A boô is an old Saxon building where a farmer could spend the night with his cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

 if he let them graze far outside the village. The building, which had separate areas for cattle and farmer to live, would have been made with cheap materials. Walls were made of straw

Straw

Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalks of cereal plants, after the grain and chaff have been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has many uses, including fuel, livestock bedding and fodder, thatching and...

 or braided twigs covered in cow manure

Manure

Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...

 or loam

Loam

Loam is soil composed of sand, silt, and clay in relatively even concentration . Loam soils generally contain more nutrients and humus than sandy soils, have better infiltration and drainage than silty soils, and are easier to till than clay soils...

; the roof was also made of straw.

Etymology

The word boô is a cognate of the German word 'Bude' which means 'shack'. The circumflex

Circumflex

The circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...

 on the second 'o' indicates that a letter is left out. In Danish, 'bo' means house

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

. The word boô is Low German

Low German

Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...

.

History

A (usually unmarried) cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

 farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

 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 milk cow

Dairy cattle

Dairy cattle are cattle cows bred for the ability to produce large quantities of milk, from which dairy products are made. Dairy cows generally are of the species Bos taurus....

 and the eggs his chickens laid.

The villages of Schoonebeek

Schoonebeek

Schoonebeek is a village in the Dutch province of Drenthe. It is located in the municipality of Emmen, about 12 km south of that city.Schoonebeek was a separate municipality from 1884 to 1998, when it merged with Emmen....

 and Nieuw-Schoonebeek

Nieuw-Schoonebeek

Nieuw-Schoonebeek is a village in the Netherlands and it is part of the Emmen municipality in Drenthe. Nieuw-Schoonebeek has an altitude of 14 meters and a population of about 1,320....

 in the border area with Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the Dutch province of Drenthe

Drenthe

Drenthe is a province of the Netherlands, located in the north-east of the country. The capital city is Assen. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and Germany to the east.-History:Drenthe, unlike many other parts of the Netherlands, has been a...

 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

Replica

A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps. It can be a copy used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference...

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. The historical society suspected arson

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

 as the building had no gas or electricity. In March 2005, a restoration programme was begun. Before it burned down, plans were afoot to have the original building listed on the 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.