View source for Boô

{{Short description|Old Saxon building}}
[[Image:Boô.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Hekman's boô in [[Schoonebeek]]]]
A '''boô''' (also spelled '''boo''' or '''boe''') {{Pronunciation|Nl-Boô.ogg}} is an old [[Saxon people|Saxon]] building where a farmer could spend the night with his [[cattle]] if he let them graze far outside the village. The buildings, which had separate areas for cattle and farmer to live, were made with cheap materials. Walls were made of [[straw]] or braided twigs covered in cow [[manure]] or [[loam]]; the roofs were also made of straw.

==Etymology==
The word boô is a cognate of the German word 'Bude' which means 'shack'.<ref name="de-en">[http://odge.info/german-english/Bude+%7Bf%7D.html German-->English translation of "Bude"] at odge.info. Note: 'Bude' is also used to refer to a someone's home in the abstract, as in 'my place'.</ref> The [[circumflex]] on the second 'o' indicates that a letter is left out. In Danish, 'bo' means [[house]]. The word boô is [[Low German]].

==History==
A (usually unmarried) [[cattle]] [[farmer]] who spent time in a boô was called a boô-heer and was employed by a so-called "broodheer" (literally: bread lord). Once every fourteen days, the boô-heer would return to the farm for food supplies and clean clothes. He could keep the earnings of his only [[dairy cattle|milk cow]] and the eggs his chickens laid.

The villages of [[Schoonebeek]] and [[Nieuw-Schoonebeek]] in the border area with [[Germany]] in the Dutch province of [[Drenthe]] are the only places where these buildings can be found. Because of this, Nieuw-Schoonebeek was known as Boôëndorf on the German side of the border. The boôs that can be found there today are [[replica]]s, which were not built in the original boôs' locations.

The last genuine boô, the Wilmsboô (owned by the Drents Historical Society De Spiker) in Nieuw Schoonebeek (1640) burnt down in October 2004.<ref name="nieuws-nl">[http://www.nieuws.nl/archief/2004-10-17/53259/Laatste_originele_Drentse_boo_afgebrand "Laatste originele Drentse boo afgebrand"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724162828/http://www.nieuws.nl/archief/2004-10-17/53259/Laatste_originele_Drentse_boo_afgebrand |date=2011-07-24 }} (Last original boo from Drenthe burnt down) from Nieuws.nl (published October 17, 2004; accessed September 6, 2006). {{in lang|nl}}</ref> The historical society suspected [[arson]] as the building had no gas or electricity.<ref name="NBDC">[http://www.nbdc.nl/cms/show/id=551268/contentid=48017 "Brand legt laatste Drentse boo in as"]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927200604/http://www.nbdc.nl/cms/show/id%3D551268/contentid%3D48017 |date=September 27, 2007  }} (Fire reduces last Drents boo to ashes) from the NBDC (published October 17, 2004; accessed September 6, 2006). {{in lang|nl}}</ref> In March 2005, a restoration programme was begun. Before it burned down, plans were afoot to have the original building listed on the [[Europa Nostra|European list of monuments]].

Another replica, the Hekmansboô, is on the terrain of the [[dairy farm]] "De Katshaar" (not its original location) along the Europaweg (N863) in Schoonebeek.

==References==
{{commonscat|Boô}}<references/>


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[[Category:Farmhouses]]
[[Category:Agricultural buildings]]