Flor\u00eancio\u2019s account of the old mill\u2019s operations often coincided with that found in a treaty written between 1564 and 1575 by Spanish engineer Pedro Juan de Lastanosa.\u00a0 Built in 1916, the Silveiras mill remained non-operational for decades until, in the 1980s, Flor\u00eancio got it running to grind cornmeal for himself and his neighbors.<\/p>\n

In the states of Goi\u00e1s, Minas, Rio de Janeiro, Esp\u00edrito Santo and S\u00e3o Paulo, most of the watermills were of the horizontal-wheel variety and measured no more than four meters in height. River water strikes the blades of a horizontal wheel made of wood, rotating a vertical axle attached directly to one of the millstones. The millstone rotates atop another, stationary one, allowing the grain in between to be ground. In Southern Brazil, vertical water wheels (azenhas<\/em>) were more commonly used for milling corn. In an article published in \u00a0the journal Anais do Museu Paulista<\/em> (Annals of the Paulista Museum), Andrade observed that Brazilian mills, although more numerous owing to the abundant rivers with waterfalls,\u00a0 were smaller in size and more primitive than those built in Portugal and Spain.<\/p>\n

\"Watermill

Unicamp Memory Center \u2013 Collection owned by the S\u00e3o Paulo State Department of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works <\/span><\/a> Watermill in Ibitinga, S\u00e3o Paulo, 1906, in a photograph by Guilherme GaenslyUnicamp Memory Center \u2013 Collection owned by the S\u00e3o Paulo State Department of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWatermills link colonial Brazil to some of civilization\u2019s most deeply-established traditions and, in view their importance, were regarded as investments, always looked after by the Crown and its colonial rulers,\u201d explains Andrade\u2019s academic advisor, architect and Unicamp professor Marcos Tognon.\u00a0 Regarding the millstones\u2019 current state of neglect, \u201cthe millstones, usually of pink or grey granite, are found in conditions of general disregard, serving as props for vases, tabletops, and even benches for carefree seating under the canopies of luxuriant trees,\u201d Tognon laments, reminding us that \u201cthose who sit or lean on these relics are not aware of their role in Brazil\u2019s interior expansion during its colonial period.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watermills reveal manufacturing techniques dating back to the 17th century ","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[241],"coauthors":[5968],"class_list":["post-214675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retrospect","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214675"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=214675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}