A palloza is a traditional dwelling of the Serra dos Ancares in north-west Spain, with low stone walls on a circular or oval plan and a conical thatched roof, usually of rye straw. Pallozas survive in the Ancares area of Galicia, in western Asturias (including the Fornela and Ibias valleys) and in the El Bierzo district of León.
Form and roof
Pallozas are typically 10-20 m (33-66 ft) across and were built to withstand severe winters at altitudes of around 1,200 m (3,900 ft). The thatched roof may end in a peak or have a short ridge. There is no chimney: smoke from the kitchen fire escapes through the thatch. Inside, the house was divided between the family and their animals, each with its own entrance, and contained a bread oven and workshops. Only the eldest couple had a bedroom; the rest of the family slept in the hayloft under the roof.
Origins
The round, thatched house type is prehistoric. Pallozas resemble the circular buildings of the pre-Roman Castro culture and other Atlantic Iron Age cultures, including round houses in Britain, but they are much larger and, unlike castro houses, also sheltered animals and stores.
Names
The word palloza comes from the Galician pallaza, referring to the straw roof, a term first recorded at the end of the 19th century and later used by ethnographers such as Fritz Krüger. Local names include casa de teito or cabana de teitu, from teito, "thatch". The Portuguese palhoça is a related word for a small thatched cabin.
Decline and protection
Pallozas were lived in until the second half of the 20th century, when new materials arrived and the houses came to be seen as symbols of poverty. Their ethnographic value was recognised towards the end of the century. In Piornedo (Lugo), a group of 14 pallozas is protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural, and one has been an ethnographic museum since the 1970s. Pallozas at Campo del Agua in El Bierzo were largely destroyed by fire in the 1980s; those at Cantejeira were restored with an original structure over 300 years old. New pallozas are now built mainly as holiday homes, sometimes outside their traditional area.