THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE OF THE CANARY ISLANDS

GUANCHES
LEGEND AND REALITY
Jonas Perez-Camacho
Original title: Guanches. Mito y realidad
Coordinator of the edition: Caroline André
Cover design and layout: Department of Art and Design Editorial Weston

Text: Jonas Perez-Camacho

Photo credits:
The editor would like to thank all the photographers, museums and archives for kindly allowing
reproduction of their works. All possible care has been taken to include all the owners of the
copyrights. However, if any have been omitted or a mistake has been made, we apologize and, if
we are informed, will try to make the necessary corrections in subsequent editions.

Weston Archive/J.P. Camacho Archive/Museo del Bardo/Ruiz Romero/Brooklyn Museum/

Universidad de Cantabria/Museo Canario de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria/Museo de la Naturaleza
y el Hombre de Tenerife/Escuela Pedia/Promotur/Museo de Cueva Pintada de Gáldar/Yale
University/Turismo Pompei/Los Sabadeños/Correos/Luc Viatour/Antiquario del Palatino/Cabildo
de Gran Canaria/Museo Nacional de Antropología de Madrid/Basílica y Real Santuario Mariano de
Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria/Parque Arqueológico de Belmaco

PROPERTY FOR THIS ISSUE

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® Jonas Perez-Camacho

ISBN: 84-616-1089-X
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First edition: january, 2013

Fifth edition: abril, 2019
EDITORIAL WESTON S.L.
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Acknowledgements
For their generous assistance in the research required for the preparation of this book, I would
like to express my appreciation to María Cantó for her patience in teaching me the inner workings
of the Museo Canario in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, undoubtedly the most fascinating and
mysterious museum that exists in these islands, where the spirit of Dr. Verneau is pervasive; thanks
also to the archaeologist Abel Galindo for giving me a memorable evening at the site of El Lomo
de los Gatos en el Barranco de Mogán, where, for a few hours, we travelled to an indigenous
village and turned the clock back seven hundred years; to María Reyes and Jaime Padrón for
making me feel like a melancholic and isolated Bimbache in the archaeological area of El Julán
on the island of El Hierro; the Museum of Nature and Man of Tenerife for the amazing and hair-
raising conservation they perform on mummies, the best kept secret by the old Guanches; Fatima
Hafi from the Musée National du Bardo, Tunis, for surprising me, pleasantly, with their knowledge
of the Guanches and showing them to me in Roman mosaics; to Giovani Padani from Pompei
Tourism, Italy, for his explanations of Roman life in the first century and also for making me try
the garum; Jorge Fabra for starring in ‘Raiders of the lost Bull’ in the mountains of El Tanque and
finding it, even if it was broken.Finally, I would also like to thank Iker, Dan, Hugo, José Luis, Carol,
Albert, Emma and librarians everywhere for the valuable, silent work they do.
“The exuberant nature of the islands is the refuge of
romance, dreams and mystery”
Mark Twain
8 GUANCHES

Index
Prologue 11
The Canary Islands 12
ANTIQUITY and FIRST NEWS 14
Hanno’s voyage, 16
the volcanic journey
The first expedition, 18
the islands according to Juba II
The inhabited islands, 20
the account of Niccoloso da Recco
MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN 22
Were did they come? 24
Theories for a settlement
Rebel peoples, 26
the legend of the tongueless
Berbers? 28
Science clouds the evidence
Phoenicians? 30
The islands as factories
Purple Islands 32
The colour of power
Garum 34
The Coca-Cola of Antiquity
Sons of Atlantis 38
 Just a fantasy?
WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE? 42
Primitive? 44
A description of the Guanches
How did they dress? 46
Tamarcos, flowers and colours
Guanche society, 48
solid, stable and active
Guanche justice, 50
hard and in the tagoror
 INDEX 9

Guanche politics, 52
the power of the territory
Guanche woman, 54
beautiful and warlike
What were their homes like? 56
Terraced and excavated
Guanche Religion, 58
worship of idols and stars
Chaxiraxi, 60
the mysterious Virgin of the Guanches
The Harimaguadas, 62
The Vestal Virgins of the Canary Islands
Guanche mummies, 66
the most unusual rite
The necropolis of Herques, 69
the cave of a thousand mummies
How do they live? 70
The economy guanche
Fishing, 72
sustenance and entertainment
What did they eat? 74
The Canary Island pantry
How did they communicate? 76
The Guanche languages
Did they write? 78
Guanche writing and paintings
How did they cure themselves? 80
The Guanche first aid kit
Music and songs, 82
Guanche parties
Current folklore, 86
the inheritance of temperament
Epilogue 91
Bibliography 96
 I
f I had had a book like this when I was just
an enthusiastic child, everything would have
been easier. The journey into the mysterious
world of the Guanches is an interest that I
have felt since childhood, to be more exact, from
the day when a history teacher, skipping the
curriculum set by the school, told us about this
amazing people that dwelt in the remote Atlantic
islands.
A village of indomitable warriors who for
nearly a century kept the European conquerors in
check. Brave people who threw themselves from
the top of cliffs, losing their lives to defend their freedom.
As the French poet Jean de La Fontaine said, “A person often meets his
destiny on the road he took to avoid it”. In this case, destiny has given me a
great gift, so I decided to share what interested me most, over all these years,
about the enigmatic—and sometimes indecipherable—old inhabitants of these
islands: the Guanches.
Understanding the past to understand the present better will keep our minds
alert, and allow us to travel, even if in our imagination, not only around the
Canary Islands, but also around many parts of the ancient world.
With this book we will become familiar with this strange ethnicity that
inhabited these islands, at least two thousand years before they were
rediscovered by European conquerors.
Welcome to the fascinating and unknown world of the Guanches.
12 THE CANARY ISLANDS

La Palma

Tenerife

La Gomera

El Hierro

France
most physical and biological diversity
Spain Italy
in the world. Multiple habitats are con-
Portugal Greece
centrated here, ranging from wet and
Tunisia
Morocco
dark laurel forests to the scorching and
Canary
Islands pale semi-desert sands.
Some islands have landscapes so
varied that they do, indeed, resemble

T
he Canary Islands are char-
acterized by high mountains
compared to their surface, and
this, coupled with their volcanic origin,
makes them one of the islands with
miniature continents, such as, for ex-
ample, Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
The archipelago consists of seven
islands and six islets. Arranged from
west to east, the islands are: El Hierro,

Fuerteventura
Gran Canaria
La Palma, La Gomera, Tenerife, Gran
Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.
North of the latter is the Chinijo Archi-
pelago, where we find the only inhab-
ited island: La Graciosa.
The islands are located just 115
kilometres from the African coast, near
the sweltering Tropic of Cancer, on the
same latitude as hot spots like Orlando
(Florida, USA), Chihuahua (Mexico) or
Kuwait (Persian Gulf); however, due to
their condition as oceanic islands, the
THE CANARY ISLANDS 13
Lanzarote
truth is that they have a very special
climate thanks to the trade winds from
the north acting as a natural refrigera-
tor by creating a temperate, spring-like
climate throughout the year.
And the peculiarity that stands out is
that although they are geographically
opposite the African continent, their
people’s customs, race and culture are
of a Mediterranean nature: a trait that
is as old as the first traces of humans on
the islands.
Antiquity
and first news
The Phoenicians brought their ships from beyond the
Mediterranean Sea. They sailed to the Pillars of Hercules
(the Straits of Gibraltar) and then to the islands of the
Atlantic: Madeira, the Azores and the Canaries. In 600
B.C. the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II organized a trip with
Phoenician sailors to skirt the coast of Africa.
16 ANTIQUITY AND FIRST NEWS
Hanno’s voyage,
the volcanic journey
Aura of mystery
The Phoenicians, Romans
and Vikings who returned
from their journeys through
the islands described them
with an aura of magic
and mystery.
A
round 450 BC a fleet of
70 ships, each with 50
oarsmen, sailed from
the Mediterranean city of
Carthage under the command
of the Phoenician explorer
Hanno and skirted round the
west coast of Africa.
The accounts of the sailors
spoke of very high tempera-
tures and a wilderness inhab-
ited by fierce warriors.
They saw a volcano erupt
at night, sending out torrents
of fire, which they called the
Chariot of Fire (and which
several authors have identified
as the El Teide volcano on the
island of Tenerife).
Other seafaring peoples like
the Greeks, the Romans or the
Vikings, who managed to re-
turn from their travels around
the islands, also described
them with an aura of magic
and mystery, not only due to
the risky adventure involved in
going beyond the known lim-
its, but because few managed
to return from these voyages.
Even for the most experienced
sailors reaching these islands
was a big challenge, because
the ocean currents from the
Canary Islands flow to the
south and then veer sharply
to the west, dragging the ships
to the remote depths of the
Atlantic Ocean, and causing
voyages with no return.
Mythology
The Greeks associated the is-
lands with the Elysian Fields,
a sacred place where virtuous
men and heroic warriors led a
happy existence. Neither cold
nor misfortune was known in
these fields.
In the same vein, others
identified the Canary Islands
as the Garden of the Hes-
perides. “A wonderful garden
in a far corner of the West,
located near the Atlas Moun-
tains on the edge of the ocean,
where trees bore golden apples
that provided immortality and
were guarded by a hundred-
 HANNO’S VOYAGE 17

Chariot of the Gods

The Carthaginian
navigator explained his
adventure in the famous
Periplus of Hanno, in
which he tells how he
saw rivers of red flames
thrown into the sea and
a fire that rose up almost
until it touched the stars,
this being called the
Chariot of the Gods.

headed dragon that breathed Plutarchus (Plutarch) would

out fire” (they were perhaps
referring to the volcano of El
Teide?).
Fortunate Isles
For their part, the Romans
wrote their first account in
the first century BC through
their general Sertorius whose
ship was swept from Lusitania,
currently Portugal, by a strong
storm to “islands having an
elevation greater than Mount
Atlas, and a mild climate.”
Due to this account, the
Greek historian Mestrius
later call the Canary Islands
for the first time the Fortunate
Isles, a nickname that remains
today, and which created the
term Macaronesia, which
means happy islands, the name
for the Atlantic archipelagos of
the Azores, Canaries, Madeira
and Cape Verde.
For centuries, even after
the Spanish conquest, it was
believed that the islands were
the summits of the highest
mountains of Atlantis, the
great lost continent of which
Plato spoke.

The fleet of the Pharaoh Necho II

Necho II was a pharaoh who ruled ancient Egypt from the years 610 to 595 BC
He was known for creating an Egyptian fleet of ships, built by Corinthian craftsmen.
He sent a sea expedition to circumnavigate the African continent. The ships and
their crews were Phoenician although controlled by the Egyptians.
The Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa is the Egyptian story of the voyage, recorded by the Greek his-
torian Herodotus. There is no documentation of the time that endorses the historicity of this trip, but the
absence of contemporary data does not mean it did not happen.
18 ANTIQUITY AND FIRST NEWS

The first expedition,

the islands according to Juba II

Mauritanian currency
The value of the
Mauritanian currency
was recognized in the
ancient world. The
Greek historian Plutarch
described Juba II as one
of the greatest statesmen
of his time.
Trade in dyes
Mauritania traded with the
Mediterranean, especially
with Spain and Italy,
exporting fish, grapes,
pearl, figs, grain, wood for
furniture and purple dye for
senatorial vestments.
Below, illustration of a
heavy Roman galley.
B
ut beyond the stories
and mythological names
that the islands received
in ancient times, the first ac-
curate historical description,
in which the Canary Islands
passed from myth to reality, is
that given by the Roman his-
torian Gaius Plinius Secundus,
better known by the nickname
of Pliny the Elder, who lived in
the first century BC.
In his work Natural History
he traces the voyage of Juba II,
king of Mauritania, who sent
an expedition to the islands
to establish their geographic
coordinates, and also to
gather information about the
flora, fauna and ethnography.
Juba II was the first one to
name them in the language
in which he wrote, Greek, and
Pliny mentions one of them in
Greek, Ombrios, and the rest
in Latin, Capraria, Iuniona
Maior and Minor, Ninguaria
(something like the island of
perpetual snow) and Canaria,
“due to the many large dogs,
two of which were taken to the
king”.
For the researcher Alicia
Sanchez of the University
of La Laguna, the latter, is a
controversial detail due to the
false etymology with the Latin
term (can, canis) to which it “is
 THE FIRST EXPEDITION 19

« T he first island is called Ombrios, with no

traces of buildings, which has a pool in the
Purple Islands
Pliny, in his work Natural
History, tells how Juba
mountains. The second island is called Junonia and
II sent an expedition to
here there is only a shrine built of stone. Close to
find the Purple Islands,
it is another island of the same name, but smaller.
in order to restore the
Then there is Capraria, full of large lizards. Visible
ancient Phoenician
from these is Nivaria, always covered by fog, and
manufacturing processes
that took its name from the perpetual snows. Very
of Tyrian purple dye.
close to it is Canaria, so called for the crowd of
large dogs, two of which were taken to Juba, and
on which there are traces of buildings.»
YEAR 77 BC. PLINIUS SEGUNDUS

certainly not related”, explains mation is that which describes

the researcher.
The story also tells, with
respect to the Canaria Island,
of the abundance of fruit and
birds, palm trees, honey and
even papyrus, and it also in-
dicates that the islands were
“infested with monsters in a
state of putrefaction that the
sea cast to land each day”,
probably a reference to the
stranding of cetaceans.
But the most relevant infor-
the islands as inhabited, since
remains of buildings were
found.
And, believe it or not, this
story of Juba II, recorded by
Pliny the Elder in the first
century BC, is the last one
known until the expeditions
prior to the conquest in the
thirteenth century, since the
islands fell again into the
deepest obscurity for the
civilized world.

Juba II and Cleopatra Selene II

Juba II lived from 50 BC and 23 AD. He was king of Nu-
midia and Mauritania, both kingdoms of Punic origin. His
first wife was the daughter of Cleopatra VII (the legendary
queen of Egypt) and his father was a Roman Triumvir,
Mark Antony.
After the death of his father, Numidia became a Roman
province, and his son Juba II was taken to Rome where
he received a Roman education in Latin and Greek, and
obtained Roman citizenship.
The Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus reinstated Juba II as king of
Numidia and Mauritania from 29-27 BC, allowing himself to be influ-
enced by his wife, Cleopatra Selene II. Octavian encouraged the arts,
knowledge of natural history and trade with all the Mediterranean.
20 FIRST NEWS

The inhabited islands,

the account of Niccoloso da Recco

The pen of Da Recco
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-
1375) is one of the forebears,
along with Dante and Petrarch,
of Italian literature. He is
universally remembered as
the author of The Decameron,
and, for Canary Islanders, he
should be remembered as
the author of the first
description of the Guanches.
T
he first and most fas-
cinating description of
the inhabitants of the
Canary Islands comes from an
expedition in 1341. When two
ships, chartered by the King
of Portugal with a Florentine,
Genoese and Spanish crew
reached the islands in July of
that year, under the command
of the Genoese Niccoloso da
Recco and the Florentine Angi-
olino del Teggihia de Corbizzi.
They remained on the is-
lands for five months and, on
their return to Lisbon, had
so many interesting things
that none other than Boccac-
cio—author of the Decam-
eron—took up the pen to write
a description of the Guanches,
based on details Da Recco had
sent by letter.
Boccaccio tells us that the Ca-
nary Islands “were a rocky land
without any crops, but rich in
goats and other animals and
full of naked men and women
(...) some of them seemed to
rule the others and dressed in
goat skins, coloured with saf-
fron and red dyes. From afar,
these skins looked very fine
and delicate and were carefully
sewn with animal gut”.
The Italian writer continues
to draw on his observations,
“judging by their manner,
these savages have a sover-
eign to whom they show great
respect and obedience. Their
language is very soft, their

The ancient inhabitants

The Guanches were the ancient inhabitants of the Canary
Islands before the Spanish conquest, which occurred between
1402 and 1496. Although the term refers to the Guanche na-
tives of the island of Tenerife, over time the term has been
generalized to include the entire ethnic group native to the
Canary Islands. They were white and, from an anthropologi-
cal point of view, the Cro-magnoid and Mediterranoide types
predominated.
Those from El Hierro called themselves bimbaches, those from
La Palma auaritas, those from La Gomera gomeros, those
from Gran Canaria canarios and those from Lanzarote and
Fuerteventura majos.

speech lively and hurried like
Italian. Four of them were de-
tained on board; these are the
ones that came to Lisbon.”
Boccaccio raised the issue
that still remains unresolved
today, how is it possible that in
the Canary Islands, alongside
the troglodytes, there were
clearly superior people of cul-
ture that “lived in houses with
gardens that had many figs
and palms, as well as cabbages
and other vegetables.”
Perhaps this is one of the first
clues for understanding the
complexity of answers about
the Guanche civilization. He
described many of them being
almost naked and wild, but
at the same time “they grew
wheat and barley, lived in cities
and towns, had kings, priests
and a noble caste, worshiped
a female deity and ceremoni-
ously embalmed their dead.”
He adds a detail that has cre-
ated controversy over the cen-
turies, “both groups, the wild
troglodytes and the civilized
farmers, were blond, blue-
eyed, and very tall.”
THE ACCOUNT OF DA RECCO 21
The first was Lanceloto
The contacts maintained
in antiquity between the
Mediterranean world and the
Canary Islands were cut off
following the fall of the Roman
Empire.The first documented
visit was by the Genoese
Lanceloto Malocello who, in
1312, settled in Lanzarote for
nearly twenty years.
Mysterious
origin
The origins of the first inhabitants of the Canary Islands are
still a mystery. A great mystery. The volcanic origin of the
islands rules out the possibility that any population existed,
solely because of the fact that no indigenous population can
exist on these. Therefore, the first inhabitants of the islands
must have come from somewhere. But where?
24 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN

Where did they come?

Theories for a settlement
« H e asked the elderly of Gran Canaria if they had
any memories of their birth, or who left them there,
and they answered:”Our ancestors told us that God put
us and left us here; and forgot us; and he told us that
through such a place an eye or light would be opened or
shown to us to see with”»
1495. ROYAL CHRONICLER ANDRES BERNÁLDEZ

The priest of Los Palacios
Andrés Bernáldez (1450-
1513) is one of the most
enigmatic figures of the
sixteenth century in Spain.
He wrote about the voyages
of Christopher Columbus
to the Indies and the
conquest of Gran Canaria.
He was a personal friend
of Christopher Columbus,
who stayed several times at
his home in Los Palacios y
Villafranca (Seville).
A
s revealed to us by the
the royal chronicler An-
drés Bernáldez in 1495,
the oldest Guanches, the most
elderly ones, were the bearers
of wisdom and memory. They
did not have the slightest hesi-
tation in saying that a higher
being brought them to the
islands and then forgot about
them.
But, where from? And what
is more unusual, how did they
get there?
Until well into the twentieth
century, theories about the ori-
gin of these mysterious people
were incredible, delirious and
fanciful. The ignorance was
such that any author could
argue a theory, and this was
taken into consideration.
Some of these theories linked
the Guanches with the Vikings,
Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians
or Egyptians.
From ancient Egypt, due to
the similarity in the method
of mummifying corpses; from
Scandinavia (Vikings) and
Carthage (Phoenicians) due to
the seafaring character these
people possessed, and, from a
more romantic point of view,
from Atlantis because the
Guanches were the surviving
natives from the lost continent.
At present, the prevailing the-
ory is that they must have been
brought to the Canary Islands,
in the fifth century BC, from
somewhere in North Africa.
With a powerful initial arrival
which occupied all the islands.
Although recent archaeologi-
cal finds on the island of Lanzar-
ote, by Professor Pablo Atoche
from the University of Las Pal-
mas de Gran Canaria encourage
us to work with the hypothesis
of a previous settlement around
the tenth century BC.
The circumstances are in any
case unknown of why a group
of men and women—voluntar-
ily or forced—and loaded with
animals and seeds, reached
the shores of the islands and
decided to adopt it as their new
home.
 WHERE DID THEY COME? 25

This dating, around the fifth
century BC, is a period that co-
incides with the existence and
development of the Mediterra-
nean city of Carthage. The Phoe-
nicians, who based their culture
on maritime trade, expanded
all over the Mediterranean and
also along the West African
coast, creating settlements. So
it seems feasible that they may
have established themselves on
the islands, creating factories to
exploit the schools of tuna.
The landing
The old Guanches placed
the first landing on the
coast of Icod inTenerife.
(Below) Photograph of the
beach of San Marcos.

Settlements

«The old Guanche natives say they have news,

from time immemorial, that sixty people came to
this island, but they do not know where from, and
they got together and established their abode next
to Icode, which is one of the places on this island,
and in their language they called the place of their
abode Alzanxiquian abcanahac xerax, which means
the “place of union of the son of the great.»
Alonso de Espinosa. 1594

The settlements on the islands occurred in various migrations.

Hence there are cultural differences between several islands, but
it still seems possible to appreciate the common traits that actual
isolation might have then distorted.
In this initial arrival, domestic animals like goats, sheep, pigs,
dogs and cats were imported that changed the fragile ecology of
the islands, causing the extinction of some native animals like the
giant lizard (Lacerta Goliath) that measured up to 1 m long; or
the giant rat of Tenerife (Canariomys bravoi) that was the size of
a rabbit. In agriculture it is known that they introduced wheat,
peas and barley, for example.
26 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN

Rebel peoples,
the legend of the tongueless

The Roman captains
For Gaspar Frutuoso
(1522-1591) Trajan entrusted
his captains with the mission
of banishing a group of rebels
on the islands after cutting
off their tongues.
T
here is also speculation
that it could have been
rebel peoples, fleeing
from the Roman occupation
that besieged north Africa,
who found a concealed place
to hide on the islands, al-
though this may be inconsist-
ent with the island isolation
and ignorance of navigation
that the Europeans appar-
ently found at the time of the
conquest, so that we would be
back to the forced colonization
theory, in this case for political
reasons.
Mass deportations were
an ancient and widespread
practice. Egyptologists have
found scriptures that mention
the harassment that, from
the second half of the fourth
century BC, the peoples of the
Nile suffered. Moments such
as the victory of the Greeks
against the Carthaginians at
Himera (480 BC), or the first
Punic War (between 264 and
241 BC) could perhaps explain
these deportations.
This type of forced settlement
had already been suggested by
the French chroniclers Bontier
and Le Verrier (1402) for the
Gomero case: “Talking with lips
as if they lacked tongues, and
here they say that a powerful
prince sent them into exile
because of some crime, and
had their tongues cut out.”
Today, on the island of
La Gomera the tradition

Trajan, the Confiner

The Portuguese historian and traveller born in the islands of the Azores, Gaspar Fru-
tuoso (1522-1591), included in his book Saudades da terra the theory about the set-
tling of these islands that was circulating when he visited around the year 1563.
For the Portuguese the Canary Islands were occupied by the Romans in the time
of Trajan (53-117). The Roman Emperor was informed that a group of strong
warriors who lived in the mountains had been added to their armies as subjects
of the empire. They showed extraordinary courage when achieving great vic-
tories for the Roman armies. But the Romans did not trust them, and accused
them of being mercenaries when they discovered that they were descendants of
others who did have this behaviour and came to cause severe damage within
the Roman armies. So “Trajan ordered his captains to kill everyone, only sparing
the lives of the old and the women and children. And with their tongues cut off
they took them away in vessels, giving instructions that when they got to the
ocean they were not to sail too far from the African coast in a south westerly
direction, and that some degrees away they would find the Fortunate Isles, a
number of them being distributed on each island.”
 THE TONGUELESS 27

The Gomero whistle

«A nd as a punishment they took all those that had been

leaders of the rebellion and cut off their heads; and the
Currently in La Gomera
this whistling language
that comes directly from
others, who were only to blame in having followed the norm, the ancient inhabitants is
and so they would not cause another riot, they cut off their still maintained.
tongues so that they would not be able to boast that they had
been against the Roman people at any time ... And with their
tongues cut off in this way, they put the men, women and
children in ships with some provisions and, sending them to
these islands, they left them with some goats and sheep for
their maintenance. And so these pagans remained on these
seven islands, which became populated ».
1590. JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO

of whistling is still kept
alive—-a whistling language
to communicate across the
gorges—and created by the
ancient inhabitants of the
island, and that they also spoke
similarly in Tenerife, El Hierro
and Gran Canaria. Currently
this peculiar language is part
of the World’s Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity
by UNESCO.
Indigenous Gomeros
(Below) Natives of La Gomera,
according to the idealized
illustration of Manuscript B
by Jean Bethencourt (late
fifteenth century), deposited in
the municipal library of Rouen
in Normandy (France).
28 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN
Berbers?
Science clouds the evidence
Berber Culture
Canarian pottery is believed
to have originated in the
Berber culture of North
Africa. The finest ceramics
and only painted types on
the archipelago appeared in
Gran Canaria. Some of them
are so beautiful that they cast
doubt on their household
use, possibly having had a
decorative or ritual function.
(Above) Ceramic recipient
found in Telde and (below)
vessel exhibited in the Museo
Canario of Las Palmas de
Gran Canaria.
C
As we have mentioned,
at present, the hypoth-
esis of the Berber origin
of the first inhabitants of the
Canary Islands seems widely
accepted. Although it is not
definitive information and
remains controversial even
today.
From an archaeological and
language point of view, there
are cultural similarities with
North African tribes (Amazigh
or Berber), but, from a genetic
standpoint, the fact is that the
mystery continues.
Countless scientific theories
argue that there is enough data
to reveal the North African
Berber origin of the ancient
inhabitants, the similarity of
the material culture such as
handmade pottery, tools made
of wood or bone and stone
tools. All of this, added to the
way in which they buried their
dead in caves and the farming
nature of the community sup-
ports these theories.
But, to top it off, added to
these theories are linguistic
reasons.
Grammatical forms when
comparing words that were
part of the vocabulary used
by the Guanches with other
similar ones from Libyan-Ber-
ber languages link the island-
ers with the natives of North
Africa.
However, from a genetic
point of view, the origin of
the inhabitants of the Canary
Islands still remains a mystery,
and one that DNA testing has
not yet managed to decipher.
Genetic studies at the Uni-
versity of La Laguna (ULL),
under the supervision of
Professor José María Lar-
ruga, have discovered specific
haplotypes of Canary Island-
ers (genetic constitution of
an individual chromosome),
found in the aboriginal peo-
ple and the current popula-
tion, but not in other parts of
the world.
These specific haplotypes
for Canary Islanders are called
U6b1, and are present in be-
tween 40% and 70% of the
mitochondrial DNA of Canary
Islanders (though Professor
 BERBERS? 29

Larruga explains that this been conducted on samples Ancient Berber houses
cannot equate to the percent- The history of the Berber
of thousands of African popu-
people in North Africa is
age of Canary Islanders of lations: Berber Mauritanians extensive and diverse.
Guanche origin). and many others, and the Their earliest ancestors
This haplogroup serves to U6b1 has not yet been found, settled to the east of Egypt.
seek, through genetic tech- which, interestingly, is found (Above) Ancient Berber
niques, where the first inhabit- houses in the oasis of Siwa
in Canary Islanders on all the
in Egypt; site used by the
ants of the islands came from. islands. Romans to banish some
However, even though they The U6 group identifies the rebel tribes.
have the genetic code, the ULL North African origin, but for
researchers have failed to find now, the specific origins of the
that origin. ancient Canary Island popula-
To this end, studies have tion remains a mystery.

The genetic study

To obtain this data, the ULL has done a comprehensive study using three
historical groups of Canary Islanders: Aboriginal mummies, Canary Islander
skeletons from the seventeenth century and current Canary Islanders.
The Guanches’ DNA was extracted from human remains of Aboriginal
mummies that have been found in different sites on the islands.
While DNA of Canary Islanders from the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries was obtained in the cemetery found in the Church of the
Conception in La Laguna (Tenerife), and which was discovered at the
start of renovation work on this building.
In general, the DNA used is extracted from the teeth where it is better preserved. Then, it is amplified and
sequenced to verify the features it has to then be able to make comparisons between different samples.
In these cases, it was found that in all three groups (Aboriginal population, Canary Islanders of the
seventeenth-eighteenth century and current Canary Islanders) there were the same haplotypes, some of
which are present in the Mediterranean and some that are not, like the specific one (U6b1).
The article on this genetic study published in the European Human Genetics (2003) journal concludes: “55%
of aboriginal lineages have their closest counterparts in the Maghreb, thereby confirming their Western
North African provenance. However, these do not include U6b1, so that the specific origin of the first
settlers is still unknown.”
SOURCES: MACA MEYER, NICOLE. 2002. GENETIC COMPOSITION OF HISTORIC AND PREHISTORIC HUMAN POPULATIONS OF THE CANARY ISLANDS. ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL HUMAN GENETICS (2003). / MARTIN, VERONICA.
2008. ULL SEEKS THE ORIGIN OF ABORIGINES IN THE DNA. ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE NEWSPAPER LA OPINIÓN DE TENERIFE (07/03/2008).
30 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN

Phoenicians?
The islands as factories
T
« he Phoenicians who inhabited Gadir (now Cadiz)
(...) sailing away from the columns of Heracles with
an east wind for four days came without warning to
deserted places (...), in which they found an exaggerated
amount of tuna that was incredible due to the large sizes
and thicknesses (...), salting them and putting them in
jars they transported them to Carthage».
FIRST CENTURY BC. PSEUDO-ARISTOTLE, MIR., 136

Roman Amphora of Tenerife
The discovery of Roman
amphorae on the coasts of
the islands opens up the
possibility that Roman sailors
maintained contact with the
ancient inhabitants of the
Canary Islands.
(Above) Amphora of Roman
origin, used for the storage
and transport of wine, found
on the shores of Candelaria
(Tenerife). It dates from
between 25 BC and 150
AD and is in the Museum of
Nature and Man of Tenerife.
T
he other theory that
is gaining currency is
that which relates the
ancient Canary Islanders with
the Phoenicians (although the
correct term would be Punic
Phoenician because we lack a
precise chronology and cannot
differentiate between Phoeni-
cian and Punic).
With this theory would the
image of indomitable war-
riors who kept the European
conquerors in check disappear
forever?
Were the Guanches Berber
slaves, brought from the coast
of Africa by Phoenician colo-
nists?
The discovery of amphorae
from Punic tradition found
in La Palma, Tenerife and El
Hierro confirms the arrival at
the same time of the Punics in
these three islands. However,
the settlement must have had
little success over time as a re-
sult of the enormous distance
separating the islands from
the places of origin; a reason
that would make a continuous
supply of new settlers difficult
as well as closing off the hypo-
thetical possibility of perform-
ing a rescue of these, in case of
exhausted resources.
However, the eastern islands
(Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and
Fuerteventura) were able offer
greater possibilities of success
in the face of colonization be-
cause the distance to the Afri-
can continent was less, which
favoured, where necessary,
the provision of such external
 PHOENICIANS? 31

population continuously. The dating that allow us exact

transfer of labour from the
African continent for the ex-
ploitation of these could have
been the origin of the presence
of the first Berber tribes in the
islands, tribes originating from
North Africa who were subject
to the dominion of the Punic
empire.
Gran Canaria, due to its cen-
tral position in the archipelago
and its geography, offered the
best conditions to become a
bridge for settlement in the
other islands.
The physical anthropol-
ogy of the Guanches indicates
kinship with Mediterranean
populations belonging to the
Libyan-Punic cultural world; a
culture that emerged after the
arrival of the Eastern Semites
to the region of Tunisia, so this
theory could be right.
The colonization of the
archipelago had to respond
to lengthy planned processes
whose phases we do not know
due to the lack of sites and
knowledge of their promot-
ers or the chronological path
taken through the various
islands.
But what was the point of
colonizing these islands lost in
the ocean?
Only one, economics.
The process must have fol-
lowed an economic logic
derived from the collection of Amphora with wine
marine resources. But what? (Above) Amphora of Roman
Fish? Because the Phoeni- origin, found on the shores of
Candelaria (Tenerife), probably
cians did dominate many of used to transport wine.
the known seas, the Mediter- Exhibited at the Museum of
ranean and the Atlantic near Nature and Man of Tenerife.
West Africa.
Perhaps the answer lies in
two resources that were used
to produce some of the most
highly demanded products in
antiquity: one, lichens for pre-
paring the highly valued dyes
at the time; and, two, a curi-
ous condiment called garum,
made with Tuna offal that
could not be missing at any
Phoenicians and Roman table,
however poor it was.

Colonies and factories

The Phoenicians were among the first peoples of antiquity who founded colonies
and factories. The colonies were conquered territories, which established a part
of the Phoenician population permanently. The peculiarity of these colonies is
that they developed an independent life as a city-state and, except for trade
relations, did not maintain a close link with the Phoenician cities.
Among the most important colonies were Gades (Cadiz) in southern Spain
and Carthage (Tunisia) in North Africa, which centuries later would dispute the mastery of the
Mediterranean with the Romans.
The Canary Islands may have been factories, which functioned as ports of call and places of deposit for
goods, without a permanent population. Places of refuge to recover on the long voyages and to collect
supplies.
32 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN

The Canarian
orchilla
Orchillas (Roccella spp.) are lichens
that grow abundantly on the coastal
cliffs of the Canary Islands. Red, blue
and purple dyes are made with them
that, according to some authors,
served to falsify the true Tyrian purple
(getúlida).
Its trade was a major source of income
for the islands until the mid-nineteenth
century.
 PURPLE ISLANDS 33

PURPLE
ISLANDS
Purple was the colour of power, and its dye was considered
even more valuable than gold and diamonds. It was made
from the mucous glands of a tropical sea snail, which was
only obtained in some remote islands.

I MYTHOLOGY
The mythology attributes its discovery to the Phoenician god Heracles,
the guardian of the city of Tyre. One day his dog bit a Murex shell and,
immediately, his mouth turned purple. His companion, the beautiful
nymph Tiro, said she would only sleep with the god if he wore a
garment dyed the same colour. Heracles was forced to agree to it, and
thus the famous Tyrian purple dye was born.

II PRODUCTION Murex brandaris

250,000 specimens are needed to produce one ounce (just over 28 g) of The Phoenicians
Tyrian purple dye, which is why its production was very slow and also prepared Tyrian
costly. The preferred method was to collect large quantities of these shells purple with marine
and leave them to rot in the sun (the classical authors attest to the odour mollusc mucus.
given off). The production and export of purple began around 1200 BC
fuelled by the Phoenician expansion in the Mediterranean. In the third
century BC, the Tyrian purple was more valuable than gold: just 1 kilo cost three times the annual salary of a
Roman baker, so it would not be at all strange that the colonization of these islands was due to this important
source of wealth.

III THE GLORY OF VICTORY

Although the Greeks were the original customers, it was actually the Romans who then became purple
fans. They liked the dark tone, achieved by using dyes from two species of Murex. Pliny describes it as the
colour of clotted blood and wrote that it illuminates every garment and shares with gold the glory of victory.
The generals dressed in purple gold victory tunics while the senators and consuls wore purple bands on
the edges of their robes. In Imperial Rome the use of purple was still much more regulated: in the fourth
century AD, only the emperor was allowed to wear the best purple. The uniqueness of the colour and its
connection to power is the reason why it has traditionally been the colour of garments used by kings and
bishops.

IV RECIPE
The ancient recipe for Tyrian purple was lost in the West in 1453, when the Ottoman Empire conquered
Constantinople. And it would not be until 1856 when the secret of purple was rediscovered, a day when Félix
Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers, a French zoologist, saw a fisherman dying their shirts with this mollusc.
34 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN
Garum
The Coca-Cola of Antiquity
T
« he garum trade in the Mediterranean was more important than
Coca-Cola today. It was bound to spread amongst islands where the
tuna catch is permanent».
1996. RODRIGO BALBÍN. PROFESSOR OF PREHISTORY
I
n response to some hypoth-
eses, the reason for the
establishment of Berber
peoples enslaved by the Phoe-
nicians in the Canary Islands
was to obtain garum.
This condiment made from
tuna viscera was the subject of
intense trade across the Medi-
terranean by the Phoenicians
and the Romans. Garum could,
therefore, be at the heart to
the key part of the enigma of
the Canary Islands.
For the team of archae-
ologists composed of Rodrigo
Balbín y Primitiva Bueno, at
the University of Alcalá de
Henares, the islands were
populated by “a Berber group
Roman Amphora used
to make garum led by the Phoenicians, as
The underwater discovery evidenced by findings such as
in 1964 of a Roman the Zanata stone engravings
amphora when performing
of bulls. This form of colo-
spearfishing on the island
of La Graciosa, north nization was very common
of Lanzarote, involved within the great Carthaginian
evidence of the presence enterprise. They had done it
of Roman pottery at the with the Iberians, for example,
periphery of the Empire.
throughout the Mediterranean
(Above) Amphora of La
Graciosa, on display at to Syria. They took whole
the Museo Canario in Las towns and put them at their
Palmas de Gran Canaria. service to fight with them. This
is perfectly demonstrated by
various sources. In the Canary
Islands we are talking of the
fourth century BC or earlier
dates. There were uninhab-
ited islands with clear waters
where you can fish tuna all
year, not just seasonally. The
tuna, constituted the raw ma-
terial of garum, an important
economic phenomenon in the
third and fourth centuries BC.
For the first time the Canary
Island had a sense for the
Mediterranean that was not
only mythological. It had an
economic sense.”
The taste of the
Mediterranean
This product was made from
the heads and guts of sea fish,
preferably from the tuna fam-
ily, left to soak with salt, vin-
egar, water, herbs and oil. The
garum was left to marinate in-
side large sinks and, once the
right level of marinade was
achieved, it was packaged in
jars and distributed through-
out the Mediterranean.
Phoenicians and Romans

were enthusiastic consumers
of this condiment. Today we
know the many culinary uses
of garum thanks to a cookbook
written in the first century AD.
Its author was a fine Roman
gourmet Marco Gavio Apicio,
known for his eccentricities
and his huge personal for-
tune, which he squandered
in his quest to gain the finest
foods to prepare complicated
recipes. Tradition has it that he
killed himself for fear of being
deprived of good food when
he considered the sesterces he
had left insufficient.
The recipes of Apicius, de-
GARUM 35
spite being so remote in time, Enthusiastic consumers
can be put into practise today, The ubiquitous hispanic
sauce delighted diners
as long as we make a note of
at the best tables in the
preparing some homemade Mare Nostrum.
garum.
See an example
APICIO STYLE
SEA BASS
Choop pepper, cumin, parsley, rue, onion, honey,
garum, sweet wine and a few drops of oil.
Boil the sea bass lightly with this sauce.
36 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN
The Painted Cave in Gáldar
Located in the city of Gáldar,
in the northwest of the island
of Gran Canaria, it was
discovered in the nineteenth
century, carved on volcanic
material. Its walls decorated
with geometric patterns are a
major feature.
Phoenician Signs
“We have been left all the signs
we need: factories, vases and
objects related to the Phoe-
nician cult and religion. In
Lanzarote there are engravings
of the goddess Tanit, in Gran
Canaria is the famous Gáldar
Painted Cave, which is a clear
example of a hypogeum (un-
derground gallery with funeral
functions), the amphorae
found in Puerto de la Cruz,
Tenerife, are handmade and
are copies of Punic models.
We have over two hundred
samples that we will gradually
publish at our scientific pace,
not the pace set by political
circumstances. The problem
is that Canarian archeology
to date has been a tropical fac-
tion since it has almost lacked
scientific excavations. What
we are dealing with now are
collections of past centuries.
Of course, what has been
shown is that there are many
Punic Phoenician items on the
islands, but they had never
been put in their corresponding
place. From now on, tracking
these items and their study in
an archaeological context link-
ing us to the Mediterranean
world and tuna fishing will
make the work much easier”,
state the authors of this theory.
 GARUM 37

The mysterious puzzle the fall of the Phoenician

For these archaeologists a
stage closes that had left the
archipelago isolated from
historical schools of thought
and opens a door that links it
with Europe. There would be
no enigma of the Guanches,
but it would demonstrate
their Berber origin, and the
fact that at the time of the
conquest their origins had
been forgotten, shown by the
more than 1,500 years since
the Punic Phoenician settlers
were trapped on islands after
empire and the final dis-
continuing of the trade they
controlled.
The truth is that the work-
ing hypothesis presented by
this group of archaeologists
could rationally explain the
Guanche and Berber settle-
ment of the Canary Islands,
but they do not exhaust the
possibilities of searching
around for other clues. The
wilderness of the islands
has not yet revealed all its
secrets.
The goddess Tanit
Tanit was worshipped by the
Phoenicians as the Mother
Goddess. Engravings of the
goddess Tanit have appeared
throughout the archipelago.
(Above) The Tanit symbol is
engraved on a block of stone
at the Pozo de la Cruz in San
Marcial del Rubicón
in Lanzarote.

The Canary Island Rosetta stone

In 1992 a small stone was found in

Tenerife with an elongated shape, which
included a series of engraved inscriptions.
After being examined by the technical
team of the Archaeological Museum of
Tenerife and by the Professor of Arabic
Studies at the University of La Laguna, Rafael Muñoz, it was concluded that this
could be the Canary Island Rosetta Stone, since according to the theory developed
by them, the inscription would fit in with Tifinagh characters and would identify
the tribe to which the Guanches of Tenerife belonged: the Zanata or Zenete, the
ones with their tongues cut out, which would endorse the hypothesis of the Punic
presence in the Canary Islands, which established factories with Berber labour.
This would turn the stone into one of the most valuable objects created by the
Guanches, linked with their magical world and with a huge amount of information
that would allow, for example, translations of the Libyan inscriptions at other sites
on the islands.
However, all this led to a scientific and media uproar in the early 90s, since for
some historians, the stone is a mere forgery, and they argue that linking the
settlement of the Canary Islands with the alleged Punic presence had not been
demonstrated yet.
The controversy of the Zanata stone is an example of social and political debate
stirred up by most of the findings related to the period of the Guanches.
The Zanata Stone is currently exhibited at the Museum of Nature and Man in Santa
Cruz de Tenerife.
38 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN

Sons of Atlantis
Just a fantasy?
T
« hat first Athenian city, nine hundred centuries old, had been
invaded and partly destroyed by the Atlanteans, a people who occu-
pied a continent greater than Africa and Asia combined, with an area
between 12 and 40 degrees north latitude. Their dominion extended to
Egypt, and they wanted to impose it on Greece too, but had to retreat
before the indomitable resistance of the Hellenes. Centuries passed
until a cataclysm occurred accompanied by floods and earthquakes.
A day and a night were enough for the annihilation of that Atlantis,
whose highest peaks, Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands and the
Cape Verde Islands are still apparent. “
1870. JULES VERNE. AUTHOR OF 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

«
Verne’s Atlantis
Jules Verne used his work Google Earth positions
Twenty Thousand Leagues Atlantis near the Canary
Under the Sea to show Islands”. The British
his fascination with the newspaper The Sun re-
mythical sunken continent
in the ocean.
ported it in 2009. Bernie Bam-
ford, an aeronautical engineer,
had located Atlantis in the so-
called Madeira abyssal plain,
located about 5.5 miles deep
between the Canary Islands.
According to the authors of the
report, Charles Orser, archae-
ologist from the State Museum
of New York, had called the
finding intriguing, which looks
like an urban grid at the bot-
tom of the sea. Meanwhile, the
discoverer had no doubt what
it was: It seems like an
aerial map of Milton Key-
nes (an English town).
It must be something
manmade.
Atlantis is a theme
of universal culture.
Since it came out of
the head of Plato in 355 BC
until today it has continued to
generate reactions. Sometimes
controversial, regarding the
truth of its existence, and at
other times an inspiration for
creative writing.
Google denied the claims
of the Atlantologists shortly
afterwards
“What you see is the result of
data collection”, said a compa-
ny spokesman. “The seafloor
data are collected by ships
using sonar to measure. These
lines are the ship’s route”.
Atlantis is still lost.
The Temple of Poseidon
For centuries, even after the
Spanish conquest, it was be-
lieved that the islands were
the mountaintops of Atlantis,
the lost continent of which
Plato wrote in his famous dia-
logue of Timaeus and Critias.

Atlantis was a large island,
larger than Libya (Africa) and
Asia combined, on the other
side of the Pillars of Hercules
(the Straits of Gibraltar). It
was the dominion of Posei-
don, god of the sea, and was
inhabited by the Atlanteans,
descendants of Atlas, the first
king, son of the same god and
a mortal woman.
Atlantis had all kinds of rich-
es, its people were the most
advanced in the world and, at
its centre, was the big city with
the Palace and the Temple of
Poseidon. Its scientists trans-
mitted knowledge and culture
to other peoples, with whom
they kept the peace.
The Atlanteans were for
many generations faithful to
the laws of justice, generos-
SONS OF ATLANTIS 39
Has Google
located Atlantis?
The story told by
The Sun newspaper
ity and peace. But eventually caused quite a stir in
the media worldwide.
they degenerated and became
greedy and warlike. Others add
that they discovered the secrets
of the gods, secrets of cosmic
energies and forces capable of
destroying the human race.
About 11,500 years ago,
Zeus, king of the gods, pun-
ished the Atlanteans and in the
course of a single night volca-
noes and tidal waves destroyed
the big island in a cataclysm
of cosmic proportions. Accord-
ing to the legend of Atlantis
only the Azores, Madeira, the
Canary Islands and the Cape
Verde Islands are visible, or
what were the high mountain
peaks of the lost continent. But
its palaces and temples are in
the ocean that took its name:
the Atlantic.
40 MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN
The bulls of El Tanque
The Monolith in the Cañada
de los Ovejeros (El Tanque,
Tenerife), in which the figures
of bulls are represented.
This important site is
irretrievably damaged,
but thanks to the tracing
performed by technicians at
the Museum of Science and
Man at the Cabildo of Tenerife
we can now see these bull
engravings.
The Atlas Mountains
Plato placed Atlantis
between the Atlas
Mountains and the shores
of the Atlantic Ocean.
The sacred bull
The finding, in an archaeo-
logical site in El Tanque, Ten-
erife, large stones engraved
with bulls, unknown in the
Guanche culture, together
with an engraving on a stele
with inscriptions, opens the
door to the fabulous mists of
Atlantis.
The cult of the bull in
ancient cultures has been
widely debated. The most
orthodox theories place it in
the magical-religious world of
the Phoenicians that the lat-
ter expanded throughout the
Mediterranean basin.
However, other theories link
the cult of the bull with the
existence of Atlantis in the
Sahara: Sahara Atlantis. This
unorthodox theory holds that
this cult—the sacred bull—
originated from the union of
the Lebbus peoples—blond
Mongoloid-and Tehenus—in-
digenous North Africans,
whose mix led to the people
called Tamahu, the last At-
lantean remains that took the
bull to Egypt as a totemic god.
Thus the Phoenicians would
be the heirs of a long tradition,
and not its creators. The carv-
ings of bulls and horses could
refer us to Atlantis cultures,
described by Plato and dili-
gently pursued by those who
think that history began in
Atlantis.
The Archaeologist María del
Arco Aguilar and her team
discovered the engraving on
a stele, depicting a vessel clas-
sified as Punic and associated
with other reasons including
the figure of a bull.
According to Plato, the lost
continent could be located

between the Atlas Mountains
and the shores of the Atlantic
Ocean; and after the paintings
of bulls and riders found in ex-
peditions by Frison Roche and
Henry Lothe in various caves in
the Sahara, the exact location
would lead us to the western
part of the African continent.
So, very close geographically
to the Canary Islands.
The appearance of the bull
figure, far from clearing up
the unknown, is a mystery
because it means that the
great divinity (Taro), between
whose horns the solar disc
shines, was already old before
the Phoenicians migrated from
SONS OF ATLANTIS 41
the lands of the Near East.
The Phoenician hypothesis
would then be questioned on
islands like La Palma, where
the stratigraphic sequences
would identify an Atlantic
population, the author of
carvings of spirals, meanders
and horseshoes, prior to the
Romanized African and Berber
wave.
The relationship of the an-
cient inhabitants of the Canary
Islands with the Atlanteans is
a suggestive, romantic and, for
now, speculative history, due
to the mere fact that w cannot The Tamahu
They are considered to be
even testify to the existence of the last Atlantean remains
the great lost continent. that took the bull to Egypt
as a totemic god.
La Palma: an Atlantic population
A study of rock inscriptions between the Canary Islands and North
Africa indicates that the islands were inhabited at two different times,
one around the sixth century BC by an archaic Berber culture and the
other in the first century AD, in the time of Emperor Augustus and
Juba II’s reign in Mauritania, by Romanized Berber populations.
However, for some authors the engravings in circle or spiral shapes on
La Palma are signs that speak of a culture far more ancient in time.
The petroglyphs found on the island of La Palma vaguely resemble
rings of land and sea, which was just as Plato described Atlantis, the
capital of Poseidon; on the other hand, these engravings are also simi-
lar to others found on the western Atlantic coast of Galicia (Spain)
and the Sahara.
What were the
guanches like?
 At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the chaplains
who accompanied Jean de Bethencourt in the first forays
into the islands described them as follows:
«You can go anywhere in the world and nowhere will you
find a more beautiful and better educated people than
there are on these islands, and the men and women would
have great minds if there was somebody to develop them».

Guanches
The natives of
Gran Canaria, according
to an illustration by
Leonardo Torriani (1592).
44 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Primitive?
A description of the Guanches

C
Long, thick bones
The skeletons exhibited
in museum on the islands
reveal that native Canary
Islanders were tall and
strong for the time.
(Above) Mummy exhibited
at the Museum of Nature
and Man of Tenerife.
on If we asked a Canary
Islander now, from
any island, to draw a
Guanche, they would surely
portray a bearded and dark
person with long hair, and
semi-naked, something like a
primitive Neanderthal.
However, among scholars in
the field, it has been discov-
ered that the physical appear-
ance of the ancient inhabitants
has little or no relationship to
the collective imagination.
To begin with they did not
have long hair; this was a sign
of distinction only permitted
to senior social classes, so that
the vast majority could not
boast of long hair, but rather
quite the opposite.
On the other hand, their
clothes, far from being badly
tanned skin rags, were so-
phisticated and cheerfully
colourful. Men usually wore
hats, coats and shoes, while
women wore dresses and long
skirts that they combined with
hairbands and head-dresses.
Although, of course, accord-
ing to the island and the social
position they occupied, there
were variations in their cloth-
ing.
Due to their physical charac-
teristics, the Canary Island ab-
origines have been catalogued
into two racial subgroups: the
Cro-Magnoides, with a wider,
more robust face and shorter,
and the Mediterranoides,
longer faces and larger body
size.
According to the chroni-
clers of the conquerors, the
Guanches were tall, well de-
veloped and some had blue
eyes. Skeletal Research shows
that men were between 1.70

Agility to fight

The Guanches were endowed with extraordinary agility, useful to jump over
dangerous ravines. They liked to play sporting games, and some of them
have survived the passage of time, such as Canarian wrestling, which still has
a huge appeal among young and old Canary Islanders who still claim that it
is the noblest of sports.
All these qualities allowed them to counteract the lack of modern weaponry
and enabled them to endure long combat against different invaders such
as the Castilian conquerors who took nearly a century to dominate the stiff
resistance they offered.

m and 1.85 m, those from
Fuerteventura being the tallest
and those from La Gomera the
shortest.
Skeletons preserved in the
Museum of Nature and Man in
Tenerife and, above all, in the
Museo Canario in Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria, reveal that
PRIMITIVE? 45
the Guanches had long, thick Natives from La Gomera
bones, which certainly leads Guanches drawn
by the Italian engineer
us to think that they enjoyed Leonardo Torriani
great strength. in 1592.
Not that they were giants as
is often thought, but they were
tall compared to Europeans,
where the majority did not
reach 1.60 m in height.
46 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
How did they dress?
Tamarcos, flowers and colours
Pretty ornaments
Both women and men wore
a great variety of pretty
embellishments such as
necklaces made of clay
beads, sea shells, stone or
bone, as well as crowns or
headdresses made from
reeds, palms and flowers.
There are preserved pieces
in museums on all the islands
where you can appreciate
this delicate process.
(Above right) Necklace found
at Tacoronte and exhibited at
the Museum of Nature and
Man of Tenerife.
Footwear and bags
At the Museum of Nature
and Man of Tenerife footwear
extracted from one of the
numerous archaeological
sites is exhibited. The most
widely used footwear was
made of leather from goats
or pigs. In Lanzarote and
Fuerteventura they were
called maho, and xercos in
Tenerife. The nobility of Gran
Canaria wore pigskin shoes.
(Above) Animal skin bag
found in Agaete and
exhibited at the Museo
Canario in Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria.
E
« verything related to Canary Island dress
was so well made and artistically stitched, as only
most skilful amongst us could produce».
1588. LEONARDO TORRIANI
A
s we mentioned above,
we have the impres-
sion that the Guanches
were savages who were almost
naked and barefoot, but it was
not the case. The stereotypical
image of a naked Guanche,
only wearing something like
knee-breeches, corresponds to
times of struggle, where they
were scantily clad to achieve
greater agility, hence the de-
scriptions that the European
conquerors, full of their own
prejudices from a society fresh
out of the Middle Ages, took
form and have survived to this
day.
They dressed in clothes, col-
oured with herbal juices and
flowers, called Tamarcos. They
were made of animal skin, be-
cause they didn’t know about
linen or cotton or wool, be-
cause although they possessed
sheep they were from a breed
that did not produce wool.
They mainly had two types
of Tamarcos a short one for
hot days and that were used in
southern coastal areas, and the
other one long, to combat the
cold of the mountains, which
was tied at the neck and fell to
their ankles, and reminiscent
of the blanket that farmers
currently use in La Esperanza,
Tenerife, and popularized by
the folk group The Sabadeños
(although in the latter case,
this is of British origin and
made of wool).
Sophistication
The sophistication of the
clothes of the Guanches is
reflected in the descriptions
given by those who were able
to see them, such as Fray
Alonso de Espinosa who wrote
in 1594: “Their clothes were
a dress made of hides like a
nightgown without pleats and
sewn with straps of the same
leather, with great fineness
and delicacy, so much so that
I do not know any leather-
dresser who tans the hides so
well, or that can do such fine
sewing, that almost no one can
see, and this without needles
but with fish bones or thorns
from palms and other trees.”
The friar continues with
the description: “This kind
of garment was called a

Tamarco and was common to
men and women: except that
the women, out of decency,
wore something like a suede
leather skirt under a Tamarco
that covered their feet, of
which they were very careful,
because it was indecent for
women to reveal their breasts
and feet. “
As in Lombardy
Leonardo Torriani in 1588
went further and made a
comparison with the way
they dressed in Europe: “The
Canary Islander wore fabrics
made of woven palm leaves
with reeds, with admirable
work and craftsmanship ...
instead of a hat they wore a
folded kid leather hat, like a
German coif, tied at the top at
the neck. This dress is accom-
panied in the nobility by long
hair, and by a shaved head in
the case of the peasants.”
“Women wore fur prepared
like the fur clothes used in
Lombardy and in other cold
places; and with them, such
as with a robe, they were cov-
ered from neck to toe. They
braided their hair with reeds
instead of ribbons and allowed
it to drop freely over their
shoulders, leaving their faces
uncovered, as the main field
of their beauty. Everything
related to Canary Island dress
was so well made and artisti-
cally stitched, as only the most
skilful amongst us could pro-
duce.”
The fabric woven with palm
leaves was so admired by
those who saw it that they
claimed that its inventor (a
woman): “Deserved to be cel-
ebrated among them, as if she
were Arachne, famous among
the poets.”
HOW DID THEY DRESS? 47
Distinguishing Signs
The use of such clothes,
Tamarcos, was so internalized
in the essentials of the
Guanches that they came to
represent a distinguishing sign
during colonization.
So much so that in 1514
the Cabildo (Island
Government established by
the conquerors) in Tenerife
issued an ordinance banning
«
its use by islanders:
... (These Canary Islanders)
that are dressed in Tamarcos
as they used to be before they
were Christians, and that do not
come (to the town), or come
in on Sundays or holidays or
other days, not even with the
Spaniards; always roam the
mountains and hills with leather
»
Tamarcos as they did before
being Christians
Women’s Tamarco
(Above) Female Tamarco from
the Much more than a “Tamarco”
exhibition in the Archaeological
Museum of the Gáldar Painted
Cave in Gran Canaria.
48 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Guanche society,
solid, stable and active
Purity of blood
The purity of blood amongst
the royalty was absolute
and to become a guanarteme
or mencey one had to
prove that purity.
(Below) Sculpture of mencey
Acaymo of Tacoronte, located
in the Plaza de Candelaria
in Tenerife.
A
t the time of the arrival
of the European con-
querors, about the year
1402, the total Guanche popu-
lation, on the seven islands,
could easily have reached the
figure of 100,000, and the
highest rates of population
concentration occurred in the
islands of Gran Canaria and
Tenerife.
Therefore, it was a large
population in comparison with
some European regions, which
in this period (from 1350 to
1500) had decreased dramati-
cally, due to the Black Death
and the 100 years war that
devastated states like France.
When the Europeans arrived
Guanche society had been
developing for more than two
thousand years. It was solid,
stable and very active, and
had a highly regulated social
order.
From a pyramidal point of
view, kings, nobles, notables,
soldiers and villagers all
existed. In Gran Canaria they
called the king Guanarteme
and in Tenerife Mencey. In
Tenerife there were two levels
below the rank of Mencey, the
achimencey and cichiciquitzo.
His main responsibility was
administration, justice and the
defence of the territory.
Multitude of trades
Most of the population be-
longed to the group of achi-
caxna (villagers) who were
engaged in many trades:
shepherds, artisans, farmers,
soldiers, priests, healers, fish-
ers, etc.
Regarding trades, Leonardo
Torriani (1588) tells us that
“the Canary Islanders had
craftsmen amongst them to
build houses, carpenters, rop-
ers who worked with grass and
palm leaves and who prepared
the hides for clothing.”
Not a King, but a Noble
The purity of blood between
the royalty was absolute and
to become a guanarteme or
mencey one had to prove that
purity.
Social position was recog-
nized by the haircut and beard,
and also by the type and colour
of dress. In Gran Canaria the

nobles had golden blond hair
covering their backs. Some
dyed it with herbal juices to
make them more golden. These
noble clothes were dominated
by yellow and red colours.
Any man could become a
noble. To achieve this he had
to be recommended by another
noble and go through a public
ceremony where he had to
prove his nobility by answering
questions from other nobles
before the people.
He could not have been seen
killing or stealing or being
dishonest with a woman. Nei-
GUANCHE SOCIETY 49
ther did they like
an aspiring noble
to have been seen
preparing food
with their bare
hands; it was con-
sidered a sign of
weakness and low
sociability.
In the event that
it was established
that he had vio- Fish and shellfish
lated any of these rules he was Idealized drawing where a
punished, so that they cut his group of organized natives
are involved in fishing and
hair and he could never be- gathering shellfish. This picture
come more than an achicaxna is in the Museo Canario in
(villager, not a noble). Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
50 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Guanche justice,
hard and in the tagoror

Justice in the public square
It is estimated that over
70 tagorores came into
existence in Tenerife alone
as they become more
routine and widespread.
(Above) Original sculpture of
a mencey of Candelaria.
T
he laws were different
on each island and, ac-
cording to those early
chroniclers, were extremely
hard. In Tenerife justice was
meted out in a public square
called tagoror, which was
also used for other things,
and was formed by a group
of mostly elderly notables,
achimenceyes, relatives of
the king and people of pres-
tige. It is estimated that over
70 tagorores came into exist-
ence in Tenerife alone, since
it become more routine and
widespread: a meeting place
for the old islanders.
In this sense, Father Alonso
de Espinosa, in 1594, described
it as follows: “... (all Canary
Islanders) were used to hav-
ing a tagoror in front of their
houses, more or less, depend-
ing on the class and possibil-
ity of each person, where they
joined in conversation. And it
was the custom that when a
guest came, they did not enter
the home, but sat in the tagoror
without saying a word, and
when the master of the home
saw them they came out and
entered it.”
In Gran Canaria there was
something similar to the tago-
ror of Tenerife, but the word
they used to describe this
council is not known today. It is
known that it consisted of the
guanarteme (king), the faycán
(high priest) and six guaires
(king’s advisors or captains)
and their role was to advise
the king on matters relating to
government and justice.

Example of laws
In Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura they applied the death penalty for
murderers and imprisoned people for stealing. On El Hierro, those who
stole had a member amputated such as hands or eyes. In Tenerife it is
believed that there was no death penalty, and the penalty for murder
was an embargo on all their property to compensate the families of the
deceased and the culprit was subsequently banished from the menceyato.
It was a widespread standard on all islands for offenders to have their hair
cut once tried.
On some islands, as in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, women were protected by law, “If you meet a woman
in a secluded area, do not think of addressing her. No man worth his salt, no brave warrior, would dare
to break the taboo that forbids speaking to a woman in a lonely place if she does not allow it.”
In regard to diplomatic or Foreign Affairs laws, Guanche laws left no room for doubt, as in La Palma,
where a law commanded everyone who came from outside the island to be killed.
The tagoror of El Julán
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AREA of El Julán is
located south of the island
of El Hierro, in a desolate
area with constant seismic
activity. This area was a
Bimbache settlement -
which is how the natives
of this island were
called, being responsible
for the carvings that
fill the area. Some of
these rock carvings
have been identified as
Libyan-Berber writing,
however, a part of
them that correspond
to anthropomorphic,
human-like figures, are a
mystery that is difficult
to interpret. Very near
El Julán you can see the
remains of the old meeting
place called tagoror,
which is undoubtedly
the best preserved of
all the islands. In this
tagoror the King held
oaths, assemblies and
administration of justice.
52 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Guanche politics,
the power of the territory

« K ing Juan (I of Castile) formed a navy, of

several ships, and made a Biscayan gentleman the
captain, who was called Martin Ruiz de Avendaño,
and who travelled along all the coast of Biscay and
Galicia and England, which would be around the
year 1377, more or less. When sailing one time
he was met by a storm that made him arrive in Lanzarote and take
port. And the captain and people on land came out, and the islanders
received him in peace and gave him refreshment from the meat and
milk and cheese there was on the land, to refresh his army, and he
was lodged in the house of the king, who was called Zonzamas ».
1590. CHRONICLE OF THE YEAR 1377 COLLECTED BY JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO.

L
os The data gathered on
the political and territori-
al organization are those
collected by European authors
at moments before the inva-
sion. As we have mentioned,
each island had a particular
social and legal policy. Thus,
while in some islands there was
only one king, in others there
were as many as twelve coex-
isting at one point, distributing
The añepa, the
staff of the King their power by well marked ter-
The main ritorial areas.
flagship of the
headquarters Lanzarote and El Hierro
and power of the
king (mencey)
On the island of Lanzarote,
in Tenerife was called Titerogakaet, and on El
the añepa. Staffs Hierro, called Eseró, there was
which in some no territorial division, or what
cases were is the same, each island was
very high so
they could be
formed by a single political
seen from great territory, with a single king.
distances. At the time the Franco-Nor-
mans arrived at Lanzarote,
the King was Guadarfia and
his residence was in the town
of Zonzamas. Today Zonzamas
is a large archaeological area,
spanning the municipalities of
Arrecife, Teguise and San Bar-
tolomé and has been declared
of Cultural Interest, and there is
a project to turn this town into
an archaeological park that will
feature a museum located in
the area.
Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura was called Er-
bania, it was divided into two
kingdoms that, according to
some authors, were divided by
a wall (remains of which is still
preserved in a place called The
Wall, although this is consid-
ered a somewhat controversial
fact today). These kingdoms
 GUANCHE POLITICS 53

were Jandia, to the south, and the conquest would unite to

Maxorata, to the north, ruled form only two, the Gáldar and
by Ayose and Guise, respec- the Telde. In each of these two
tively. kingdoms there was an admin-
istrative centre, a large town,
Aceró, stronghold
La Gomera and La Palma with high population density, (Above) The king of Caldera
In La Gomera, called Goma- and here the King (guanarteme) de Taburiente, on the island of
hara, there were four cantons: used to live with his family. The La Palma, was the legendary
Agana, Orone, Mulagua and latter delegated government in Tanausú.
Hipalán, while in La Palma, other areas of the island king-
known as Benahoare, there dom to Guayres (or, what is
were twelve kingdoms: Ti- the same, districts).
jarafe, Tagalgen, Aridane Achinech was the island of
Tihuya, Tamanca Ahenguareme, Tenerife. The nine mence-
Tedote, Tenagua, Tigalate, Taga- yatos were divided
ragre, Adeyajamen and Acero. into Anaga, Adeje,
The latter belonged to the La Tegueste, Tacoronte,
Caldera de Taburiente area, Taoro, Abona,
and meant a strong and invul- Guimar, Icode and
nerable place, their king was Daute. The centre
the legendary Tanausú. of the island,
which houses
Gran Canaria and Tenerife the volcano
It is estimated that some 40,000 Teide and its
natives lived at the time of the environs, was a
beginning of the conquest in common place,
Gran Canaria, whose name was which was used
Tamarán. There were ten gua- as pasture for
nartematos, who shortly before livestock.

Oath to the ancestors

The king, called mencey, was chosen by the tagoror.

He had to possess the purest lineage to hold the post.
In the ceremony he swore honesty before the bone of
the oldest mencey of his lineage. Once the mencey was
chosen, it was granted the añepa, a kind of staff-lance
used as a sign of distinction. Each year the mencey
distributed land among the noble families.
54 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Guanche woman,
beautiful and warlike
« C anary Islanders only married one woman, even if the aforesaid authors say otherwise.
Nor is it true that they put the pregnant ones in temples, or that after giving birth they were
separated from their husbands and they had the power to buy female slaves to satisfy and
appease their appetite ... they did not know what slaves were...».
1590. JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO.

Native of El Hierro
(Below) Guanche woman
drawn by the Italian
engineer Leonardo
Torriani in 1592.
T
he role of women in
Guanche society was
very important. An at-
tempt was made to generalize
the idea that Guanche society
was patriarchal, but the truth
is that it was not like this in all
the islands of the archipelago.
On some islands such im-
portant matters like inherit-
ance, kinship or place of
residence was established
through the mother, as
it was in the case of La
Gomera, El Hierro and
Gran Canaria, Even in the
latter, it was they, the wom-
en, that ensured the trans-
mission of royal power.
When the Guanches on the
island of Gran Canaria yielded
and gave in to the invaders,
they did so carrying the niece
of the last guanarteme (King
of the island), the beautiful
Arminda, in a ceremony with
all the honours entrusted to
the new masters. She was
the depository of the power
of the sovereignty of the
people.
In other cases, such as on
the island of La Palma, wom-
en joined men in the fight-
ing, and they were so fierce
fighting that the conquerors

Marriages and divorces

The truth is that researchers recognize various forms of marriages,

according to the island and status. It was common to find a woman
with several husbands and noble men with riches that could keep
several women. But according to Abreu Galindo monogamy was the
most common thing, since there was separation of the couple simply
when either of them wanted. Among the upper classes, and the kings
and nobles there existed inbreeding of class (biological kinship);
however, in La Gomera exactly the opposite occurred, the highest
social classes were forced to marry people from different groups in
order to create new alliances of peace and solidarity.
 GUANCHE WOMAN 55

called them Amazons, draw- in battle, united to their

ing a parallel with the mythi-
cal Amazons that the Greek
historian Herodotus immor-
talized in his works.
Another legendary story
of combative woman is that
of the princess of Guacimara
de Anaga, who participated
stoically, avoiding successive
attempts by invaders to land
on the beaches of Añaza in
Tenerife. The bravery shown
beauty, seduced many of the
conquerors who were unable
to deal with it. According to
legend, when the Spanish
attempted to make women
prisoners they chose suicide
by jumping from the cliffs
while shouting Vacaguaré (I’d Añaza beaches
rather die). This ritual suicide (Above) Landing of the
conquerors on the coast of
was, sadly, common among
Anaga, where the princess
the Guanches demonstrating Guaciamara lies.
their love of freedom.

«A fter June, Pedro de Vera sent word to Fernando Guanartheme to

bring his niece (Arminda) with the other nobles, their relatives, to the Real (City of
Las Palmas), to surrender as was agreed; and they then gave the order to bring her
from Tirajana via Telde, but without her coming with any Christian Spaniard. Four
noble captains brought her on their shoulders, long blond hair, on a litter like a sedan STORY
chair, seated, dressed in chamois leather skin or tanned hides, cinnamon coloured, THE SURRENDER
four captains came in front of the litter with a sheepskin cape called tamarcos, with
underwear made of reed, majos on their feet and leather caps on their heads, and oth-
OF QUEEN
erwise naked; beside the litter, somewhat to the back, two Faisajes uncles, and then ARMINDA
was a great accompaniment of men, all serving to replace the litter. In 1687 Tomás Marín
Pedro de Vera came out with many people to receive them, and they made their sur- de Cubas tells of
render by means of language or an interpreter, saying that the Lady of all the earth was the surrender of
coming, the only heir and legitimate daughter of her master Guanarthemy Guanachy Queen Arminda to
Semidan, the rightful lord and master of the true line and succession of ownership and the conquistador
Pedro de Vera.
dominion of the earth; and that she was voluntarily surrendering, and all her uncles
and relatives who came there, rulers of the land, in the name of and according to the Tomás Arias Marín de
word of their master, the very powerful and catholic King Fernando gave themselves Cubas was a physician
to the Senior Captain of the Christians present there, who was Pedro de Vera, the King and historian born
of Castile and Leon. in 1643 in the city
of Telde on the island
Pedro de Vera and the other knights received them on foot, they embraced everyone
of Gran Canaria.
with great tenderness; all the Canary Islanders had their hair loose at the back, and
Lady Arminda, who the Spanish called Almendrabella, wore a suede robe with half
sleeves and going down to her feet, and shoes with the same stitching, and she wore a History of the Seven
Islands of the Canaries,
tunic under the clothing with a bodice like a jerkin or thin sheepskin; her hair was long
first published in 1687,
and blond, dressed with skill, and with some items of headgear she had been given to it is the work that has
use from Spain; and the underskirt was painted several colours; she must have been led him to pass down
twenty years old, she was stout and more than medium build, robust, rather brown, to posterity. This is an
large and lively eyes and a face that was rather joyful and very beautiful, a rather long excerpt from that work.
mouth, small nose, rather large nostrils, round neck and swelling breasts».
56 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
What were their homes like?
Terraced and excavated
« W hen others entered the houses they noted they were built with square stones, carved
with great skill, and covered with large, beautiful woods. They were very white on the inside,
as if they had been whitened with plaster».
1341. NICCOLOSSO DA RECCO.
Terraced houses
(Above) Archaeological site in
the Barranco de Mogan, Gran
Canaria. (Below) Idealized
drawing of native houses in
Gran Canaria. This picture is
in the Museo Canario in Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria.
L
The Guanches lived in
villages scattered over
the island. These villages
consisted of houses, huts and
excavated caves.
In the eastern islands houses
and cabins were the most
common housing, forming
large villages. In Gran Canaria
houses were terraced and built
to last for generations, so they
were very solid and well made.
To do this they had bricklayers
and carpenters. They had doors
and several rooms. The roofs
were made of wooden beams
and layers of sandstones were
used as tiles, lined with straw
and mud to seal them. Inside
the house were outside areas
like courtyards with benches
to sit on. In the centre of the
house was a solid stone hearth
and other devices for cooking.
The rest were bedrooms and
storerooms.
Cabins and Caves
The huts were circular or
oval, made with stones and
logs. In La Gomera and El
Hierro they were very large
and were partially buried. In
Tenerife they were used to
join them to natural caves,
so they were small and made
from plant materials. And in
Fuerteventura were used as
pens.
Another form of home was
artificial caves. The Guanches
worked the rocks creating
enormous complex villages
with roads, stairs, homes,
barns and drainage channels.
Artificial caves have been
found that were two stories
 THEIR HOMES 57

high, with doors and windows
to improve the interior light-
ing.
Due to the terrain of the
islands, especially the west-
ern ones, natural caves were
also widely used. They had
excellent conditions of tem-
perature, humidity and water.
Some were used for storing
livestock and others as cem-
eteries. Most of the caves
were near the coast and in
the ravines. To prepare them,
walls and moveable screens
were built.
Excavated caves
(Above) Archaeological site
in the Barranco de Mogan,
Gran Canaria.
(Below) Idealized drawing
of native houses in Gran
Canaria. This picture is in the
Museo Canario in Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria.

Interior decoration

Leonardo Torriani (1592) reveals the care with which these houses and
huts were put up and decorated, “The painting, not of human or animal
figures as used among us, but the work of beautifying the houses inside
and decorating them was done by women.”The Italian chronicler tells
us that “these paintings were done with juice from flowers and plants,
since there was no knowledge of cinnabar or minium among them, or
other mineral colours taken from the deep bowels of the earth.”
Regarding the colours used the poet Antonio Viana (1604) tells us that
“The Canary Islanders used carbon ink, ochre, juices from various herbs
and the white milk from wild fig trees to paint, put in the eyes straight
away on the well painted board and figure, and although the details are
crude, it is curious workmanship, and a good likeness”.
58 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Guanche Religion,
worship of idols and stars
I
« n the Canary Islands and other adjacent islands, called the Fortunate Isles, there are people of
both sexes who have no laws or follow any sect, but only worship the sun and the moon».
1369. URBAN V (PAPAL BULL OF 2-IX-1369). ALVAREZ DELGADO, 1945.

Roque Nublo
(Below) The Roque Nublo
was used as a place of
worship and today is one
of the most iconic natural
areas of the island of
Gran Canaria.
F
ranciscan missions of
evangelization in the
Archipelago were known
about from the mid-fourteenth
century, so that the interpreta-
tion made by European chroni-
clers, a posteriori, about the
religion of the Guanches could
be contaminated.
As was common in all an-
cient cultures, the people con-
ceived their existence and cul-
ture through three instances of
the same reality: underground
(of the dead), superficial (ma-
terial) and spiritual (stars).
They were guided by a
calendar that began at the
summer solstice, and each
month began with the new
moon. They believed in one
supreme God, a creator of
heaven and earth. Some
authors state that they

Temples and rituals

«When there were storms, they went in procession, with sticks
in their hands, and the magadas (Guanche women) with glasses
of milk and fat and palm branches. They went to these moun-
tains (Tirmac and Umiaya), and there they poured out the butter
and fat, and did dances and sang dirges (Canary Island music)
around a rock, and from there they went to the sea and beat the
sea with the sticks, in the water, giving a big shout all together».
Abreu Galindo. 1590

It must be assumed that the lives of these men and women were charged with mysticism and
religiosity. There were many places of worship from houses of worship to purpose-built shrines on
top of impressive cliffs like Tirma in Gáldar in Gran Canaria. On some peaks of La Palma, stone
structures that were used for rituals are still preserved. In Tenerife, as was the case with the Virgin
of Candelaria, some caves were used as churches.
We know almost nothing about these rites. In Gran Canaria priests known as faykanes perfomed
rituals to bring rain. To do this they went up the mountain, tore off a branch and after ceremonially
dancing they went down to the coast and beat this branch in the sea. Today, in Agaete (north
of Gran Canaria) in early August, they celebrate the Feast of the Branch, which emulates the
Guanche rite. In this case, it is in honour of the Virgen de las Nieves, and is very popular among the
inhabitants of Gran Canaria.

worshipped the sun, moon
and other planets but in ways
in which this supreme god was
manifested. In La Palma they
called it Abora, in Tenerife
Achaman and in Gran Canaria
Acoran.
They also believed in evil
spirits that caused disease
and other ills, and manifested
themselves in the form of huge
animals and in certain places
causing great fear. These
evils, in the form of monsters,
lived in an underworld that
communicated with the insular
world through the mouths
of the ravines and caves. In
Gran Canaria they were called
Tibicena, Iruene in La Palma,
Hirguan in La Gomera and
Guayota in Tenerife.
Marin de Cubas in 1694
stated that are places “where
there are volcanoes, sulphur
and fire” In Tenerife the
immense volcanic cone,
2,000 m high, which occupies
the centre of the island was
recognized with the sinister
name of Teide and Taraire (i.e.
the dog and the ogress) and
the island as Echeyde (which
could be translated perfectly
as hell).
The most human aspect of
divinity appears in the first
chronicles of Niccoloso Da
Recco in 1341, but we lack
archaeological remains to
validate it:
«They also found a chapel
or temple, in which there was
absolutely no paint or other
adornment, except one statue
carved in stone, which has
the image of a man holding
a naked ball in his hand, and
with his private parts covered,
as usual, by palm breeches».
GUANCHE RELIGION 59
The Oratory of Da Recco
(Above) In 1341 the explorer Da
Recco described a strange temple
with the figure of a naked man
with a ball in his hands.
Female idol
Figures with feminine traits are very
present in native Canary Island
pottery. Figure found in Gáldar and
exhibited in the Museo Canario
in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
(Below) The volcano Teide on the
island of Tenerife.
60 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Chaxiraxi,
the mysterious Virgin of the Guanches
The Cave of San Blas
(Below) The cave in
which the Guanches
worshipped their Virgin.
O
ne of the greatest mys-
teries and enigmas of
the Guanches is the
worship of a Christian im-
age long before the European
conquest. According to calcu-
lations by Abreu Galindo, this
image appeared between 1390
and 1400 on the beaches of
Chimisay in Guimar, Tenerife.
It was a wood carving
depicting the Virgin Mary,
measuring 1 m in height. It
was in a standing position with
the head straight and facing
forward. In her right arm she
carried a naked Jesus and with
her left hand she held a piece
of green candle, which was
the holder of another natural
candle and it is this detail that
gives it the name of the Virgin
of Candelaria (due to this
candle).
Her head was bare, undressed
and her forehead clear. The hair
was blond and fell lose on her
shoulders. The original colour of
her skin was white, but because
of the smoke from the torches
with which the Guanches lit her
up she went darker until she
received the current nickname
of La Morenita.
According to the Chronicle
of Fray Alonso de Espinosa
(1594), the figure appeared at
about 40 m from the shore. And
the reason is still unknown.
Some authors think that
she was abandoned by a ship
in order to pave the way for
the conquest; and that the
Franciscan monks, who at
that time had already begun
their evangelical zeal on the
islands, cleverly used this fact
to identify her as the mother of
their supreme God. But these
are just guesses.
The Guanches housed
the image in a cave in the
Chinguaro canyon, and later
moved it to the Achbinico Cave,
the current Cave of San Blas,
where the Basilica of the Virgin
of Candelaria stands today.
This is where the Beñesmer is

celebrated today, a festival in
her honour that were celebrated
in the month of August.
Having conquered the island
of Tenerife Pope Clement VIII
declared her patroness of the
Canary Islands in 1559. But
this image disappeared. A
storm of wind, rain and big
waves plunged her into the sea
in 1826, and nothing more has
CHAXIRAXI 61
been heard of her to date.
Today we can get a perfect
idea of the image of the Virgin,
so adored by the Guanches,
thanks to an exact replica
commissioned by the Marquis
of Adeje in the sixteenth
century, and which is preserved The original Candelaria
in excellent condition in the Exact replica of the
chapel of Santa Ursula in the Virgin that the Guanches
town of Adeje. worshipped.
62 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

The Harimaguadas,
The Vestal Virgins of the Canary Islands
« A mong Canary Island women there were many religious ones who
lived in seclusion and who maintained and supported themselves from
what the nobles gave them, whose houses and dwellings had great pre-
eminence, and set them apart from other women in long furs that they
dragged behind, and who were white: they called them magadas». 
1590. JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO.

The cave of
Four Doors
(Below) The function
that this cave dug by
the natives of Gran
Canaria must have
had is unknown.
Some authors believe
that this settlement
could be one of the
dwellings of these Canary
Island priestesses.
(Above) Relief of
a Roman vestal.
F
rom the earliest times, the
Roman Empire was pro-
tected, symbolically, by
a group of very young women
chosen from among the most
perfect girls in town. The Vestal
Virgins were a group of priest-
esses whose main function lay
in keeping alive the sacred fire
of Vesta.
The trust that the people had
in them was such that plenty
of critical documents and rel-
ics of the State came under
their care.
Maguada is the word that
was used to name the Canary
Island teenagers who were
consecrated to worship and
prayer on the island of Gran
Canaria, in the days before
the Spanish conquest; and the
Harimaguadas women were
responsible for the education
of the maguadas, these being
very highly respected figures
in the primitive society of the
Canary Islands.
For the writers of the time,
influenced by a Christian men-
tality, this group of women
were identified as a kind of
nun; this being how the Ov-
entense chronicle of 1639 de-
scribed how the guanartemes
had “houses of imprisoned
 THE HARIMAGUADAS 63

Maidens houses, like clois-

ters”.
According to Antonio Vi-
ana, the first author to use
the term, “this function was
typical of virgins, promising
virginal purity, and who lived
in seclusion in big houses and
caves, like monasteries.”
In the houses of these priest-
esses the girls learned to
weave reeds and palm leaves,
to sew tamarcos, to cut and
treat hides, pottery, to use
paints and create all kinds of
body adornment. very colourful carvings, was Vestal Virgin
the palace where the secluded Roman Vestal Virgins.
Abreu Galindo tells how the
(Right) The barn in the
“Harimaguadas, women de- maidens attended and how Cuatro Puertas cave
voted to worship, had houses the religious ones were called complex.
entrusted to God on high, and Maguadas,” and he then ex-
that these houses were called plains that” our Canary Islands
Almogaren, meaning holy maids were also secluded by
house, which they sprayed their King Guanarteme at his
daily with milk.” palace, choosing the island’s
Fray José de Sosa discov- most noble and virtuous crea-
ered a manuscript of 1678 in tures, who due to their beauty,
which the chroniclers already cleanliness and care in how
knew about the House of the they lived were the most ob-
Maguadas de Gáldar (Gran vious choices, and they were
Canaria): “There is a tradi- very honest and respected
tion that this house, having by all, offered by their noble
64 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

parents for this seclusion and of them was in Agaete and

Fernando de Guanarteme
Sculpture of Tenesor
Semidán in Gáldar, Gran
Canaria. She was baptized
as Fernando
de Guanarteme.
isolation from eight to twelve
years, because the King would
not allow them to be locked up
at any other age; which was
twenty-five or thirty years and,
beyond this, those who wanted
to could marry, because others
kept their virginity and seclu-
sion all their life.”
Therefore, the monk tells
us that the dedication to the
cult could be interrupted by
marriage, with the approval
of the King, who had the
droit de seigneur, “when one
of them was getting married,
after having been secluded for
twenty- five or thirty years old,
first they slept with the King
Guanarteme, and then he gave
them away to their husbands
and celebrated their weddings
with great applause.”
In Gran Canaria they owned
two residences protected by
walls and from where they only
left on certain days to bathe in
the sea, it being forbidden for
any man to find them on these
occasions. These residences
were called tamogantes, one
another one in Telde, near the
Mountain of the Four Gates or
Bermeja Mountain.
The linguist Francisco de
Luca says it is very likely that
these maguadas existed in Ten-
erife, for it provides toponymic
evidence of the so-called
Magua Mountain in Arico
which probably stretched to
the Poris de Abona, an area
that was known for the exist-
ence of young priestesses who
performed rituals connected
with the rain. De Luca said
that there are ethnographic
and linguistic elements that
point in this direction.
According to Fray José de
Sosa, it seems clear that the
harimaguadas received tithes
from Gran Canaria society:
“For their maintenance, our
Canary Island virgins received
certain fruits of the earth by
way of tithes that neighbours
gave them and that they kept
in caves they had for this pur-
pose, and which they spent
on themselves throughout the
year.”

Lady Harimaguada

The name harimaguada is currently used in Gran

Canaria by various institutions and foundations;
it is the name of the prestigious awards given
each year at the International Film Festival of Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria. Also, Lady Harimaguada
is an iron sculpture painted by the artist Martin
Chirino, located on the promenade of Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria.
THE HARIMAGUADAS 65

The
equinox
from
Arteara
THE NECROPOLIS
of Arteara in Gran
Canaria, occupies
2 km2 and has a
thousand burial
mounds, mostly
of simple nature
(just funerary
spaces protected
by piles of rocks).
In front of it stands
the impressive cliff of
Amurga, which was
home to many sacred
spaces for ancient
Canary Islanders and
after which, the days of
equinox, the sun
rises and illuminates
the mound called
“the King”.
66 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Guanche mummies,
the most unusual rite
Mummy with hair
It is preserved in the
Museum of Nature
and Man in Santa
Cruz Tenerife.
(Below) A collection
of skulls that conserve
the nineteenth century
atmosphere of the early
investigations that were
made in the Museo
Canario in Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria.
I
« have seen caves of 300 of these corpses together, the flesh
was dry, and the body was as light as a scroll».
1652. THOMAS NICHOLS.
O
ne of the most striking
rites of ancient Canary
Islanders was the mum-
mification of the corpses. The
ancient Egyptians and the Incas
also performed similar process-
es, a fact that has led some au-
thors to conclude that the three
ethnic groups had a common
origin, helping to cause some
encouragement among fans of
the theory of Atlantis.
The Guanches believed that
a new life began after death.
The spirits of their ancestors
had considerable importance,
hence the commitment and
dedication with which they
proceeded to the optimal con-
servation of their dead.
It has often been said that
mummification was carried out
on all islands, but the truth is
they have only been found in
Tenerife and Gran Canaria. On
islands such as El Hierro, La
Gomera and La Palma skeletons
covered with soft tissue have
been found, but this practice is
actually very far removed from
what is represented by the com-
plex process of mummification.
Knowing the habits and cus-
toms of the Guanches was al-
ways a difficult task, even for the
early chroniclers, since the old
Canary Islanders avoided talking
about these issues as a defence
mechanism. Alonso de Espinosa
explained this in 1594: “This is
what I have been able to amass
and understand, with great
difficulty and work, about the
customs of the natives, because
the old Guanches are so fearful
and shy that, if they know them,
they do not want to say, thinking
that to disclose them means un-
dermining their nation.”
However, and despite eve-
rything, today we can get a
general idea of how they mum-
mified their dead.

The process
I.
WHEN SOMEONE DIED
they washed the body and
took away the viscera. Then
they filled it every day with
a mixture of fat, plants and
minerals whose recipe was
lost over time.
Abreu Galindo (1590) states
that «they smeared them
with animal fat and threw
heather and pine woodworm
at them, and powders made
of pumice stone, lest they
get damaged».
Mummies in Tenerife
Exhibited at the Museum of Nature and
Man in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
II.
THEY PUT THE BODY
INTO THE SUN for several
weeks, until it was dry. The
mummy was called saxo,
and the grief of family
and friends was prolonged
throughout that time. “The
corpse was dried in the sun,
contact with hot sand dur-
ing the day helping to dry
the saxo, and treatment by
smoke at night” (Morales
Padrón, 1993).
At a time when deaths
were numerous among
the Guanche population
for various reasons such
as illness or fighting, the
image offered in seeing
countless caves in the cliffs
burning for long nights
must have been shocking
and frightening for those
foreigners who could spot
them from the sea or
from land.
Mummy of Gran Canaria
It is located in the Museo
Canario in Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria.
III.
LATER they inserted the
saxo between skins that were
painted and marked to iden-
tify the body. These were
sewn into a sheath around
the deceased. Finally, they
deposited the body inside
a cave, separated from the
floor by wood or mats. This
cave served as the family
tomb, and according to the
social position of the de-
ceased, was filled with of-
ferings: necklaces, pottery,
ornaments of value, spears
or food.
68 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
The necropolis of Herques,
the cave of a thousand mummies
«O ne of the first people to have access to one of the great Guanche necropolis was the English
physician Thomas Nichols in 1652. In Güímar he observed a cave with 300 or 400 bodies, and the
Guanches who accompanied him told him that there were at least twenty caves like that on the island».
1995. CONRADO RODRÍGUEZ MAFFIOTTE
The large cave
Eighteenth century
German engraving
which shows one of the
large caves that house
mummies in Tenerife
after the conquest. Some
authors attribute this
engraving to the famed
Charles Nicholas Cochin.
T
he burial caves of the
old Canary Islanders
have been widely reused
from the time of conquest to
the present.
Mainly farmers and shep-
herds have given them differ-
ent uses; some to save farming
tools and others to safeguard
livestock. They have also been
used as living quarters, and
an opportunity has even been
seen in them to make money
from the curiosity of research-
ers and collectors demanding
the parts kept in the interior.
Perhaps the most outstand-
ing of all these is the mysteri-
ous cave of the Herques ravine
in southern Tenerife. A cave
that numerous chroniclers and
historians have talked about
and whose exact location
we still do not know today.
Although it is suspected that
old goatherds could locate it,
through tradition and fear of
desecration of their ancestors
they remained mute when
asked.
Discovered in the seven-
teenth century it was described
by Jose Viera and Clavijo
(1772): “While writing this
news a great pantheon has just
been discovered whose worthy
monument sheds much light
on this part of our ancient his-
tory. The cave, although hav-
ing a very difficult entrance, is
high inside, spacious and with
some open niches in the rock.
It is on a very steep hill of the
Herques ravine, between Arico
and Guimar, in Abona country,
and so full of mummies that
no less than one thousand
were counted (...). In truth, up
to then I had never admired
that device so much by which
these islanders immortalized
their bodies (...) The shrouds
or covers that were wound
from head to toe are some
neatly sewn goatskins. Some
bodies have up to five or six,
placed one above the other.
The males have their arms
extended over both thighs and
the females have their hands
folded together towards the
belly. Even the very placement
of the saxos in this cemetery is
a subject worthy of attention,
because they are in beds and
rows, on a scaffold or wooden
 THE NECROPOLIS OF HERQUES 69

cots that have still not decom-
posed, the spectacle not at all
decorous.”
According to Conrado Rod-
riguez Maffiotte (1995), one of
the first to have access to one
of the great Guanches necropo-
lis was the English physician
Thomas Nichols in 1652: “...
the bodies are sewn with goat-
skins, and belts of the same
species, and the sewing is so
equal and well joined that you
cannot praise their wonderful
art without admiration. Each
cover is exactly proportionate
to the body height. But what
causes most admiration is that
all the bodies are almost com-
plete. In both sexes alike you
can see the eyes (but closed),
hair, nose, teeth, lips, chin, and
even their natural parts. The
author counted three or four
hundred in different caves,
some standing others lying on
beds or wooden pallets.
“One day the author was out
with his ferret to catch rabbits,
a very common type of hunting
on the island of Tenerife, and
this little animal got lost in a
burrow without being able to
recognize the tracks. One of
the hunters who owned it was
determined to find him among
the rocks and weeds: and he
discovered the entrance to a
cave of guanchas and went
The mummy of Madrid
in; but his fear was instantly Guanche mummy found
discovered by his loud cries. in the National Museum of
He had seen a body of extraor- Anthropology in Madrid.
dinary size, whose head rested Unique for its excellent
condition and from the
on a stone, the feet on another
Herques ravine.
and the body on a wooden bed-
stead. The hunter calmed own
remembering something he
had heard, and from the ideas
he had about the graves of
guanchas, and he cut off a large
piece of skin that the corpse
had on its chest. The writer of
this account affirms that it was
thinner and softer than our
best gloves, and so far from rot-
ting that the hunter employed
it for various uses in the space
of many years.”

Spoliation in the great cave

A
recent book entitled The cave of a
thousand mummies collected some in-
teresting research in which evidence is
collected on a hypothetical spoliation
led by naturalists and adventurers and foreign
merchants who traded with mummies. Among
the documented cases, they identified a mum-
my found deposited in the National Museum
of Anthropology in Madrid, from Tenerife, and
another taken to Paris, to the so-called Royal
Cabinet.
In addition, an engraving of Charles Nicholas
Cochin (1715-1790), which is reproduced in
this book (The cave of a thousand mummies),
offers a vision of the arrival of a foreigner to a
large cave, where he is received by some abo-
rigines. In this same view numerous mummies
appear supported on the bluff, and others are
lying on wooden supports.
This space, just so, so horrifying, still remains
in the deepest darkness of the Herques ravine
in southern Tenerife.
70 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
How did they live?
The Guanche economy
W
e should consider
the great impact on
the first settlers who
were brought to these remote
islands in the middle of the
Atlantic.
If we assume the most
probable theory, that they were
from North Africa, the islands
offered endless contrasts with
respect to their homelands.
Not only was the landscape
and climate different, but all
that this entails: the ecosystem
itself. The rocks, soils, plants
and some animals were totally
unknown. This coupled with
the fact that they did not have
metal greatly modified the
knowledge and habits they
brought from their homes.
If we describe economics
as the set of activities that
we do for a living, in the
case of the ancient Canary
Islanders we should emphasize
the development of animal
husbandry, agriculture, fishing
and shell fishing; and then, to
a lesser extent, collecting wild
fruits and mineral and timber
extraction.
Most of the ancient Canary
Islander settlements were in
midpoint areas of the islands
(between 600 and 1,500 m
above sea level) due to the
amazing ecological and climatic
conditions of these places, and
where they were able to find
enough resources to live.
Areas like El Lentiscal (San
Brígida) on Gran Canaria,
Sabinosa (Frontera) on El
Hierro, Sabina Alta (Fasnia) on
Tenerife or el Barranco Jorado
(Tijarafe) on La Palma must
have been real orchards before
human intervention damaged
their peculiar vegetation.
Springs filled the ravines and
these helped to create a lush
and exotic vegetation. From
the cactus, dragos, verodes
and palms, ancient Canary
Islanders extracted wood that
they used for making tools
and household utensils like
spoons, baskets, fishing gear
and clothing items. The laurel
forests were their 24-hour
pharmacies.
The ancient Canary Islanders
did not use currency, and their
way of exchanging goods and
services was by barter.
Animal husbandry
The cattle were composed
mostly of goats, pigs and
sheep without wool. From
these animals they got meat,
milk and fat. As a guardian for
grazing they used dogs, which
they probably also ate.
During the rainy season,
 THE GUANCHE ECONOMY 71

they went down to the coast, diversity made the

while in the summer the
herds moved to higher areas
of the islands. In Tenerife,
in the spacious region of Las
Canadas del Teide, plenty of
evidence has been found to
confirm that entire families
moved there in the summer
to live with the cattle. In other
islands, like Fuerteventura
and Gran Canaria, large
rectangular structures next to
villages have been interpreted
as community pens.
Agriculture
The rainfall and climatic
development of agriculture
uneven on each island. Gran
Canaria and parts of northern
Tenerife and La Palma were
noted for using irrigation
systems for growing legumes
such as lentils, peas or beans.
However, the most common
crops were on unirrigated A large orchard
land, those fed by rainwater, The springs filled the
ravines and they helped
or planted, mainly barley and
to create a lush and
wheat. exotic vegetation.
There would probably also
have been different varieties
of fruit trees, but the truth is
that there is only evidence of
figs existing.

The granaries of Gran Canaria

The Cenobio de Valeron in Guía is an example of a large scale granary. They were built in high
inaccessible caves, and were even hidden and closed with covers and doors made of wood or stone.
They kept the surplus production and seed stocks. They were guarded by the faykag, who assumed a
great responsibility within the community.
72 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Fishing,
sustenance and entertainment
« T he nobles amused themselves by fishing,
the poor by gathering shellfish».
1694. MARÍN DE CUBAS

Bone Hook
Piece exhibited in the Museo
Canario in Las Palmas de
Gran Canaria.
C
omo Naturally, the
Guanches were excel-
lent fishermen. There is
no evidence that they sailed,
but the chances are that they
did, at least on short trips with
small rafts. As Leonardo Tor-
riani described in 1588 “They
made boats from the drago
tree, which they dug out com-
pletely and then put in stone
ballast, and they sailed with
oars and palm sails around the
shores of the island, and they
also used to pass by Tenerife
and Fuerteventura to steal,”
although the strong currents
existing between the islands
make it doubtful that these
were daily trips.
The fishing hook was wide-
spread on all the islands, and
in any archaeological museum
on the islands hooks made
of bones can be seen, some
of them large, inviting one to
think that from the shore they
caught large fish in a sea lit-
tered with life.
They closed off water with
stones and when the tide was
out they sprayed juices ex-
tracted from spurges to stun fish
they caught with cane baskets.
The species of fish caught var-
ied according to the technique
employed, but the most com-
mon ones were sardines in Gran
Canaria, and the vieja and the
moray on the other islands.

Shell fishing

In 1694 Marin de Cubas described how shell fishing was for the poor, and the fact is that this was
an important provision in the diet of the Guanches. They gathered shellfish throughout the year,
the equinoxes, when the tides are lower, being the time when the highest production was obtained.
Limpets, winkles, crabs, sea urchins and mussels were the most widely collected molluscs.
In La Gomera, El Hierro, Fuerteventura and Tenerife seashells dumps exist in industrial quantities,
archaeological sites that have been called concheros, and whose function is unknown. It is speculated
that they could have been a type of factory where the mollusc shell was removed, roasted to keep
them dry and thereby be able distribute them all over the island.
FISHING 73
74 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

What did they eat?

The Canary Island pantry

«W henever they wanted to eat and when they had finished eating
they washed their faces and hands (...) and when they ate, they only
drank half an hour later, because they said that the cold water damaged
their teeth when they had eaten hot things».
1590. JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO.

Mill for the gofio
Domestic instrument
designed to grind grain
to a powder or meal.
Piece exhibited in the
Museo Canario in Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria.
(Below) Gofio is a food that
has survived to this day.
L
a Science has allowed
us to discover what the
Guanches ate by study-
ing their bones. So, we know
that their diet was rich and
varied. In Gran Canaria, due
to the significant development
of agriculture, the proportion
of vegetables consumed in the
diet was very high compared
to other islands like La Palma,
La Gomera and El Hierro,
where the diet was more bal-
anced as far as meat and fish
are concerned.
We do not know if the type
of food they ate resembled
what we eat today, but if so,
we could prepare a menu as
follows:
First dish, vegetables
With barley and wheat they
made a meal they toasted
to create gofio, food that has
survived to our times, and
which is one of the most
popular dietary supplements
of Canarian cuisine. “They
do not eat bread, but barley,
which they crush in a stone
mill by hand, they dissolve it
in water or milk and take it
as food and drink.” Jerome
Munzer (1495)
Leaves and roots of some
wild plants were also used
to make meal and they then
made cakes and biscuits.
With irrigated crops in Gran
Canaria and Tenerife North
they added lentils, peas and
beans to their diet.
Also, for starters, you could
try seafood like black limpets,
white limpets, mussels, crabs,
sea urchins and, most likely,
octopus.
Second dish, meat or fish
Goat and sheep meat was the
most widely consumed, but
they were not the only ones.
To a lesser extent, meat from
pigs and some birds such as
quail, crow or pigeon were
also consumed willingly by
the Guanches.
But if we were to talk about
favourite foods, we would
have to say sardines (especially
in Gran Canaria), viejas,

morays, grouper or bream
that were some of those they
consumed daily and that could
be accompanied by seaweed
gathered for this use.
And for dessert
In addition to delicious fruits
like figs, blackberries and
WHAT DID THEY EAT? 75
Guanche pot
Made from clay, it was found
in Gáldar and is exhibited in
the Museo Canario in Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria.
dates, there was also the
Mocan fruit, an endemic
species of the Canary Islands
and Madeira which grows in
the laurel forests. With this
they made a honey type drink
called chacerquen, which they
also used to take away pain
and nausea.
For special occasions
Some accounts tell us that they ate insects in La
Gomera, and this was probably also widespread in
other islands. In addition, the old Canary Islanders
practiced hunting of some animals that are now ex-
tinct, such as the giant lizard and also giant rat that
they ate willingly.
As well as the consumption of dog meat, already
mentioned, it is necessary to add, in the islands of La
Palma, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the consumption of
cat meat, but this time for mystical reasons.
(LEFT) BARNACLES ARE ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR CANARY MOLLUSCS
76 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

How did they communicate?

The Guanche languages

«T hey say these islands are so different from one other in language
that they do not understand each other, as well as not having any kind
of ships or other means by which they can move from one island to the
other, except by swimming.»
1341. NICCOLOSSO DA RECCO.

Total isolation
Little or no indigenous
communication with other
islands meant that in each
of these the language
would evolve differently.
O
n the language of the
old Canary Islanders
little is known. There
is a vocabulary mainly consist-
ing of proper names and geo-
graphical names (toponyms)
which has survived to this day.
The chronicles of the conquer-
ors of the fourteenth century,
and popular tradition, have
met this little challenge, but
the data available are insuf-
ficient to rescue the language
from oblivion. The indigenous
language was replaced by that
of the conquerors which was
imposed on the vanquished.
Spanish became the official
language, and speaking the
ancient Guanche language

was not only frowned upon,
but was expressly prohibited.
In some remote areas of the
islands the language survived
for several centuries. Some
authors like García-Talavera
state that “until 1760 Guanche
was spoken in the Valle de
San Lorenzo, in southern
Tenerife.”
As the chroniclers of the
time have said, the language
of each island was different,
however some experts say,
after studying the words that
have survived to this day, that
they reveal a common root in
all the islands, which is at the
same time linked with North
African Berber or Amazigh
languages.
Total isolation between the
islands and the subsequent
VOCABULARY
Thousands of Guanche names
Among the thousands of names that have been preserved,
some are common throughout the islands, such as:
Gofio
Toasted flour.
Gánigo
Clay vessel.
Tamarco
Clothing.
Verode
A shrubby plant in the
Kleinia genus.
Tenique
Big stone.
THE GUANCHE LANGUAGES 77
internal evolution of language
for centuries are the factors
behind the language of each
island acquiring different
nuances until becoming actual
languages. This would explain
the difficulty Guanches
from some islands had in
understanding each other at
the time of the conquest.
While taking into account
the events that happened
afterwards, when Fernando
de Guanarteme, Guanche and
King of Gran Canaria, was
displaced by the conquerors to
the island of Tenerife, with the
aim of agreeing a surrender of San Lorenzo Valley
the latter, it seems that they Some authors claim that until
almost the nineteenth century
did come to understand one
Guanche languages were
another, and another thing spoken in southern Tenerife.
was that they did not reach an
agreement.
Arroró Adeje, Icod,
Song that mothers
sing to rock children Tacoronte, Teide,
to sleep. Telde, Tejeda,
Perenquen Taburiente,
Gray, scaly and Tazacorte,Ucanca
small reptile.
Tindaya,Yaiza,
Baifo
Goat breeding. Chipude, Teguise
These are some names of
Guirre towns and cities in the
Bird of prey, vulture. Canaries.
78 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Did they write?
Guanche writing and paintings
Libyan alphabet
(Above) Some Libyco
alphabetic signs found
in the Canary Islands.
(Below) Petroglyphs
from El Julan on the
island of El Hierro.
W
riting is not only a
tool for communi-
cation, but also for
learning. Writing a note, a
letter, a book, defines us as
human beings. It was the great
leap forward of the species.
Writing allows us to spread
a thought, an idea; and thus
its diffusion over time. Our
knowledge and understanding
of history depends primarily
on written texts. Therefore, it
is one of the greatest inven-
tions of mankind. Very prob-
ably, it arose from the need
to record and remember com-
mercial trade permanently and
reliably.
As mentioned before, we
know some of the proper
names and place names
employed by the old Canary
Islanders because they have
been preserved over time in
the names of many places on
the islands or were transcribed
by the first chroniclers: “On
this island of Tenerife there
was a man who commanded
and who was obeyed, and
he was called Betzenuria (...)
and he had nine children.
And with the father dead,
each one took the share they
could and between them they
agreed and divided it; and
from one kingdom it was split
into nine. The oldest of these
brothers was called Imobat,
whose kingdom and lordship
was called Taoro (...) Acaymo
his brother, was made King
of Aguimar; Atquaxona king
of Abona; Atbitocarpe king of
Adeje. Other names of these
brothers have been lost in
their memory,” Abreu and
Galindo tell us (in 1590).
However, we do not know
how the Guanches wrote these
names.
Until well into the 1990s,
the lack of Guanche texts
was always considered.
However, we now know that
these ideas were wrong. The
various Libyan-Berber type
inscriptions found in the
Western Isles and the neo-
Punic type ones discovered
in the eastern islands, and in
some parts of Tenerife and La
Palma, go to prove it.
There are numerous signs
made on rocks on the slopes
of ravines, in prominent places
in the landscape, or on small
mobile stones. These are rock
carvings and are one of the
most interesting expressions
of the Guanche culture in the
archipelago.
Alphabets
and geometric shapes
Most of the signs found relate
to Lybico alphabets from North
 DID THEY WRITE? 79

Boat with sails

Africa, but not all.
There is another scripture
that has been linked to Latin,
receiving different denomina-
tions such as cursive Latin or
Latino-Canarian, but whose
characters clearly point to a
kind of neo-Punic writing. Dif-
ferent examples of this writing
are found in both Tenerife and
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
Although the most abundant
and widespread signs on the
islands are geometric shapes,
shapes in lines, circles,
crosses, diamonds, chequered
or spirals. (Below) Engraving of a
boat in the Barranco del
Muerto in Santa Cruz de
Human and animal forms Tenerife. (Above) The El
The human forms and the rep- Julan Visitor Centre on
resentation of animals are not the island of El Hierro.
as frequent, but no less impor-
tant result in understanding
how the Guanche community
thought and expressed them-
selves. The engravings of ani-
mals include lizards, fish, bulls
and horses.
In highly visible places such
as high mountains near the
coast, representations of boats
with sails stand out.

The pintaderas
In the Museo Canario in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria you
can see the famous pintaderas. Some small pieces that
have geometric drawings are modelled on fired ceramic
forming more or less deep reliefs, like a kind of seal. It is
unknown what their role was, it is speculated that its use
may have been a kind of property mark to identify different
goods, like a family seal.
80 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

How did they cure themselves?

The Guanche first aid kit

Borage drink
(Above) With borage leaves
they made herbal teas for
diuretic purposes.
T
he best medicine of the
Guanches was their
rich and healthy food,
of which we have spoken. Al-
though the privileged, benign
and temperate climate enjoyed
in the islands also provided
them with medicinal plants
that managed to cure disease
and prolong life, reaching very
advanced longevity for the
time.
The drago
For thousands of years,
the mythical Canary Island
drago (arbor draconis)
has been shrouded in
an aura of mystery that
accompanies it even today.
Legend has it that the dragons
became dragos when they
died. Hence its sap, a
blood colour. This living fossil
is one of the symbols of the
Canary Islands.
Currently, the largest and
most famous drago tree is in
Icod de los Vinos (Tenerife),
being 17 m. high and with a
20 m. perimeter at the base,
the weight of this behemoth is
around 150 tons, not counting
the roots. The age of this drago
has been much discussed,
it has been said that could
be more than five millennia,
however, recent studies
estimate that it has an age of
around a thousand years.
With this longevity we
can affirm that the ancient
inhabitants of the Canary
Islands took advantage of it to
extract its blood, the blood of
the drago, which they drank
mixed with cold milk and
served as a remedy for colitis.

Herbal teas, milk and water

→ Native Canary Islanders also enjoyed delicious drinks and herbal teas that helped them cure certain
ailments. Borage (Borago officinalis) is now known for anti-stress, diuretic and sudorific qualities. To
take advantage of these properties they used flowers that were taken in infusion.
→ Palm syrup is a typical product of the island of La Gomera which is obtained from the sap of the Ca-
nary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis), this sap being known by the name of guarapo. Palm syrup
is the result of reducing the guarapo in cooking for a few hours until the density becomes similar to bees
honey and its characteristic dark colour. The old Canary Islanders drank the juice as refreshment and
the syrup as a natural vitamin complex. Currently it is an accompanying sauce for traditional Canary
Islander, such as frangollo and custard, baked or Príncipe Alberto style.
→ Similarly, the Guanches obtained benefits from certain mineral waters, especially in Gran Canaria.
The water springs of Firgas, Teror and San Roque Valley were attributed with properties to treat stom-
ach ailments.

They also applied it directly
to wounds requiring rapid
healing. Other uses it had
were related to strengthening
the gums and teeth.
The tabaiba
The tabaiba (Euphorbia
atropurpurea) is a shrub that
can reach 2 m high and grows
abundantly in ravines and
plains in full sun. The tabaiba
is one of the 500 endemic
species (that do not exist
anywhere else in the world)
that only the Canary Islands
has.
With the sweet tabaiba resin
they made a paste that they
chewed to strengthen teeth,
while they used the bark of the
wild tabaiba to treat arthritis,
dislocations or fractures. This
is a practice that, even today,
is still used among farmers
in some rural areas of the
islands.
The Mocán
“A tree present in the history
of the Canary Islands, for the
Indians it was a delicacy, due
to the pleasure with which
they ate its fruits they called it
yoya, and due to the medicinal
chacerquén or milfoil they
made from it,” Viera and
Clavijo tell us (in the year
1772).
The Mocán (Visnea
mocanera) is a tree that can
reach 15 m in height, it is a
species that is endemic to the
Canary Islands and grows
in wooded areas. Its flowers
are small and white, and its
THE GUANCHE FIRST AID KIT 81
fruit is the size of a pea that
once mature is very sweet.
From this, known as yoya, the
guanches produced a kind of
honey (chacerquen), which
was produced by boiling the
fruit with little water until
the desired thickness was
achieved. They also used
it as a stimulant to remove
pain and nausea. They also
mixed it with other herbs for
laxative effects. Moreover, The yoya of the Mocán
with its juice they made a The fruit of the Mocán,
fermented beverage that among other uses, was used
produced alcohol they drank as a stimulant. (Below) With
the cardón they made a
in celebrations and rituals. powder to heal wounds.
The Cardón
The cardón (Euphorbia
canariensis) is a shrub with
long stems and robust thorns.
It is another species endemic
to the Canary Islands. It
grows abundantly in all the
islands except in Lanzarote.
It reaches a height of 4 m, but
the most surprising thing is its
horizontality which can exceed
150 m², creating a micro
habitat inside with species of
animals and plants.
In times when the Guanches
were the only inhabitants of
the islands the cardón was very
common and well exploited
therefore. From its leaves
they extracted white juice
with a bitter taste. Its smell is
so strong that it was used to
awaken those who for various
reasons were still asleep. That
same milky juice was turned
into powder, which they stored
to be applied on wounds and
burns.
82 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Music and songs,
Guanche parties
Canary Island Drum
According to Antonio
de Viana one of the
instruments of the old
Canary Islanders was
the tambourine made
from drago.
(Above) Contemporary
Drum from La Gomera.
«T hey were lively, very willing and well proportioned (...) and
so it is today». 1590. JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO.
T
hrough documentary
sources and science we
have been able to gather
a general impression about
the old islanders, but, have
we been able to discover what
their musical and festive tastes
were?
The story of the Portuguese-
Italian expedition of 1341, led
by the Genoese Niccoloso Da
Recco, gives us some clues:
“they sing sweetly and dance
in the French manner.”
Abreu Galindo (1590) tells
us that they had houses where
they gathered to dance and
sing. They described the dance
as “short, and sharp, the same
that they now call Canarian,”
and of the songs he states that
they were “painful, sad and
amorous, or doleful ones that
we know call endechas.”
In these houses of Gran
Canaria was where they held
parties and games, where the
kings and nobles attended to
enjoy performances of dances
and Canary Island songs.
Gomez Escudero (1484)
tells us that “they danced
with painted drago sticks (...)
and they were very skilful
at stomping and skipping.”
The songs that accompanied
the dances “were heartfelt
and plaintive, and they often
repeated something many
times as a chorus.”In this
regard he notes that while they
sang the old Gomera people
“understood and cried if it was
tragic and pitiful.”
From all that witnesses
describe about these evenings,
what most stands out is the
sentiment that emerges in
these meetings. “These people
were kind and gentle, and their
songs were very mournful and
heartfelt, which today are
sung in the Spanish language,
and they move with much
compassion and soften those
listening even make women
and soft-hearted people cry;
they deal with absent love,
deaths and separations, “says
Gomez Escudero (1484).
 GUANCHE PARTIES 83

Canary Island Endechas

From the famous “ Canary Island Endechas» we know the melody
from several Spanish sources of the mid-sixteenth century. Leonardo
Torriani (1590) states that the descendants of the Guanches sang in
their native language, and he gives us two stanzas written with the
corresponding linguistic explanation:

Canary Island Endecha

«Aicá maragá, aititú aguahae
Maicá guere, demancihani
Neiga haruuiti alemalai.»
(You are welcome; they killed our mother this foreign people,
but since we are together, brother, I want to join because
we are lost).

Endecha from El Hierro

«Mimerahaná zinu zinuhá
Abemen aten harán huá
Zu Agarfú fenere nuzá».
(What does it matter if they take and bring milk, water and bread
here, if Agarfa—woman’s name—will not look at me?).

The Guanche music band

In the early seventeenth century, the physician Antonio de Viana pub-
lished in Seville the book Antiquities of the Fortunate Islands, which
contained a number of poems that gave valuable information due to its
directly indigenous ancestry. This book contains the great knowledge he
possessed about the land and customs of the islands, which he suppos-
edly knew directly due to the news that family members gave him.
In canto 4, when he describes the end of April festivities, he presents us
with the first music band of which there was news:

«The chord tone of the music resonates

The instruments are three dry pumpkins
and some little pebbles in which
they played sweetly; they are from the Canary Islands.
A very small drago tambourine,
A blonde flute with a hollow reed,
and four pipes with green stems,
and knobby joints of barley.
And with his mouth a very good musician
Makes a husky in tune sound».

Voilà. We have a purely Guanche band. The musical group was

composed of three maracas, a drum, a flute, four pipes and a vocalist.
84 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Current folklore,
the inheritance of temperament
The Sabandeños
(Below) is a musical group
from the island of Tenerife.
They are considered the best
examples of Canary Island folk
music. Dressed with a blanket
over their shoulders very much
like the cloths-tamarcos-of the
Guanches.
C
anary Island folklore
now is the product of
temperament and the
psychology of the Canarian
people, of Guanche ancestry,
and the traces left from differ-
ent cultures that have settled
in the islands. Canary Island
songs and humour involve
signs of resignation, a trait very
closely linked to the character
of the islanders. As in the songs
of the old Canary Islanders,
current folklore reflects the
same themes: rain, wind, mis-
fortunes and rites.
The isa, the folia and the
malagueña are the most popu-
lar songs and dances of the Ca-
nary Islands, but poor in terms
of Guanche heritage. Folklore
born from constant Spanish in-
fluence and Americanization of
the islands since the sixteenth
century.
To find some characteristic
of the Guanches in folklore
dances now, we would have to
go back to the most ancient of
dances on record, and these are
the tajaraste, the sirinoque and
the tanganillo.
The tajaraste is considered
to be the oldest dance in the
Canary Islands, and became
very popular in European
courts in the sixteenth century.
Its songs are composed of old
romances stretching back to the
conquest of the islands in the
early fifteenth century. These
romances tell stories, miracles
and unhappy love affairs.
The sirinoque is a song and
dance that is typical of the
island of La Palma, its music
reminds us of ancient magical
ceremonies. It is played with
drums and castanets, some-
times a flute is added—and
while the dance goes on the
dancers keep their heads
bowed as if in prayer.
And finally, we cannot for-
get the tanganillo, also called
tango herreño, which like the
tajaraste, of which we have
spoken, are the oldest dances
and directly related to the na-
tive dances.
In these dances men and
women form a wheel that
moves back and forth in time
with the music, and they do so
in a manner very similar to that
 CURRENT FOLKLORE 85

described by Abreu Galindo
(1590): “They danced in a
circle and in a folia, some of
them facing each other to the
front, and returning to the back
with their hands held and giv-
ing great leaps so together and
similar that they seem stuck to
each other, all of them. And
from these dances came their
songs, and which not even the
dances remain today.”
But there is also the purest
version of tango herreño, that
goes with a very lively dance
that is difficult to perform and
which is accompanied by beau-
tiful music, deep and mysteri-
ous. In this beautiful and cheer-
ful dance the drum, flute and a
woman’s voice come together to
take the listener back in time.
The wheel of Abreu Galindo
In these dances men and
women form a wheel that
moves back and forth in time
with the music, and do so in
a manner very similar to that
described by Abreu Galindo
in 1590. (Above) Acorán Los
Realejos Group in Tenerife.

The chácaras
The chácaras are a Canary Island percussion instrument.
They are similar to Spanish castanets, but larger. They are used
mainly on the islands of El Hierro and La Gomera, and although
not mentioned by the chroniclers of the time no archaeological
remains have been found that confirm them. Oral tradition
and etymological analysis identify them as an instrument
of Guanche origin.
86 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?

Games and sports,

the pastimes of the Guanches
«T hey were great swimmers (...) both men and women,
and young peoples». 1590. JUAN DE ABREU GALINDO.

Island wrestling
The first historical reference
to this wrestling is chronicled
in the year 1420: “One was
the great wrestler Maguer,
who was forty years old
and there was no one in
the court who could
wrestle with him.”
A
s was natural, the sea
played an important
role in the lives of the
old Canary Islanders. They not
only got food and raw materi-
als from the sea; the souls of
their ancestors also came from
the sea, and the star that ruled
their lives rose and hid itself
through the sea, the sun; but
they also enjoyed the sea.
Abreu Galindo (1590)
argues that the Guanches were
great swimmers (...) both men
and women, and young people
“who enjoyed fishing and
sailing, for which, according
to Torriani (1590),” They built
boats made from the drago tree
which they dug out whole, and
they then put in stone ballast
and sailed with oars palm sails
around the shores of the island
(Canary Islands).”
Physical fitness, which the
Guanches enjoyed, led them
to play many sports games,
of which some of them have
survived to this day.
Canarian wrestling
Canarian wrestling is one of
the most popular games today,
and the one most reflected in
historical sources. Alonso de
Espinosa (1594) tells us that
it was common at parties,
in which “everyone showed
their value (...) with great
agility and movement in the
fighting”
The first historical reference
is contained in the royal
chronicle of John II of Castile
(1420) written by Alvar García
de Santa María, which tells of
an ambassorship of Bishop Fray
Mendo, in the charge of Diego

Ceramics
The main characteristic of ancient pottery of the Canary Islands
is that that it was manufactured by hand without the use of any
type of lathe.
Chroniclers tell us that Guanche women were responsible for its
production, and that the most common uses of this were not only purely
practical such as storage, transport and food consumption, but they also
made it to be enjoyed and to make decorations for their homes, or to create
artistic and religious pieces.

Fernandez, connected to a
request for aid to Lanzarote. In
this ambassorship two Canary
Islanders from the island of
Gran Canaria converted to
Christianity were travelling,
“they were Christian and one
of them was the great wrestler
Maguer, who was forty years
old and there was no one in
the court who could wrestle
with him.”
What is the wrestling like?
Canarian wrestling is a sport
of opposition, in which two
opponents face one another
from an initial position in
which they are holding each
other; and for no longer
than one minute and a half,
and without leaving a circle
they have to unbalance the
opponent to make them touch
the ground with any body part
other than the soles of the feet.
GAMES AND SPORTS 87
To do this they use a series of
“tricks” or techniques with
both hands and feet, hitting
your opponent being banned.
Canary Island stick fighting
The game of the stick or the
Canary Island stick is fencing
between two opponents
with a stick in their hands.
Currently, there are three types
determined by the size of the
stick: small, medium stick and
club or big stick. We know
that the Guanches, as with
Canarian wrestling, did this
at parties, in a playful way,
although its origin must have
been as a result of war and Duels of young Guanches
defence activities. The most important reference
The first news about the use of this Canarian fencing is
of sticks, by the Guanches, provided by the engineer’s
Torriani (1590) with a valuable
is found in the Bethencourt
document: a drawing of two
chronicles (1402), and refers Canary Islanders, white and
to bimbaches-inhabitants of blonde, in a square in a kind of
the island of El Hierro, “’the ritual with rods of medium size.
88 WHAT WERE THE GUANCHES LIKE?
Stick fighting
This Canarian fencing,
with variations, has
survived to this day.
men carry big spears without
iron” .
Antonio Cedeño, a soldier
under the command of Juan
Rejón, wrote a controversial
account in 1478, it tells us
that “the day they celebrated
the wedding (...) they took the
woman home and had great
meals and games (...) and held
a general tournament of sticks
or rods painted red with drago
blood.”
However, the most
important reference to this
Canarian fencing is provided
by the engineer Torriani
(1590) with a very valuable
document: a drawing of two
Canary Islanders in a square
in a kind of ritual with rods of
medium size, and he writes:
“When two Canary Islanders
were challenged to a duel,
they went to the appointed
place for it, which was a high
square, which had a flat stone
at each end, just large enough
for a man to stand on. First,
each of them stood on their
stone (...) with the stick called
amodeghe and magodo and
(...) and then they went down
onto the ground and faced
each other with the magodos,
fencing with each seeking
their advantage. “
What is the game like?
The stick game is, ultimately,
fencing, whose space is defined
by the players, consisting of a
set of fast techniques that
make it very spectacular. The
funny thing is that there is
no specific way to end, it is
determined by the control of
man, or, in it being apparent
to those taking part who is
superior.
Stone throwing
This game disappeared after
the conquest of the islands,
and no reference has been
found about it being played
afterwards, but rather before.
The throwing and evading
of stones is a warlike game,
which demonstrates the great
skill that they had in using the
stones as a throwing weapon.
The stones used for this
purpose were polished and
sharp; says Alonso de Espinosa
(1594) who “used round stone
balls they threw with great
force.”
Similarly, these weapons
also became entertainment as
a reason for betting “they were
so agile that at ten paces they
waited for whoever wanted to
throw a stone or spear, and
no one hit them because they
moved their body with great
skill,” says Espinosa (1594).
On the island of La Gomera,
this game was used to teach
children such skills; as Abreu
Galindo reported (1590):
“They were people of medium
height from La Gomera,
cheerful, agile and skilful
in attacking and defending
themselves from large stone
throwers (...). In order to
make their children skilful and
 GAMES AND SPORTS 89

agile, the natives of this island waited at twelve paces for

used to put the parents in one
part, and they threw mud balls
at them for them to store, and
when they grew up they threw
stones, and then boots and
then with points (...). So much
so that they caught the stones,
darts and arrows thrown to
them with their hands.”
In addition, this reporter
reveals the story of a Guanche
who, when in the land of
courtiers (Spanish ladies)
used this skill to his economic
benefit, “Antonio de Nebrija,
in his book Decades, tells how
a Canary Islander, without
moving his feet from the spot
them to throw a coin at his
head; and the author speaks
with admiration.”
In this same account the
religious chronicler adds that
“there was a Canary Islander
who gave three men twelve
oranges each, and he took
another twelve, and he threw
them all (the twelve oranges)
at each of them without any
of the others (the three men)
having time to throw a single
orange, and they had to be ten
paces apart. And they made
these bets whenever time they
wanted, the Canary Islander
always winning.”

Other games of skill

«They do thousands of other splendid
things, such as throwing a spear down a
rock (cliff) many states (meters), which,
as it is well-known to all, I do not want
to spend time writing about them».
Alonso de Espinosa.1594

Jumping the pole

This is a Guanche game that has disappeared and about which very little is known. The only
reference that has survived to this day is due to Abreu Galindo (1590) when he describes the
customs of the people of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura:
“They were very agile at jumping, and it was the main exercise. Two men took a long pole, one at
one end and the other at the other end, and they raised their arms with the rod, as high as they
could; and whoever jumped over it was the most agile. And two or three in a row like this, and
there was a man who jumped them in three leaps without stopping.”

Lifting stones
Lifting heavy stones as a form of competition to measure the forces between opponents must have
been another activity that the Guanches performed at parties.
“They were such agile men that some almost unbelievable things are told. A pebble stone that is
the area of Arico (Tenerife), solid, heavy and gigantic, which I saw, is common among the natives
(comment) whose ancestors went to prove their strength with that stone, and that they raised with
their hands and threw over their head backwards with ease; and now there is no man, strong as he
is, who can lift or move it, “says Espinosa (1594).
Epilogue
A
s we have learned, throughout the book, it seems that the Guanches were
heirs of old races and cultures. Cultures from Europe and North Africa, which
have been largely preserved by isolating these people, but at the same time,
for the same condition, over the centuries these cultures adapted and created
what which has been called the Guanche culture.

Landings in the Canary Islands, in ancient times, appear to have been caused, in large part,
by chance, because of temporary shipwrecks or vessels getting lost, where the hypothetical
return became an impossible adventure. This may have been the cause of several ancient
cultures coexisting that isolation preserved.

Petroglyphs of El Julan in El Hierro are almost identical to those of the High Atlas, The
carvings of La Palma are in Ireland and Scotland. The mummification of the bodies seem
to have Egyptian influences. Ceramics from Gran Canaria and La Palma have parallels with
Saharan ceramics. And beads from clay necklaces in Tenerife may well be those found
in the Mediterranean and the British Isles. However, this disconcerting mass of cultures,
seemingly unrelated or with no common identity, have one thing that unites all the islands,
what?
Broad faces, prominent cheekbones, noses somewhat sunken, rough types of bones and a
great height that clearly distinguishes them from Mediterranean races: There was only one
human race that had the same structure of skull and bones as the Guanches, and this race
was the Cro-Magnon of the last glacial period.
The Guanches are, from an anthropological point of view, descendants of Cro-Magnon man,
who remained almost intact until the genocide caused by the conquistadors in historic
times. This leading role of the Cromanoid race throughout the islands of the archipelago is
what has become known as substrate culture, the culture of the first people settling on the
islands: the element that unites all the islands.

The conquest of the islands

Following the development of navigation European states from the twelfth century the
fate of the old Canary Islanders was already marked. These European states in an effort
to open new routes to the Indies circumnavigated the African continent to source spices,
silks, slaves or precious metals. The islands not only provided a supply base for this route
92 GUANCHES
to Africa, but also, in the latter, resources
easily sold in markets could be obtained,
such as orchilla, of which we have spoken,
or perhaps a more profitable trade if
possible: slaves.
Sailors of various nationalities hunted
Guanches slaves that they sold to
merchants and nobles in North Africa
that wanted to buy them. And that lasted
until 1402 when the Norman noble Jean
de Bethencourt landed on Lanzarote with
the idea of colonizing the islands with
French emigrants; while converting the
native Canary Islanders to Christianity.
He succeeded in part. But not before
having to employ some radical measures
to subdue some natives from Lanzarote
who were not having any of it. But the
Guanches of the other islands were
not as willing to work with the French,
which led them all to bloody battles. The
Christianized Guanches of Lanzarote
helped win two more islands for the
Norman noble: Fuerteventura and El
Hierro. The conquerors did not dare not to
approach the large islands that had well-
organized societies divided into different
kingdoms and castes.
A year later Bethencourt returned to
the islands with reinforcements, he was
accompanied by a group of adventurers
from Normandy and a bishop appointed
by King Henry III of Castile, who
supported the conquest in return for the
Norman becoming a vassal of the King of
Castile . The baptized Guanches received
him with great cries of joy, and the
unbaptized Guanches with stones.
Bethencourt remained in the islands until
1412, the date on which finally returned
to his domains in Normandy, leaving
his nephew Maciot de Bethencourt at
the front of his possessions (Lanzarote,
Fuerteventura and El Hierro), who in turn
sold his belongings and rights to the noble
Spanish conquest.
However, the Guanches did not submit
and fought. So much so that, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
Spanish troops had to fight endlessly
to obtain their near disappearance.
The courage the Guanches showed in
desperate struggles surprised even the
most hardened Spanish soldiers.
In 1483, Doramas, guanarteme of Telde,
managed to expel the Spanish from Gran
Canaria, in 1494, Guanches from Tenerife,
under the command of mencey Bencomo,
using stones and sticks, beat over a
thousand well-armed Spanish soldiers,
and they were not able to reduce them
until they sent a large squad that fought
for a year; and on other islands, the
vanquished Guanches rushed from the top
of the bluffs and ravines to avoid being
reduced to captivity.
The conquest marked the end of the
Guanche culture and lifestyles. The
process of conquest and colonization of
the Canary Islands was the bloody test of
what would then be done on the newly
discovered American lands. The Guanche
rebels were decimated and enslaved.
They forbade their language, religion
and customs. The Inquisition was used to
remove visible remains of the old people,
and, finally, the new Canary Islanders
were led to believe that the Guanches had
been wiped off the face of the earth.
For centuries the Guanches were no more
than a memory, until the nineteenth
century, from science, the image of the
noble savage was vindicated: “A brave and
peaceful race of shepherds, of temperate

and pure habits,” “a model of honesty,
loyalty, honour, restraint and formality”
or “ workers and compassionate with the
elderly” are some of the descriptions given
during this century.
But, did the Guanches
really disappear?
Their culture and customs disappeared.
From the fifteenth century most of the
inhabitants of the islands were Galicians,
Castilians, Andalusians and Aragonese
devoted to agriculture either on their
own lands or as workers in the service of
other owners. But they were not the only
settlers. Portuguese, Genoese and Flemish
also came, with the aim of developing
the export and marketing of sugar, which
became the first Canary island export
crop and generator of the first great
fortunes. Other Moorish and black African
populations also came who arrived in the
islands after being captured to be used
as slaves on sugar plantations or in the
domestic service of the great lords.
The English and Irish arrived now in
the sixteenth century, attracted by the
production and export of wine, a product
in high demand in their countries.
All these groups would be quickly
integrated and make up the social fabric
that would give the Canary Islander
population its own peculiar idiosyncrasy,
of a cosmopolitan nature and open to
outside influences that have continued to
arrived up to today. From the economic
point of view, the production of sugarcane
development primarily in Gran Canaria,
while wine production would be located in
Tenerife. In the smaller islands agriculture
developed to supply the domestic Canary
EPILOGUE 93
Island market, i.e. they marketed their
products in the most populated islands
that, devoting themselves to export crops,
did not produce enough for their own
consumption.
This model worked for over three
centuries. The Canary Islands was part
of the kingdom of Castile, it was ruled
by a viceroy who was based in Tenerife,
and a judiciary, called a Court, which was
located in Gran Canaria. Each island was
administered by a single municipality
administered by an island government
named cabildo.
At various points in the history of the
Canary Islands these products—sugar and
wine— ceased to be exported for various
reasons, such as might have been wars
in the countries of destination or strong
competition from these same products
made in the American colonies, which
led to the islands to experience times
of scarcity, so imports of supplies were
reduced, and the population suffered from
hunger and poverty, which forced many
people to opt for emigration, mainly to
America in search of a way to live.
This new Canary Island society, which
remained largely unchanged for centuries,
was nicely divided into social groups. The
nobility and clergy were large landowners
who owned most of the land and water.
They held important political positions in
the councils and municipalities of the time
and in the militias and the Inquisition.
Then there were the great traders, mostly
foreigners, who come to the Canary
Islands to trade in sugar cane and wine; as
well as other business like the slave trade,
the import of tobacco products or coffee.
They accumulated great wealth, and
94 GUANCHES
many of them would achieve noble status
through marriage to the Spanish nobility
or by buying titles.
On a lower rung of this new society were
the farmers, medium and small owners of
land and water, who obtained from their
properties just enough to live, but not
enough to get rich, and sometimes they
even had to work for others owners when
their harvests were not good.
With a standard of living similar to the
farmers were the small traders and
artisans who lived in cities and were a
very small group.
Most of the population were landless
peasants working for large landowners.
But these were not the lowest extract of
society, as the last rung was occupied by a
last social group: the beggars and slaves.
But, in what group could we place the
Guanches and their descendants?
Well, although it seems incredible the
Guanches became part of practically
all social groups that formed the new
society: from the most important such as
the nobility and clergy, to the humblest,
such as the landless and, even, in the
early years some of them, who refused to
communicate with the new religion, were
mere slaves.
But how could this have happened?
Despite the bloody battles that occurred
during the conquest, the fact is that
deaths in the Guanche community were
not as numerous as one might imagine.
In Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and El
Hierro, the vast majority of nativess
depended on the personal attitude they
showed at the time of the conquest,
those who collaborated and adopted the
new Christian religion had no problem
adapting to the new system, moreover,
many were rewarded with land they could
exploit.
In Gran Canaria, La Palma and Tenerife
all the area of the islands that did not
fight during the conquest were respected
and were then helped. The Guanches who
lived in these so-called peace camp areas
submitted peacefully, and were therefore
rewarded with freedom, and some of them
with land and water.
The rebellious Guanches, those warriors
who continued with the struggle, either
ended up being captured or escaped to
the mountains of the islands. For years the
new settlers organized excursions, dubbed
reconquests, to the mountains and to the
south of these islands, in order to capture
these Guanche rebels, and to finally end
this situation. But they never succeeded.
The incorporation of these rebellious
Guanche into society was a matter of time,
taking decades to be completed.
Therefore some authors claim that the
Guanche origin population was far
superior to that of the new colonists.
Marriages between Guanche women and
settlers were a constant, so in a few years
the integration was almost total. To have
opportunities in the new society there was
one prerequisite: to renounce your native
past. Hence the new Guanches renounced
their indigenous surnames—surnames
that distinguished them from the settlers,
and changed them for others. Millares
Torres tells us that in the tests of nobility
to enter colleges (higher education) it
was necessary to prove they were not of
Canarian, Jewish or Moorish descendant,
which contributed to families hiding their

Guanche descendancy and inventing
family trees.
Only direct descendants of kings (menceyes
and guanartemes) who married Spanish
nobles continued boasting of Guanche
surnames, and, because of this, their
children received higher academic
education in the kingdom of Castile and
returned to the islands to take up the
major political and ecclesiastical posts
on the Islands. Hence, there have been
bishops, doctors, senior officers in the
militia, judges and prominent politicians
in the councils of Guanche origin. They
were the most influential but they were
also a small minority in society.
The vast majority of Guanches were in the
country, in the south of the islands and,
especially, in the mountains. They were
shepherds, artisans and small farmers.
There are some authors who claim that
most of the Guanche vocabulary and
customs that have survived to this day is
due mainly to the shepherds. A trade that
passes from generation to generation and
has therefore remained in the hands of the
Guanches. A romantic vision that helps us
not to break abruptly with the past.
The Guanches XXI century
There are three ways to find out if there
really are Guanches today:
One, HISTORICAL SOURCES that help us
know whether or not the Guanches were
wiped out at the time of the conquest.
As we know, some mixed with settlers
of different races. Others, as we have
seen, especially in mountain areas and
in the southern parts of the islands, took
longer. And others were banished. But
EPILOGUE 95
they did not disappear. For the illustrious
professor Rumeu de Armas, in the 1960s
more than 90% of the population of
Tenerife had Guanche descendancy.
Two, ANTHROPOLOGY tells us that the
physical features of the Guanches prevail
largely in various areas of the islands,
especially in economically poor areas—
halfway points in southern areas and
suburbs of cities and towns—near the
highest mountains. Comparing Guanche
skulls preserved in the museums of the
islands with the skulls of current Canary
Islanders, they largely coincide despite
sustained miscegenation over the years.
Three, perhaps the most defining,
GENETICS, by studying the DNA:
300 dental samples of Guanche skulls
were matched with 300 samples of
current Canary Islanders from all the
islands, and the results could not be
more devastating. The genetic marker
U6b1, exclusive to the Canary Island
population, shows that the Guanche
maternal lineages have survived, with
a slight decrease, while the paternal
ones decreased gradually to be replaced
by Iberian lineages (Spanish and
Portuguese).
Which goes to show that most Guanche
men did not disappear with the
conquest, they were discriminated
against and displaced by the conquerors,
something that seems to be the case with
women, who themselves were accepted
by European settlers.
For researchers 30% of the Canary Island
population now are descendants of
the ancient inhabitants: the enigmatic,
surprising and mysterious Guanches of
the Canary Islands.•
 APPENDIX 97

Some places to meet with mystery

On the trail of the Guanches

GRAN CANARIA LA PALMA TENERIFE

Museo Canario Museo Arqueológico Museo de la Naturaleza

Doctor Verneau, 2 - 35001 Vegueta Benahoarita y Arqueología (MUNA)
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria C/ Las Adelfas - 38760 Los Lanos Anteriormente Museo de la
Tf. 928 33 68 00 de Aridane | Tf. 922 46 46 09 Naturaleza y el Hombre (MNH)
Cueva Pintada de Gáldar Parque Arqueológico Calle Fuentes Morales s /n
Museo y Parque Arqueológico 38003 Santa Cruz de Tenerife
de Belmaco Tf. 922 53 58 16
Calle Audiencia, 2 - 35460 Gáldar Carretera del Hoyo de Mazo a
Tf. 928 89 57 46 Fuencaliente Km. 7 - 38730 Lomo Museo Arqueológico
Oscuro, Villa de Mazo
Museo de Guayadeque Tf. 922 69 60 74
del Puerto de la Cruz
Centro de Interpretación Arqueológico Calle del Lomo, 9
Carretera del Barranco de La Zarza y la Zarcita 38400 Puerto de La Cruz
Guayadeque -35260 Agüimes Parque Cultural Tf. 922 37 14 65
Tf. 928 17 20 26 C/ La Mata ( LP-1, km 59)
38787 Llano Negro - Villa de Garafía Museo Guanche
Mundo Aborigen Tf. 922 69 50 05
Carretera de Fataga Km 6, C/ Pepe Floro 5-7
35108 Fataga | Tf. 928 17 27 63 El Tendal Centro Comercial La Magalona
Icod de Los Vinos
Parque Arqueológico
Cenobio de Valerón Tf. 922 19 10 04
Los Galguitos - San Andrés y Sauces
Zona Arqueológica Tf. 922 45 02 03
Cuesta de Silva s/n - Santa María Pirámides de Güímar
de Guía | Tf. 618 60 78 96 Petroglifos del Lomo Parque Etnográfico
de La Fajana Calle Chacona s/n
Necrópolis de Arteara
Zona Arqueológica 38500 Güímar
Zona Arqueológica
Municipio de El Paso Tf. 922 51 45 10
Carretera GC-60 hacia Fataga
San Bartolomé de Tirajana
Tf. 638 81 05 91 FUERTEVENTURA GOMERA
Roque Bentayga Museo Arqueológico Museo Arqueológico
Centro de Interpretación Arqueológico
de Betancuria de La Gomera
Finca El Majadal -Tejeda
C/ Roberto Roldán s/n -35637
Tf. 928 71 93 88 C/ Torres Padilla, 8
Betancuria | Tf : 928 878 241
Cañada de Los Gatos 38800 San Sebastián de La Gomera
Zona Arqueológica Poblado de La Atalayita Tf. 922 14 15 86
C/La Puntilla s/n Playa de Mogán Centro de Interpretación Arqueológico
Tf. 638 81 06 21 Valle de Pozo Negro -Antigua EL HIERRO
La Fortaleza
Centro de Interpretación Arqueológico LANZAROTE Museo Arqueológico
GC-651 km 1,9 La Sorrueda -Santa de El Hierro
Lucía de Tirajana | Tf. 690 18 84 46 Museo Arqueológico
de Lanzarote Calle Juan Ramón Padrón Pérez, 1
Cuatro Puertas Valverde | Tf. 922 55 16 65
Zona Arqueológica C/ Fajardo, 5 - 35500 Arrecife
Calle Guanche s/n - 35215 Telde Tf. 828 81 01 00
El Julan
Maipés de Agaete Castillo de San Gabriel Centro de Interpretación Arqueológico
Necrópolis-Parque Arqueológico Centro de Interpretación Arqueológico
C/ Chapín s/n - Agaete Avda. marítima s/n - Arrecife Carretera general del Julan s/n
Tf. 928 17 11 77 Tf. 928 811 950 El Pinar | Tf. 922 55 84 23
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