Perilo

Location: Soline, N 45 09.016, E 14 35.971

It was rightfully proclaimed a source of livelihood. Numerous girls and women tried to earn their living using it but it often happened that they would lose their lives in the freezing cold or the scorching heat. Perila were washing places used daily by the hard-labouring women (‘težakinje’), where they had to break ice during the winter and wait for precious drops during the summer. One such perilo can be seen today in the centre of Ćižići or as the locals would call it ‘perilo pod topol’ (a perilo under the poplar-tree). At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, young men going to America in search of a better life made their romantic promises to their chosen ones exactly under that poplar-tree (‘pod topolon’)!