Sardinian society and economy were always based on two main productive activities: agriculture and sheep farming that regulated social and domestic life of every town, Uta included.
Among the artisans, we find:
- Su ferreri (blacksmith)
- Su maistu ‘e linna (joiner)
- Su sabatteri (cobbler)
- Su buttaiu (cooper)
- Su maistu ‘e pannu (tailor)
- Su cadinai (maker of chairs and baskets)
In Uta, the most common crafts were market gardener and vegetable grower, but also shepherd, goatherd, and pigs’ herd were quite a lot.
The typical agricultural products that were cultivated in Uta are: broad beans, peas, wheat, cabbage, tomatoes, onions and garlic, parsley, pulses, oats, barley, French beans, courgette, lettuce, endive and spiny artichokes.
Before cultivating the soil, the men ploughed the soils through oxen that drew the plough. The animals used in the agricultural activities were above all ox and horse while donkeys were used to turn the grindstones for the wheal or to transport cargos.
The tools used by the vegetable growers are:
- Sa marra (hoe) called also, according to its size, marroni o marroneddu, to hoe wheat and broad beans;
- Su piccu (pick) to cut down hard soils;
- Sa panga (spade);
- Sa fracci (sickle), used to reap;
- Sa cavuna (pruning hook) to eliminate bushes and small trees;
- Su serroni (hacksaw) used to prune the trees and for grafting;
- Is pabias (shovels) used in the barnyards;
- Su tragavenu (rake).
In Uta, as well as fields and market gardens, also the vine was cultivated. Wine and cooked wine (sapa) were produced by it; in fact among the most common tools were also the shears.
Female works had as fulcrum the domestic walls: women prepared the bread from the beginning to the end. They cleaned the wheal, washed it, dried it, grinded it, sifted it, separating the bran from the flour and then they kneaded the bread and put it into the oven.
The craftmade object most widespread in the houses and used by the housewives were knives, chairs and wooden tools for the kitchen (ladles, spoons and shovels to cook the bread) and tools of interlaced hay, the so called “strexu ‘ fenu”, su ciliriu (the sieve with very thick meshes that separated bran from superfine flour), su talleri (chopping board), su stragatzadori (the sieve fro the flour), su tutturu (the rolling-pin used to rollout the sheet of dough), sa turra (the ladle) and is pabiasa de forru ( the shovels used to take out the bread and the panada from the oven).
Moreover, every housewife had a lot of crockery made of earthenware: sa mariga (jug for water), is sciveddas (big basin to process the dough), is prattus (the plates), is cassarolas (the pots).
The female presence was assiduous also in the fields and in the agricultural works, with definite duties: the women looked after the solving, the harvesting of broad beans, peas, French peas, lentils and chickpeas. During the reaping (it was done by the men), the women picked up from the ground the spikes cut down by the reaper. They also picked up almonds and olives, and looked after the grape harvest.