Surface of an antique malla board

Siega (Harvest) and “Malla”, History in our days

History pages tell us that one of the agricultural activities with more festive component in Galicia were the traditional mallas (separating grain from straw by beating it with an instrument called malla). Work of many hours that demanded the presence of the whole family, neighbours, friends... gathered in most of the cases under a scorching sun to carry out the separation of the straw from the grain, and later grinding it in the mill.

In O Pino, the Cultural Association Reviravolta recovered in the year 2003 a fraternizing day in which the malla is re-created. Previously, a couple of weeks before, a vast group of inhabitants of the parish of Lardeiros, under the attentive look of numerous visitors, carry out the harvest of what was planted months before. The malla has several phases and is materialized thanks to the energy and knowledge of the members of the mentioned cultural group, advised by those that still remember well this laborious and now attractive work.

Basically, the malla used to be performed in a place called eira, it begins after already having the result of the harvest placed in a mound known as meda (haystack). The malladores, before any modern machines existed for such an end, worked in pairs, one in front of the other. When those of one side lowered the mallo (a stick with iron elements in its tip), the others raised it, and so forth.

Once mallado the wheat (barley, rye... etc) the straw is taken and monllos or feixes (small bundles of straw)are made. These, bundled with an improvised rope of straw, are piled up together forming the traditional palleiro.

As for the grain, it was picked up in baskets and it was taken to the cleaner, the machine that moves away the husk and leaves the wheat completely clean. Many years ago, this cleaning process was carried out by throwing the grain up and leave the wind take the husks away.

The cleaning machines have a place from where the grain is expelled. A mechanism worked by a crank that moves some parts that produce the air necessary to take the husks to the exterior, while the grain goes through a sieve in which the remains are deposited, and finally only the grain comes out from below the machine.

It is also traditional that when the process of the malla finishes, all the participants meet in one improvised meal, animated with the music of the famous gaiteiros (bagpipe players) always present at this celebration in O Pino. The appointment, always in the month of August. A commitment with identity, and history. Above all history written towards the future.