Guanche Art

Aboriginal art can be appreciated through the stone engravings and in the ceramic creations with geometrical designs, that were used as domestic utensils, as well as decorative objects. The most representative dish is known as a gánigo (a typical clay dish of Guanche craftsmanship that can be found in the Museum of Nature and Man and the Archaeological Museum , both in Tenerife), other less abundant ceramic forms are the plates, terracotta knives, tabonas (objects made with black stones in the shape of flagstones that were used to cut, lance and flay).

As to personal adornments, the most outstanding are the baked clay beads, in different tones and hues, beads made out of bone and shells, ceramic necklaces with shells, pieces of bones, wood or vertebrae. They manufactured materials out of jonquil, vegetable fibre or palms. They made figures representing their idols in baked clay, bone, or stone. From their rudimentary art there are thousands of engravings, known as panels, done with different techniques such as scoring and ‘piquetado’, among others directly carved into the rock.

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The Pyramids of Güimar

Yes, it’s official – Tenerife has it’s own pyramids! But how did they come to be built in Tenerife? The favourite theory is that they are step pyramids similar to those found in Peru and Mexico. World famous explorer and author (and Tenerife resident) Thor Heyerdahl is currently involved in setting up a Pyramid Park and research centre to investigate these strange formations.

Then there are the killjoys who say that the pyramids are nothing more than piles of stones, cleared away by local farmers, which have simply built up over time to vaguely resemble pyramids! Why not pop along to the pyramids at Guimar in south Tenerife and have a look and decide for youself. Mysteries of an ancient civilisation or a farmers’ rubbish pile? We know which theory we like (and it’s not the farming one).

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Tourist and Cultural Information

Culture loving visitors have a long list of both private and public art galleries and museums at their disposition: history, archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, science, crafts, fine arts and natural sciences. On the musical front, every year, there is an opera season and a “zarzuela” – light opera – season, plus a musical event of the first order, the Canary Island Music Festival, held at the beginning of the year, with the world´s leading soloists and symphony orchestras as the guest performers.

The Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, acclaimed as one of the best in Spain by the critics, organises a regular season of concerts from early October, through until the end of May. Concerning popular festivities, the pilgrimages are full of the colour of Tenerife folklore, while the festivities of Corpus Christi and Easter are impregnated with pure religious tradition. But, the most cosmopolitan and popular fiesta is undoubtedly the Carnival, which has been declared of International Tourist Interest.

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The Garden of Hesperydes (?)

Hesiod -a Greek poet of the 8th century b.C.- wrote about the legendary Garden of Hesperydes. The story starts with Atlas.

Atlas was a Giant, titan Japeto’s son. The titans were defeated by Zeus, king of the gods, who confined them in the Tartarus -the hell. Atlas had fought the war on his father’s side. According to some opinions, Zeus condemned Atlas to support the vault of heavens upon his shoulders. Other maintain that an angry Perseus showed him Medusa’s head thus converting him into a high mountain that supported the sky. Be that as it may, Atlas had to hold up the sky beyond the Columns of Hercules -the Strait of Gibraltar.

Atlas had three daughters, the Hesperydes: Egle, Eritia and Aretusa. The three lived in the most westernly land of the world, some wonderful islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a Garden of Eden where weather was always mild and where golden apples grew on the trees. Goddess Gea (Mother Earth) made sprout those apples as a wedding gift to the king and queen of the gods, Zeus and Hera.

The Hesperydes cultivate the Garden, but a fierce dragon looked after it. It was called Ladon, and it had hundred flame-spewing heads.

Hercules -also called Herakles-, the greatest hero of ancient times, had to perform twelve very difficult tasks, almost impossible to accomplish, the “Twelve Labors of Hercules”. Labor number eleven consisted in stealing the Hesperydes’ Golden Apples.

Hercules found Atlas supporting the sky near the Ocean, in the mountains which we call today Atlas (Morocco). Since the Garden of Hesperydes’ dragon knew Atlas, Hercules persuaded him to go to the islands and steal the apples, while he stayed as supporter of the sky in his place. Atlas went to the Garden in which he could enter since the dragon recognized him, killed the monster, stole the golden apples and returned to the place where Hercules stayed. Atlas, tired of his task, intended to leave Hercules with the burden upon his shoulders, but the hero managed to cheat him. He passed him the burden again and fled with the apples.

And the Garden of Hesperydes? Did it lose its Golden Apples forever? No! They ended by returning to the islands, since they were given to goddess Athena, who gave them back to the gardeners, the Hesperydes.

Concerning Ladon, the watch-dragon killed by Atlas… it lives on in their children, the dragon-trees. According to the legend, the blood flowing from the dragon’s wounds fell all over the Garden of Hesperydes. A dragon tree sprouted from each blood drop. Dragon trees -dracaena drago- have massive trunks from which raise a bunch of twisted branches, Ladon’s hundred heads. When a piece of bark or a branch are broken, the tree “bleed” a dark-red sap called “dragon-tree blood”, which can be used with medical purposes. Dragon trees grow slowly, but they can live for several centuries. There is a specimen at Icod de los Vinos -Tenerife- which is called the “Thousand-year old Dragon Tree”.

The Guanches, Canarian natives, revered the places where these trees grew as specially meaningful and full of energies. Today, several superstitions of the Canarian folklore are still refered to a dragon tree, growing lonely at the edge of a crag or a cliff.

When the traveler approaches the Canaries by sea, he can glimpse the misty form of the Teide floating over the clouds many miles before arriving at the islands. When we imagine how it looked when the volcano has been in eruption, we shall understand how the legend was born of a fierce fire-spewing dragon who watched over a wonderful Garden where the Golden Apples grew…

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