Moliners

What it is and technique

The miller ground grain in water or windmills. He adjusted the moles, chopped them when they lost bite, regulated the flow of the tremuja and charged the maquila. The architecture of the mills is in molins de vent and siquies, qanats and molins d'aigua ; here, the trade and its tools.

Process step by step

1. Pour the grain into the tremuja.

2. Regulate the fall of the grain towards the eye of the mole.

3. Moldre: the runner mola rotates on the cassock mola, fixed.

4. Garbellar / sedassar the flour (see garbell, porgador i sedàs ).

5. Chop the moles to renew the grooves (the miller "pica abdues les moles", Llull).

6. In the windmill: orient the caparrot and sails to the wind.

Forms and objects

• See tremuja i moles .
• Escut del col·legi: a millstone; that of the wind millers, a windmill.
• Image of Sant Llorenç on many windmill towers.

Vocabulary

• moliner: someone who is in charge of a mill.
• mola corredora / sotana: rotating stone / fixed stone.
• mola foguera: of pieces of flint fitted into a ring (Mall.).
• mola catalana: large one-piece stone (Mall.).
• tremuja: hopper.
• caparrot: in the windmill, the front part of the shaft that comes out of the tower and carries the antennas (Mall., Men.).
• «Pescador de canya i moliner de vent, no han mester notari per fer testament»: both jobs were poor (Mall.).

Geography

• Palma (water mills of the Riera and Font de la Vila; windmills of Jonquet), Sóller (water), Manacor, Llucmajor, Montuïri and Felanitx (wind).

Short story

• 1441: col·legi de moliners perfectly organized (water and wind together); patron Saint Bernat, in La Real; room on Pes de la Farina street.
• 1633: the millers of the Part Forana are segregated (Santíssim Sagrament).
• 1634: Manacor's own col·legi of wind millers.
• 1636: the Palma wind mills separate; patron Saint Llorenç (Socors church).
• 1650: water millers of Sóller, own col·legi.
• 1684: windmills of Llucmajor, Montuïri and Felanitx.

State

Disappeared as a productive occupation. Register of artisans (consultation 10/13/2026): 4 inscriptions of master of mills and 1 of mill builder in Mallorca: restoration of mills.

Why is it design

• Hand-calibrated machine: the chopping of the mola is the surface design that decides the flour.
• Proximity energy: local water and wind.
• The saint in the tower: union identity inscribed in the landscape.

For the project

• Contact the registered mill masters to document the grinding of moles.
• Windmill flour restored as a km 0 product.

Sources

• ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moliner
• dcvb.iec.cat/results.asp?Word=moliner
• dcvb.iec.cat/results.asp?Word=mola
• dcvb.iec.cat/results.asp?Word=tremuja
• dcvb.iec.cat/results.asp?Word=caparrot
• caib.es/siciefront/artesania/index.jsp?idioma=ct

Working text from the Disseny Indígena knowledge base, machine-translated from Spanish.

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