View source for Winnowing

{{short description|Method of separating grain from chaff}}
{{About|the agricultural method||Winnow (algorithm)|and|Winnowing (disambiguation)}}
{{Distinguish|Windrowing}}

[[File:Rice winnowing, Uttarakhand, India.jpg|thumb|Rice winnowing, [[Uttarakhand]], [[India]]]]
[[File:Madurai_Dalit_village_2.jpg|thumb|Winnowing in a village in [[Tamil Nadu]], [[India]]]]
[[File:C+B-Agriculture-Fig12-Winnowing.PNG|upright|thumb|right|Use of winnowing forks by [[Agriculture in ancient Egypt|ancient Egyptian agriculturalists]]]] 

'''Winnowing''' is a process by which [[chaff]] is separated from [[grain]]. It can also be used to remove pests from stored grain. Winnowing usually follows [[threshing]] in grain preparation. In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery. Techniques included using a winnowing fan (a shaped [[winnowing basket|basket]] shaken to raise the chaff) or using a tool (a winnowing fork or shovel) on a pile of harvested grain.

==In Greek culture==
{{further|Winnowing oar}}
<!-- The page called Liknon directs to this section; if changing section title, please also edit the redirect page -->
The winnowing-fan (λίκνον [''líknon''], also meaning a "cradle") featured in the rites accorded [[Dionysus]] and in the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]]: "it was a simple agricultural implement taken over and mysticized by the religion of Dionysus," [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] remarked.<ref>Harrison, ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', 3rd ed. (1922:159).</ref> ''Dionysus Liknites'' ("Dionysus of the winnowing fan") was wakened by the Dionysian women, in this instance called ''[[Thyia (naiad)|Thyia]]des'', in a cave on [[Mount Parnassus|Parnassus]] high above [[Delphi]]; the winnowing-fan links the god connected with the [[Greco-Roman mysteries|mystery religion]]s to the agricultural cycle, but mortal Greek babies too were laid in a winnowing-fan.<ref>[[Karl Kerenyi]], ''Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life'' (1976:44).</ref> In [[Callimachus]]'s ''Hymn to Zeus'', [[Adrasteia]] lays the infant Zeus in a golden ''líknon'', her goat suckles him and he is given honey. In the ''[[Odyssey]]'', the dead oracle [[Teiresias]] tells [[Odysseus]] to walk away from Ithaca with an oar until a wayfarer tells him it is a winnowing fan (i.e., until Odysseus has come so far from the sea that people don't recognize oars), and there to build a shrine to Poseidon.

==China==
[[File:Winnowing machine.jpg|upright|thumb|left|Chinese rotary fan [[Fengshanche|winnowing machine]], from the ''[[Tiangong Kaiwu]]'' encyclopedia (1637)]]

{{Main|Fengshanche}}

In ancient China, the method was improved by mechanization with the development of the rotary winnowing fan, which used a cranked fan to produce the airstream.<ref>[http://www2.tu-berlin.de/~china/deutsch/abstracts/Vogel.html The Question of the Transmission of the Rotary Winnowing Fan from China to Europe: Some New Findings], Hans Ulrich Vogel, 8th International Conference on the History of Science in China</ref> This was featured in [[Wang Zhen (official)|Wang Zhen]]'s book the [[Technology of the Song Dynasty#Wind power|'' Nong Shu'']] of 1313 AD.

==In Europe==
[[File:Jean-François Millet - Le vanneur (1846-47).jpg|upright|thumb|''Le vanneur'' (''The Winnower'') by [[Jean-François Millet]], a 19th-century depiction of winnowing by fan]]

In [[Saxon]] settlements such as one identified in Northumberland as [[Bede]]'s Ad Gefrin<ref>Münzenberg, Hessen. Chapel and Palas (G.Binding, Burg Münzenberg, 1962)</ref> (now called [[Yeavering]]) the buildings were shown by an excavator's reconstruction to have opposed entries. In barns a draught created by the use of these opposed doorways was used in winnowing.<ref>M.W.Thompson, The Rise of the Castle, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 5–6.</ref>

The technique developed by the Chinese was not adopted in Europe until the 18th century when winnowing machines used a 'sail fan'.<ref>[https://prestigequeen.com/broadcasting-and-winnowing/ Broadcasting and winnowing], ''P. C. Dorrington''</ref> The rotary winnowing fan was exported to Europe, brought there by Dutch sailors between 1700 and 1720. Apparently, they had obtained them from the Dutch settlement of Batavia in Java, Dutch East Indies. The Swedes imported some from south China at about the same time and Jesuits had taken several to France from China by 1720. Until the beginning of the 18th century, no rotary winnowing fans existed in the West.<ref>Robert Temple, The Genius of China, p. 24</ref>

==In the United States==
The development of the [[winnowing barn]] allowed rice plantations in [[South Carolina]] to increase their yields dramatically.

== Mechanization of the process ==
[[File: Wanmolen Duitsland.jpg|thumb|Winnowing machine from 1839]]

In 1737 Andrew Rodger, a farmer on the estate of [[Cavers (parish)|Cavers]] in [[Roxburghshire]], developed a winnowing machine for corn, called a 'Fanner'. These were successful and the family sold them throughout Scotland for many years. Some Scottish Presbyterian ministers saw the fanners as sins against God, for the wind was a thing specially made by him and an artificial wind was a daring and impious attempt to usurp what belonged to God alone.<ref>Chambers, Robert (1885). [https://books.google.com/books?id=O6QHAAAAQAAJ ''Domestic Annals of Scotland'']. Edinburgh: W & R Chambers. p. 504.</ref> As the [[Industrial Revolution]] progressed, the winnowing process was mechanized by the invention of additional winnowing machines, such as fanning mills.

==See also==
*[[Rice huller]]
*[[Rice pounder]]
*[[Sieving]]
*[[Threshing]]
*[[Winnowing (sedimentology)]]

==References==
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{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary-inline|winnowing}}

[[Category: Harvest]]
[[Category:Separation processes]]
[[Category:Grain production]]
[[sn:kuwurutsa]]
[[ja:唐箕]]