Category Archives: Historias

Doramas' two deaths and the enigmatic chronicler Pedro López

An idealized statue of Doramas by Grandcanarian sculptor Abraham Cárdenes (1907-1971) (source: MILLARES TORRES, A. et al. (1977 [1893]), Historia General de las Islas Canarias, vol. II, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: EDIRCA, p. 178).

In our post devoted to Benahoarite chieftain Tanausu we pointed the importance of the ancient Canarian heroes in the building of the Archipelago’s folklore.

This value reaches a paradigmatic height in the case of Grandcanarian warrior Doramas by adding to the classic personal attributes of courage, abnegation and self-sacrifice, typical of a heroic model, that of the subject of humble origins determined to build his own destiny, who strives to ascend with his only effort along the social pyramid to which he belongs, while simultaneously facing the obstacles placed both by the status quo –an islander oligarchy determined to perpetuate itself in power through the instrument of lineage– and by forces other than internal social contradictions –European invaders–.

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Esteban de Junqueras at the War of Canaria (1478-1483): an official evidence of his participation

A drawing by Javier García Gómez of Esteban de Junqueras’ cenotaph now preserved in the chapel of Pazo de Oca, Pontevedra province, Galicia –GARCÍA GÓMEZ, (2016, p. 262)–.

Some of the narrative sources dealing with accounts on the so-called Royal Conquest of Gran Canaria witness the participation of captains Pedro de Santisteban, Cristóbal de Medina and Esteban de Junqueras commanding a number of troops sent by the Crown of Castile between 1480-1481 in order to support the invading forces already stablished on the Island. Although some coetaneous public documents do confirm the involvement of the two former no data as strong were known until now to prove the intervention of this third person, an evidence that we present in this post.
Antonio M. López Alonso

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From Guise's side. From Ayose's side

The idealised statues of Guise and Ayose, a work by Lanzarote-born sculptor Emiliano Hernández García, standing on the namesake viewpoint in the municipality of Betancuria in Fuerteventura (source: Luc. T / Wikimedia Commons).

In honor of my father’s family: my great-grandfather Matías Casanova “El Charco”, my grandmother, Susana Casanova Darias, and my great-aunt Manolita. From Vega de Tetir. “From Guise’s side.”

That Guise and Ayose were the names of the two maho chieftains who ruled Fuerteventura island at the time of the conquest by Jehan de Béthencourt and Gadifer de La Salle is something well known in Canarian popular culture. Such is so that the latter has been a relatively frequent anthroponym imposed among males born in the Canary Islands since the mid-1970s, a time when recognition and homage to precolonial cultural and historical roots began to be claimed with some force after being silenced for a long time.

But a much less known fact is that both names survived the European conquest for four centuries without losing an iota of their everyday nature. And even more surprising is that they did not do it in the field of toponymy, a common refuge for forgotten words, but in a very unusual way: the administrative field.

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Tanausu: Benahoare's Hero

“Tanausú, Tierra y Nobleza” (Tanausu, Land & Nobility) (2016), an idealized picture embellishing the facade of Casa de la Cultura Braulio Martín Hernández in El Paso (La Palma), a work by Lanzarote-born muralist Matías Mata, nicknamed Sabotaje al Montaje (source: PROYECTO TARHA).

For La Palma, our Benahoare, nowadays in such a need of strength and courage.

In the traditional historical memory of the Canaries, individuals belonging to the precolonial island societies who faced the European Conquest with the technological and numerical disadvantage inherent to their way of life, environment, material resources and demographics who sometimes chose to sacrifice their own lives rather than surrender are bestowed the role of true people’s heroes regardless of whether the referred subjects enjoyed any sort of privileged social status.

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Conquest of the Seven Ysles of Canaria (1687) : Tomás Marín de Cubas : A Critical Edition by Antonio M. López Alonso

PLEASE FIND BELOW SOME LINKS TO MEDIA INTERVIEWS ON THIS BOOK.

EXPLANATORY NOTE: Due to some incoming enquiries, we must stress as indicated in this post that ours is not a reissue of the 1694 copy-manuscript by Marín de Cubas, but the first edition of his 1687 unpublished manuscript.

We are very pleased to announce the publication in LeCanarien Ediciones of our second printed work; the first and long-awaited edition of one of the fundamental works for the knowledge of the ancient history of our Archipelago: CONQUEST OF THE SEVEN YSLES OF CANARIA by Canarian physician and historian Tomás Marín de Cubas.

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Confined Quiz (II): Tanausu's last spoken words

The sea of clouds upon the inner cliffs surrounding Caldera de Taburiente on La Palma island. Benahoare’s last indigenous defenders took shelter on them under Tanausu’s command against Castilian invaders (photo: Government of the Canaries).

WHICH WERE THE LAST WORDS SPOKEN BY TANAUSU, LA PALMA’S LAST INDIGENOUS CHIEFTAIN, BEFORE LETTING HIMSELF DIE WHILST HE WAS BEING TAKEN TO CASTILE AS A PRISONER IN 1493?

  1. ATIS TIRMA (or any variant)
  2. VACAGUARE (or any variant)
  3. BENAHOARE (or any variant)
  4. IT IS UNKNOWN
  5. NONE OF THE PREVIOUS

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Confined Quiz (I): The oldest recorded name of Teguise village (Lanzarote)

Teguise – Lanzarote: Plaza de la Constitución (source: PROYECTO TARHA)

Inspired by the current situation of confinement due to the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus, and under the heading Confined Quiz, we begin a new series of short posts with which we intend to clarify certain aspects of the history of the Canary Islands; in particular, those not well known or, on the contrary, widely disseminated but fundamentally erroneous ideas. We will present each topic with a small test under which you might want to find the correct answer -or more correct, should be the case- with the relevant documentary justification. Without further ado, let’s begin:

WHICH IS THE OLDEST RECORDED NAME OF TEGUISE VILLAGE (LANZAROTE)?

  1. TEGUISE
  2. ACATIFE
  3. GRAN ALDEA
  4. FAMAGÜI

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The Essentials (XIII): Alfonso de Palencia's Fourth Decade and his lost work on Canarian customs and religions

An excerpt from folio 548v. of the Universal Vocabulary in Latin and in Romance (1490) by Alfonso de Palencia where he declares having written a work on the customs and religions of the Canarian people (source: Biblioteca Virtual de Andalucía / PROYECTO TARHA -boxes-).

Unfortunately all this does not make up for the lack of Alonso de Palencia’s work, a loss that we will always deplore due to the the first-hand Canarian news it would provide and for being the first Castilian information on Gran Canaria’s indigenous customs.

Prof. Juan Álvarez Delgado (1963) –Alonso de Palencia (1423-1492) y la historia de Canarias, p. 77–[1]This translation by PROYECTO TARHA.

He negotiated in the name of the Catholic Monarchs the capitulations preceding the royal invasion of Gran Canaria, supervised and coordinated the logistics of the conquest expeditions put under the command of Juan Rejón in 1478 and 1479, and shortly thereafter personally proposed Pedro de Vera as the most qualified man to end the war of Canaria, entrenched from the beginning by the interpersonal quarrels of the Castilian captains and the strong indigenous resistance.

With this background, no one would suspect that Alonso or Alfonso de Palencia (Palencia, 1423 – Seville, 1492) was the author of the first monographic study devoted entirely to the culture and religion of the ancient Canarians. And it is true that a brief analysis of this character and his extensive literary production makes it hard to find in the Castile of his time a better connected and prepared individual to face a work of this kind.

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The Ganigo of Guadajume (2/3): reprisal

A map of San Sebastián de La Gomera town at the end of 16th century, by engineer Leonardo Torriani (source: Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, catalogue number Ms. 314, fol.83v.).

[…] old Chupulapu[…] told them crying, and repentant, I shall die soon so there you stay, who will pay well Lord Peraza’s death, woe to your children, and families, woe to you miserable ones, and soon after he died;[1]This translation by PROYECTO TARHA.

Tomás Marín de Cubas (Historia de las siete islas de Canaria –1694–, Book II, Chapter XII)

The dramatized end of Pablo Hupalapu, or Chupulapu, in the story shared by both Abreu Galindo and Marín de Cubas, preludes the atrocious reprisal that Gomeran people would suffer at the end of 1488 or the beginning of 1489 after the death of Fernán Peraza the Younger at the hands of his own vassals.

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