Isle of Tenerife

The Guanches are a stonage culture who lived on the Canary Islands. It is supposed that they were coming from the north of Africa by ship or boats and that they brought all their stock with them, but this theory never has been proofed. The Guanches are probably related to the African Berbers. Some of the words that were passed down through the centuries are related to the Berber language.

The Guanches lived in all over the Canary archipel but it seems they did not have connections between the ilands. What they all had in common with each other was the language. The word Guanche means the native people from the Canaries. Some words of this language are even found in todays language or dialect.

By the 14th century the islands were conquered by the Europeans and they discorvered the Guanche society. Many Guanches were killed or enslaved. The concquerors described the Guanches as tall and strong people, many of them with blond hair and blue eyes.

Today we find in memory of the Guanches, in front of the main square of Candelaria, statues of the last kings-guanches, callled Menceys. It´s worth to visit the Guanches of Candelaria one day and enjoy the surroundings of Candelaria on the Isle of Tenerife.

The Guanches: Head banging is hardly a new phenomenon

It seems that head banging is nothing new on the island of Tenerife.

Long before holiday revellers brought head banging from the London clubs to the nightspots of Playa de las Americas, Tenerife had its own variation of the phenomenon

A study of the skulls of the island’s original inhabitants by scientists at the Canarian Institute of Palaeopathology and Bioanthropology in Santa Cruz found that fractures were common among males in their 20s and early 30s, according to the Journal of Paleopathology.

The scientists examined over 400 skulls pre-dating the Spanish invasion of the island in 1496.

Some 10 per cent of the skulls showed circular cranial fractures, an injury rarely found among archaeological human skeletons.

The pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the island, the Guanches, had weapons similar to the Argentinean bolas – two or more heavy balls attached to a cord.

Over 80 per cent of the fractures show clear signs of healing, says the report, though the scientists suspects that brain damage must have resulted from the injuries.