Tatra people.
The foothills of the Tatra Mountains were already inhabited in prehistoric times, as evidenced by finds from the Bronze Age and even the Neolithic Age - in Spisz and in the Pieniny region. The name of the Tatra Mountains is given by sources from. 1086 beginning. The first historical news concerns Spisz, which was already inhabited in. XII and partly belonged to Poland, in part to Hungary. In Podhale, the Dunajec valley was developed the first, occupied by Polish highlanders. Po pd. On the side of the Tatra Mountains - in Liptov - Slovak highlanders settled, "Liptacy". There were numerous ties between the highlanders and the interior of the Tatra Mountains. They hunted here, they looked for treasures here and in. In the 14th-15th centuries they worked as miners, here, finally, herds of sheep grazed every summer. Organization of pastoralism, as well as the whole extremely interesting folk culture of the highlanders, shaped under the strong influence of the Balkan-Romanian and Ruthenian elements, who arrived in the Tatra Mountains in the. XIV—XVI within the so-called. Wallachian migrations. We have some information about mining in the Polish Tatras from. XV. They undoubtedly concern the Ornak region, where approx. 1520 r. the mines were expanded - on both sides of the ridge - by a company with the participation of King Sigismund the Old.
In the villages near the Tatra Mountains, you can still see old highlander architecture - one-story wooden huts with high half-gable roofs covered with shingles, divided into "black" and "white" chambers. Their particularly beautiful bands survived in Chochołów (d. 65b) and Dzianiszu. Recognized at last in. XIX for the Polish national style, this construction was by S.. Witkiewicz developed in the years 1887—92 in the "Zakopane style", enriched with Art Nouveau stylized ornaments. Homemade cloth, linen cloth, sheepskins - these are traditional clothing materials of the Podrery Highlander. The men's outfit consists of white cloth pants, decorated with "parzenice" hearts, white linen shirt fastened with a "clip", leather hearts and sleeveless choker, often thrown over the shoulders. The headgear is a round felt hat with "knuckles". The outer garment is made of a cloth chain, and the complement is a cane with a hatchet - ciupaga.
Highlander music, rich in Balkan elements, has already captivated many composers, among them K.. Szymanowski (“Harnasty”) i A. Malawski ("Wierchy"). Linguists are fascinated by the highlander dialect, full of archaisms not survived anywhere else. Many writers drew from the inexhaustible treasury of tales and highlander legends (S. Witkiewicz, K. Tetmajer, H. Sienkiewicz, T. Malicki, J. Kapeniak and inni).
In the Tatra Mountains, tourists meet the material culture of highlanders? today mainly in the form of pastoralism. Gazdów individually graze cows here, the sheep are taken care of by shepherds, who gather them in herds, remaining in the halls all summer (ok. 100 days). Baca has juhas to help. He lives with them in a hut made of wooden beams, in which he brews sheep's milk in a cauldron and makes cheese - bundz and oscypki. Sheep spend the night outdoors, usually closed in the rectangle of. barracks and moved along the meadow in order to fertilize it evenly. Started in 1957 r. purchase of the halls by TPN, dictated by the negative influence of pastoralism on the biological condition of meadows, she has already endured frenzy in many parts of the Tatra Mountains.