This is how Asturians are presented with the project “Ayalga”. A pioneering initiative that wants to provide a better life for some Asturian ethnographic jewels: granaries and bread baskets distributed throughout the region that are on the way to collapse due to the impossible attention of their owners or heirs.
Ayalga, Asturian name that refers to those “treasures” that must be watched over in the region, is the penultimate initiative of the Association of Friends of the Asturian Hórreo, an entity that makes itself “available to those who wish to rehabilitate these buildings.” Your intermediation work will have no cost “because this is not a real estate agency; the only interest of the association is the recovery of exceptional pieces in accordance with the law ”, they explain.
Just a few months ago he started the project and assures Fernando Mora Rodriguez, archaeologist of the Association of Friends and member of the Red Horrea, that “we already have some requests, both from people looking for a granary or bread basket and from people who want to give their own a way out, even giving them away for free.”
The request will be followed by a basic evaluation by specialists so that this transaction does not clash with the ethnographic reality of the region. That is If they ask us for a granary to take to some place in Gijón, we would not offer them a construction of the West, for example. We would have to look for things and requests that were compatible ”, clarifies Fernando Mora.
The association is not going to remain only in assuming a role of reception of offers and demands, but they want to take advantage of the wide knowledge of the subject that its members have, the many field trips that its members make and the multiple contacts that they have established by the work that they have been developing in recent years, to take the initiative when necessary.
“Maybe we receive demands for granaries and, although we do not have offers of donation or sale, we can move and pull the thread to offer those interested some construction that we know may be in danger or whose owners would value the transfer. We spend days and days kicking rural areas and that can give us a lot of advantage ”, adds Fernando Mora. They would also offer advice to carry out the relocations and reconstructions if necessary. For that they are in contact with many master horreros, who will be the ones who can best help in the complete work of the ethnographic rescue.
Behind the entire project is the voluntarism of a group of people involved in giving more life to “True jewels in danger of disappearance that are available to those who have the necessary sensitivity to recover them”, they comment from the organization Friends of the Asturian Hórreos. His thesis is that each granary that is lost is irreplaceable by no other construction, no matter how much new barns can be built.
They recall that these are works in which “centenary oaks and chestnut trees have been used, chosen according to each piece, felled on the waning moon in January, handcrafted to produce the parts that will be assembled without resorting to machinery. All of this produces a unique result. Imitations are not possible; only by restoring what exists and respecting its rules is it possible to get a granary or bread basket that will be an unrivaled symbol of prestige, having, for the same cost of an imitation, a centennial treasure unique in the world that synthesizes in an unequaled way what we call Asturianía ” . It is their reasoning and the reason that has led them to propose a network for the recovery of granaries and bread boxes. And they hope that soon their initiative will begin to bear fruit.
A whale vertebra as a grindstone
The Association of Friends of the Asturian Hórreo carries out an enormous outreach work on the ethnographic constructions of the region. And in their field work they do not stop finding jewels, like the one they now show from their social networks: a bread basket from Quintana (Cadavedo) that has a whale vertebra as a grindstone. Some others had been seen in other areas of Asturias, but they are few.
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