THE NATIVE CANARIES |
There has always been mist surrounding the natives of the Canary Islands. Those land masses that lounge in the Atlantic Ocean and at this time when very few sailors dared to venture there. The minority that did reach them were Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans who returned home telling mystical stories. Even centuries after the Spanish conquest, Plato theorized that the islands were the uppermost peaks of the lost continent of Atlantis. In pre-colonial times the Europeans rediscovered the islands. They found a people who later came to be known as the Guanches, and who are still the object of great mystery. It is believed that the Guanches came from North Africa originating from the same ancestors as the Berbers from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. They arrived by sea with animals: goats, sheep, pigs and dogs. They brought with them wheat and barley. According to the accounts of the European conquerors, the Guanches were a white race, tall, muscular, and with many blondes amongst their race. (Their great height must be understood in relation to the average height of Europeans at that time). There have been people who have tried to deny the Berber origins of the Guanches, probably for political reasons, to avoid the possibility of territorial claims by Morocco. The ancestors of the Guanches arrived by sea and colonized the Islands. When the Europeans landed on the Canaries they discovered a Stone Age culture based on basic agriculture such as shepherding, fruit gathering, and fishing in coastal tidal pools. The islands depended on these basic activities, though time and isolation made each unique (the islands were cut off one from the other as the natives hadn't acquired the skill of navigation). Even the language had branched out into individual dialects. Considering what was written about the Guanches there are still some mysterious questions left unanswered. How was it possible, for example, for a race of people to reach the shores of these tiny islands by sea? Why did they live surrounded by ocean and enormous forests capable of producing large amounts of wood and yet ignore the idea of travelling by sea? Several possible answers to this mystery have been offered. Perhaps the Gunaches were simply shepherds who had been transported to the islands by sailors and later forgotten and left to fate. Other explanations might be found in the extraordinary difficulty of navigating the oceans surrounding the Canaries due to the strong currents flowing to the West and the trade winds blowing as strongly almost all year round. |