Tradičné formy transportu ľudskou silou v strednej Európe - spôsoby prenášania detí

The essay explains Central-European traditional forms of manpower transport, in particular the ways to transport children. Carrying children using different transport aids has a long tradition and many common elements within the researched area, but we can also find many specific techniques and ways of carrying children as well as transport aids there. We can encounter regional archaisms and specifics there which make these ways of transport special. We focus on the oldest and most common transport mean - a wrap that - as a universal mean - served for carrying children until the mid-20th century. We record the ways of carrying children on motheer´s body - in front, on side or on back. The children used to be fixed in more ways as to their age, weight, and occasion to which they were transported (to the field, doctor´s, baptism etc.). We have noticed a special way of carrying children in baskets on mother´s back. Many of these described archaic ways are being revitalised, whereby original carrying techniques, and modern transport aids and materials are used. The essay summarizes results of long-term research and it compares them with materials published in the ethnographic atlases of Slovakia (EAS) and Poland, as well as with Czech works.