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63-584: The island of El Hierro was known to the Bimbache as Eseró or Heró. The word "Bimbache" means "Sons of the Sons of Tenerife" , so were believed to be descendants of the Guanches , the ancient inhabitants of the island of Tenerife . Unlike the other Canary Islands, El Hierro had no internal territorial divisions. The Spanish conquest was carried out in late 1405 by Jean de Béthencourt , who promised to respect

126-528: A different kind of ritual infanticide than those who were thrown overboard. Child sacrifice has been seen in other cultures, especially in the Mediterranean — Carthage (now Tunisia ), Ugarit in what is now Syria , Cyprus and Crete . The political and social institutions of the Guanches varied. In some islands like Gran Canaria, hereditary autocracy by matrilineality prevailed, in others

189-550: A mediating king, using a system of participatory democracy where the king was a figure of justice and democratic mediation. Each island of the Canaries had its own gods, distinct to each island, though the islands shared common concepts in their mythology, such as divine power represented by Nature. The two benign deities in El Hierro were the god Eraorahan and the goddess Moneiba , with a third malevolent god, Aranfaybo , who

252-838: A more intense European presence in Southeast Asia and East Asia (such as the colonization of Taiwan ). These foreign elements would contribute to a revolution in Ayutthaya . While the Mataram Sultanate and the Aceh Sultanate would be the major powers of the region, especially during the first half of the century. In the Islamic world , the gunpowder empires – the Ottoman , Safavid , and Mughal – grew in strength as well. The southern half of India would see

315-661: A reddish-brown complexion. During the 14th century, the Guanche are presumed to have had other contacts with Balearic seafarers from Spain. This is based on the Balearic artifacts found on several of the Canary Islands. The Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands began in 1402, with the expedition of Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle to the island of Lanzarote. Gadifer invaded Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. The other five islands fought back. El Hierro and

378-704: A significantly high amount of the maternal haplogroup U6b1 . U6b1 is found at very low frequencies in North Africa today, and it was suggested that later developments have significantly altered the Berber gene pool. The authors of the study suggested that the Guanches were descended from migrants from mainland North Africa related to the Berbers, and that the Guanches contributed 42–73% to the maternal gene pool of modern Canary Islanders. 17th century The 17th century lasted from January 1, 1601 (represented by

441-625: A single maternal lineage (H1-1626) suggested that the Bimbache were a matrilineal society. The authors of the study suggested that the Bimbache were descended from the earliest of two or more migration waves from North Africa to the Canary Islands . Guanches The Guanche were the indigenous inhabitants of the Spanish Canary Islands , located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 kilometres (60 mi) to

504-524: A syncretic beliefs combining elements of the Guanche religion and Christianity. As in other countries close to the islands (e.g. marabouts from the Maghreb ), the Animeros were considered "persons blessed by God." The Guanches had priests or shamans who were connected with the gods and ordained hierarchically: Gran Canaria Beñesmen or Beñesmer was a festival of the agricultural calendar of

567-428: A vertical rock by the shore 5 km (3 mi) from Santa Cruz on Tenerife are said still to contain remains. The process of embalming seems to have varied. In Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the corpse was simply wrapped up in goat and sheep skins, while in other islands a resinous substance was used to preserve the body, which was then placed in a cave difficult to access, or buried under a tumulus . The work of embalming

630-461: Is a large stock of vocabulary that does not bear any resemblance to Berber whatsoever. Other strong similarities to the Berber languages are reflected in their counting system, while some authors suggest the Canarian branch would be a sister branch to the surviving continental Berber languages, splitting off during the early development of the language family and before the terminus post quem for

693-586: The Bimbache population were the next to fall, then La Gomera, Gran Canaria, La Palma and in 1496, Tenerife. In the First Battle of Acentejo (31 May 1494), called La Matanza (the slaughter), Guanche ambushed the Castilians in a valley and killed many. Only one in five of the Castilians survived, including the leader, Alonso Fernandez de Lugo . Lugo later returned to the island with the alliance of

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756-439: The 6th century BC . This is based on the analyses of ceramics and pottery artifacts that were found inside the cave. Historically, the Guanche were the first peoples of Tenerife. Their population seems to have lived in relative obscurity and isolation up until the time of Castilian conquest (ca. the 14th century ); Genoese , Portuguese , and Castilian ships may have visited the archipelago earlier for trade purposes, from

819-655: The Dutch East India Company , and according to some historians, the General Crisis . From the mid-17th century, European politics were increasingly dominated by the Kingdom of France of Louis XIV , where royal power was solidified domestically in the civil war of the Fronde . The semi-feudal territorial French nobility was weakened and subjugated to the power of an absolute monarchy through

882-538: The Numidians , Phoenicians , and Carthaginians all knew of the islands and made frequent visits, including expeditions dispatched from Mogador by Juba . Based on Roman artifacts , found on and near the island of Lanzarote , the Romans visited the Canary Islands during their occupation of mainland North Africa between the 1st and 4th centuries AD ; the artifacts found show that the Romans engaged in trade with

945-828: The Roman numerals MDCI), to December 31, 1700 (MDCC). It falls into the early modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized by the Baroque cultural movement, the latter part of the Spanish Golden Age , the Dutch Golden Age , the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV , the Scientific Revolution , the world's first public company and megacorporation known as

1008-518: The Sahara (post- 6000 BC ). There are ties between the Guanche language and the Berber languages of North Africa, particularly when comparing numeral systems . Research into the genetics of the Guanche population has led to the conclusion that they share an ancestry with Berber peoples who immigrated from around Western Sahara . The islands were visited by a number of other peoples and representatives of distant civilizations during recorded history;

1071-466: The extinction of uniquely-adapted endemic species , such as reptiles and mammals exhibiting insular gigantism ; one example is believed to be Canariomys bravoi , the extinct giant rat of Tenerife. Pliny the Elder , a Roman author and military officer drawing from the accounts of Juba II (ancient King of Mauretania ), stated that a Mauretanian expedition to the islands, circa 50 BC , found

1134-597: The ruins of great buildings, albeit with no population to speak of. If this account is accurate, it may suggest that the Guanche were not the only inhabitants, or the first ones; alternatively, this could imply that the Mauretanian expedition did not explore the islands thoroughly. Tenerife, specifically the archaeological site of the Cave of the Guanches in Icod de los Vinos , has provided evidence of habitation dating to

1197-607: The Americas. The native Guanche language is now known only through a few sentences and individual words, supplemented by several placenames. Many modern linguists propose that it belongs to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic languages . However, while there are recognizable Berber words (particularly with regards to agriculture) within the Guanche language, no Berber grammatical inflections have been identified; there

1260-788: The Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in the Nuzhatul Mushtaq , a book he wrote for King Roger II of Sicily . Al-Idrisi reports a journey in the Atlantic Ocean made by the Mugharrarin ("the adventurers"), a family of Andalusian seafarers from Lisbon . The only surviving version of this book, kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France , and first translated by Pierre Amédée Jaubert , reports that, after having reached an area of "sticky and stinking waters,"

1323-461: The Berber languages. The first reliable account of the Guanche language was provided by the Genoese explorer Nicoloso da Recco in 1341, with a translation of numbers used by the islanders. According to European chroniclers, the Guanche did not possess a system of writing at the time of conquest; their potential writing system may have fallen into disuse, or aspects of it were simply overlooked by

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1386-458: The Canary Islands were the scene of "Europe's first overseas settler colonial genocide," and that the mass killing and enslavement of natives, along with forced deportation, sexual violence and confiscation of land and children constituted an attempt to "destroy in whole" the Guanche people. The tactics used in the Canary Islands in the 15th century served as a model for the Iberian colonisation of

1449-625: The Canary Islands, the southern kingdoms joined the Castilian invaders on the promise of the richer lands of the north; the Castilians betrayed them after ultimately securing victory at the Battles of Aguere and Acentejo . In Tenerife, the grand Mencey Tinerfe and his father Sunta governed the unified island, which afterwards was divided into nine kingdoms by the children of Tinerfe. Guanches wore garments made from goat skins or woven from plant fibers called Tamarcos, which have been found in

1512-659: The English civil war and an end to the dominance of the English monarchy. By the end of the century, Europeans were masters of logarithms , electricity , the telescope and microscope , calculus , universal gravitation , Newton's Laws of Motion , air pressure , and calculating machines due to the work of the first scientists of the Scientific Revolution , including Galileo Galilei , Johannes Kepler , René Descartes , Pierre Fermat , Blaise Pascal , Robert Boyle , Christiaan Huygens , Antonie van Leeuwenhoek , Robert Hooke , Isaac Newton , and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . It

1575-518: The Guanches (the Guanche new year) to be held after the gathering of crops devoted to Chaxiraxi (on August 15). In this event the Guanches shared milk, gofio , sheep or goat meat. At the present time, this coincides with the pilgrimage to the Basilica of the Virgin of Candelaria (Patron of Canary Islands). Among the cultural events are significant traces of aboriginal traditions at the holidays and in

1638-403: The Mugharrarin moved back and first reached an uninhabited Island ( Madeira or Hierro ), where they found "a huge quantity of sheep, which its meat was bitter and inedible". They "continued southward" and reached another island where they were soon surrounded by barks and brought to "a village whose inhabitants were often fair haired with long and flaxen hair and the women of a rare beauty." Among

1701-528: The Spanish or died of exposure to new pathogens during the social disruption. Eventually, any remaining survivors were assimilated into the new Spanish population and associated culture. Elements of their original culture survive within Canarian customs and traditions, such as Silbo (the whistled language of La Gomera Island), as well as some lexicon of Canarian Spanish . Some scholars have classified

1764-545: The arrival of the Europeans, Guanche nobility from Gran Canaria were known to wield large wooden swords (larger than the European two-handed type) called Magido , which were said to be very effective against both infantrymen and cavalry. Weaponry made of wood was hardened with fire. These armaments were commonly complemented with an obsidian knife known as Tabona . Dwellings were situated in natural or artificial caves in

1827-832: The body in various colours. They manufactured rough pottery , mostly without decorations, or ornamented by making fingernail indentations. Guanche weapons adapted to the insular environment (using wood, bone, obsidian and stone as primary materials), with later influences from medieval European weaponry. Basic armaments in several of the islands included javelins of 1 to 2 m in length (known as Banot on Tenerife); round, polished stones; spears; maces (common in Gran Canaria and Tenerife, and known as Magado and Sunta , respectively); and shields (small in Tenerife and human-sized in Gran Canaria, where they were known as Tarja , made of Drago wood and painted with geometric shapes). After

1890-701: The century, beginning the Edo period ; the isolationist Sakoku policy began in the 1630s and lasted until the 19th century. In China, the collapsing Ming dynasty was challenged by a series of conquests led by the Manchu warlord Nurhaci , which were consolidated by his son Hong Taiji and finally consummated by his grandson, the Shunzhi Emperor , founder of the Qing dynasty . Qing China spent decades of this century with economic problems (results of civil wars between

1953-516: The colonizers. Inscriptions, glyphs, rock paintings and carvings are all quite abundant throughout the archipelago. Petroglyphs attributed to other Mediterranean civilizations have also been found on some of the islands. In 1752 , Domingo Vandewalle , a military governor of Las Palmas , ventured to investigate the petroglyphs. Aquilino Padron, a priest at Las Palmas, catalogued inscriptions at El Julan, La Candía and La Caleta, all on El Hierro . In 1878 , Dr. René Verneau discovered rock carvings in

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2016-408: The cultivation of grain and maritime resources. As there were no merchant trade routes servicing the island, the vessels that brought the inhabitants to the island were destroyed with time, and left a domestic market whose trading system was based on the exchange of local produce. Land and other common resources were managed and distributed equally by collective agreements held during meetings chaired by

2079-577: The current Romería Relief in Güímar ( Tenerife ) and the lowering of the Rama, in Agaete (Gran Canaria). Mummification was not commonly practiced throughout the islands but was highly developed on Tenerife in particular. In Gran Canaria there is currently a debate on the true nature of the mummies of the ancient inhabitants of the island, as researchers point out that there was no real intention to mummify

2142-555: The deceased and that the good conservation of some of them is due rather to environmental factors. In La Palma they were preserved by these environmental factors and in La Gomera , and El Hierro the existence of mummification is not verified. In Lanzarote and Fuerteventura this practice is ruled out. The Guanches embalmed their dead; many mummies have been found in an extreme state of desiccation, each weighing not more than 3 kg (7 lb). Two almost inaccessible caves in

2205-766: The decline of the Deccan Sultanates and extinction of the Vijayanagara Empire . The Dutch would colonize Ceylon and endure hostilities with Kandy . The end of the 17th century saw the first major surrender of Ottoman territory in Europe when the Treaty of Karlowitz ceded most of Hungary to the Habsburgs in 1699. In Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa shogunate at the beginning of

2268-435: The destruction of the Guanche people and culture as an example of colonial genocide . In 2017, the first genome -wide data analysis of the ethnic Guanche confirmed a North African origin, genetically being most similar to ancient North African Berber peoples of the mainland African deserts. The native term guanachinet literally translated means "person of Tenerife " (from Guan = person and Achinet = Tenerife). It

2331-473: The freedom of the Bimbache, and there was no resistance from the small aboriginal population. This promise was broken by de Béthencourt's son, who sold most of the Bimbache inhabitants as slaves, and the island was repopulated with Spanish and Norman settlers. Before the arrival of the Castilian and Aragonese crown forces, the population was largely pastoral, raising cattle, goats, sheep and pigs, alongside

2394-459: The gods. Bethencourt Alfonso has claimed that goat kids were tied by the legs, alive, to a stake so that they could be heard bleating by the gods. It is likely that animals were also sacrificed on the other islands. As for human sacrifices, in Tenerife it was the custom to throw a living child from the Punta de Rasca at sunrise at the summer solstice. Sometimes these children came from all parts of

2457-408: The government was elective . In Tenerife all the land belonged to the kings who leased it to their subjects. In Gran Canaria, suicide was regarded as honorable, and whenever a new king was installed, one of his subjects willingly honored the occasion by throwing himself over a precipice. In some islands, polyandry was practised; in others they were monogamous . Insult of a woman by an armed man

2520-495: The island to Castile for slave labour, before later regaining the status of human beings, and being returned to the island. Later, the island was also populated by people of French and Galician origin, also under a feudal system by the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. Ordóñez et al. 2017 examined the remains of a large number of Bimbache buried at Punta Azul, El Hierro c. 1015-1200 AD. The 16 samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to

2583-656: The island, even from remote areas of Punta de Rasca . It follows that it was a common custom of the island. On this island sacrificing other human victims associated with the death of the king, where adult men rushed to the sea are also known. Embalmers who produced the Guanche mummies also had a habit of throwing themselves into the sea one year after the king's death. Bones of children mixed with lambs and kids were found in Gran Canaria , and in Tenerife amphorae have been found with remains of children inside. This suggests

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2646-576: The islands, including the Idol of Tara ( Museo Canario , Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ) and the Guatimac (Museum Archaeological of Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife). But many more figures have been found in the rest of the archipelago. Most researchers agree that the Guanches performed their worship in the open, under sacred trees such as pine or drago , or near sacred mountains such as Mount Teide , which

2709-593: The kings of the southern part of the island. He defeated the Guanches in the Battle of Aguere . The northern Menceyatos or provinces fell after the Second Battle of Acentejo with the defeat of the successor of Bencomo , Bentor, Mencey of Taoro—what is now the Orotava Valley—in 1496. Various scholars have used the term "genocide" to describe the conquest of the Canary Islands. Mohamed Adikhari argues that

2772-619: The mountains, emerging at night to attack livestock and human beings. In Tenerife , Magec (god of the Sun) and Chaxiraxi (the goddess mother) were also worshipped. In times of drought, the Guanches drove their flocks to consecrated grounds, where the lambs were separated from their mothers in the belief that their plaintive bleating would melt the heart of the Great Spirit. During the religious feasts, hostilities were held in abeyance, from war to personal quarrels. Idols have been found in

2835-426: The mountains. In areas where cave dwellings were not feasible, they built small round houses and, according to the Castilians, practiced crude fortification. Maca-Meyer et al. 2003 extracted 71 samples of mtDNA from Guanches buried at numerous Canary Islands (c. 1000 AD). The examined Guanches were found to have closest genetic affinities to modern Moroccan Berbers , Canary Islanders and Spaniards . They carried

2898-643: The only indigenous people known to have lived in the Macaronesian archipelago region before the arrival of Europeans . There is no accepted evidence that the other Macaronesian archipelagos (the Cape Verde Islands, Madeira and the Azores ) were inhabited. After the commencement of the Spanish conquest of the Canaries , starting in the early 15th century , many natives were outright killed by

2961-515: The origin of Proto-Berber. Little is known of the religion of the Guanches. There was a general belief in a supreme being, called Achamán in Tenerife, Acoran in Gran Canaria, Eraoranhan in Hierro, and Abora in La Palma. The women of Hierro worshipped a goddess called Moneiba . According to tradition, the male and female gods lived in mountains, from which they descended to hear the prayers of

3024-482: The paternal haplogroups E1a (1 sample), E1b1b1a1 (7 samples) and R1b1a2 (7 samples). All the extracted samples of mtDNA belonged to the maternal haplogroup H1-1626 . E1a is most common in sub-Saharan Africa , while E1b1b1a1 is very common in North Africa. R1b1a2 is considered a typical European lineage, but is also found at low frequencies in North Africa. About 10% of examined Guanches of Gran Canaria have been found to be carriers of R1b1a2. The dominance of

3087-467: The people of the island. However, there is no evidence of them ever settling on or invading the Canaries. Archaeology of the Canaries seems to reflect diverse levels of technology, with items differing widely from the Neolithic culture that would have been encountered by the Spanish, at the time of their conquest. Scholars believe that the original settling by humans on the islands likely resulted in

3150-436: The people. On other islands, the natives venerated the sun , moon , earth , and stars . A belief in an evil spirit was general. The demon of Tenerife was called Guayota and lived at the peak of Teide volcano, which was the hell called Echeyde ; in Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the minor demons took the form of wild black woolly dogs called Jucanchas in the first and Tibicenas in the latter, which lived in deep caves of

3213-411: The ravines of Las Balos that resembled Libyan or Numidian script, dating from the time of Roman occupation or earlier. In other locations, Libyco-Berber script has been identified. The geographic accounts of Pliny the Elder and of Strabo mention the Fortunate Isles but do not report anything about their populations. An account of the Guanche population may have been made around AD 1150 by

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3276-400: The reinvention of the Palace of Versailles from a hunting lodge to a gilded prison, in which a greatly expanded royal court could be more easily kept under surveillance. With domestic peace assured, Louis XIV caused the borders of France to be expanded. It was during this century that the English monarch became increasingly involved in conflicts with the Parliament - this would culminate in

3339-412: The second half of the 8th century onward. The Spanish gradually applied the term "Guanche" to the indigenous populations of all seven Canary Islands, with those living on Tenerife being the most important or powerful. What remains of their language, Guanche—a few expressions, vocabulary words and the proper names of ancient chieftains, still borne by certain families —exhibits positive similarities with

3402-408: The south of the island of Tenerife. This cemetery was almost completely looted; it is estimated to have contained between 60 and 74 mummies. Although little is known about this practice among them, it has been shown that they performed both animal sacrifices and human sacrifices . In Tenerife during the summer solstice, the Guanches killed livestock and threw them into a fire as an offering to

3465-413: The tombs of Tenerife. They had a taste for ornaments and necklaces of wood, bone and shells, worked in different designs. Beads of baked earth, cylindrical and of all shapes, with smooth or polished surfaces, mostly colored black and red, were fairly common. Dr. René Verneau suggested that the objects the Castilians referred to as pintaderas , baked clay seal-shaped objects, were used as vessels for painting

3528-419: The villagers, one spoke Arabic and asked them where they came from. Then the king of the village ordered them to bring villagers back to the continent. There they were surprised to be welcomed by Berbers. Apart from the marvelous and fanciful content of this history, this account suggests that the Guanche had sporadic contacts with populations from the mainland. Al-Idrisi described the Guanche men as tall and of

3591-412: The west of modern Morocco and the North African coast. The islanders spoke the Guanche language , which is believed to have been related to the Berber languages of mainland North Africa; the language became extinct in the 17th century , soon after the islands were colonized. It is believed that the Guanche may have arrived at the archipelago some time in the first millennium BC . The Guanche were

3654-418: Was allegedly a capital offense. Anyone accused of a crime had to attend a public trial in Tagoror, a public court where those prosecuted were sentenced after a trial. The island of Tenerife was divided into nine small kingdoms ( menceyatos ), each ruled by a king or Mencey . The Mencey was the ultimate ruler of the kingdom, and at times, meetings were held between the various kings. When the Castilians invaded

3717-429: Was also a period of development of culture in general (especially theater, music, visual arts, and philosophy). Some of the greatest inventions took place in this century. It was during this period that the European colonization of the Americas began in earnest, including the exploitation of the silver deposits, which resulted in bouts of inflation as wealth was drawn into Europe. Also during this period, there would be

3780-412: Was believed to be the abode of the devil Guayota . Mount Teide was sacred to the aboriginal Guanches and since 2007 is a World Heritage Site . But sometimes the Guanches also performed worship in caves, as in "Cave of Achbinico" in Tenerife. Until the 20th century, there were in the Canary Islands (especially in northern Tenerife) individuals called "Animeros." They were similar to healers and mystics with

3843-449: Was modified, according to Juan Núñez de la Peña , by the Castilians into "Guanche". Though etymologically an ancient, Tenerife-specific term, the word Guanche is now used mostly to refer to the pre-Hispanic Indigenous inhabitants of the entire archipelago. Genetic and linguistic evidence show that North African peoples made a significant contribution to the aboriginal population of the Canaries, notably, following desertification of

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3906-460: Was prayed to in times of desperation. The gradual expansion of control by the Crown of Castile and Aragon delegated benefits of both land and commercial production rights to a minority by means of a feudal regime. Additionally, the native religion's symbols of nature were suppressed in order to introduce Christianity to the island. Both before and after the incorporation of El Hierro to the Spanish crown, some population of working age were taken from

3969-418: Was reserved for a special class, with women tending to female corpses, and men for the male ones. Embalming seems not to have been universal. In the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre ( Santa Cruz de Tenerife ) mummies of original inhabitants of the Canary Islands are displayed. In 1933, the largest Guanche necropolis of the Canary Islands was found, at Uchova in the municipality of San Miguel de Abona in

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