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Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz - KFU

2, Prof. Harkin, 2010

Anna E. ©
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The Myths of the Guanches: Do they still exist?


Lévi-Strauss advanced the theory that all human culture is a coherent, logical and interlinking symbolic system especially concerning mythology, kinship and religion. If I understood it the main message of structuralism correctly then we can find out with help of this intellectual movement what kind of universal thought patterns there are as well as finding connections of binary opposition.

One of those oppositions is the differentiation between nature and culture. Lévi-Strauss suggests that myths are autonomous in the minds of the people and they can therefore be transformed in various forms but they can never escape from the form of being a myth. According to Schwimmer (as stated in the CCLS) myths are only meant as a means of imparting moral knowledge in all life's circumstances.

Lévi-Strauss proposed that the myths of South and North American natives represent and therefore transport important moral values, related to the real lives of the people. I wrote in my critical essay that I wonder why and when Europeans have lost their myths and accompanying closeness to nature; hereby I want to withdraw this statement because while writing this paper I found out that there are Europeans who still live the myths their parents/grandparents told them and they still act according to them.

These are the ‘Guanches’ myths of the creation of the islands and their people:


Origin of the Islands


The Guanches believed that inside the volcano Teide once there lived a demon, called ‘Guayola’. He was the God of the Evil and because he was jealous on ‘Magec’, the God of Sun and Light he decided to kidnap him and so took him to the interior of the volcano. This was a time in which the islands were still connected to each other and forming a whole continent but because of the loss of the God of Light the world sank into darkness.

So, the Guanches asked their superior of all Gods, Achamán the God of the Sky to help Magec and help him to escape from the inside of the Echeyde (=volcano, hell). Besides, they asked him whether Achamán can seal the crater because they were afraid of the revenge of Guayola (because they believed that he would return in form of a dog with red shining eyes and take the children of the Guanches).

Achamán defeated Guayola and used the last snow of the Teide (pan de azucar =sugar bread) to trap Guayola in the volcano (according to the legend this is why you can see the white top of Teide today). After closing the volcano there was a massive earthquake which divided the continent into the 7 islands which were from then on called: Tyterogaka (Lanzarote), Erbane (Fuerteventura), Tamarán (Gran Canaria), Achined (Tenerife), Gomera (La Gomera), Benahoare (La Palma) and Ezeró (El Hierro).

(Lissner, 1962:191)


The next story, of the origin of the Canary people told me a friend personally when I was at Gomera. This happened when some Spanish friends and I were sitting on the beach and one of our group (a German) dared to through away some litter into the sand. A friend of mine (he is from Gomera) screamed at him, exclaiming: ‘¡Maldita sea! No hagas que los dioses enfaden!’ (Stop it (damn), don’t annoy the Gods).

When I asked what this meant he told me that the Gods wanted the people from the islands to protect nature and to look after earth. I thought it was a justified question to ask which Gods he meant, so he told me that of course! the God of Nature would become angry.

So he told me this story.


The origin of the people

First of all there was Achamán (the superior God of the Sky), he was a powerful, everlasting but very self-sufficient God. Before he existed there was just emptiness, the sea did not reflect the sky and the light had no colours. He wanted to have someone to care about, so he created the earth, the water, fire and the air and all the life on earth (plants, animals etc.). Achamán lived in the sky and sometimes (when he was bored) he went high up to the mountaintops to enjoy the view, this made him happy.

One day he stopped on the top of Echeyde (the volcano Teide). From this mountain/volcano he could perfectly see what he had created and it seemed so beautiful and perfect that he decided to create humans so that they also can admire and appreciate what he created but he told them that they were allowed to live in these beautiful island(s) only if they promised to protect and care about what hi creation.


Another practical application of an ancient legend I encountered when I spent some time on Gran Canaria and attended my first traditional ‘fiesta’ of which I did not really know what exactly the people were celebrating. When I asked my friends where this customs came from the only answer I got was “because it is part of our tradition”.

After this I did not really think about this fiesta anymore but after doing some research and knowing about texts of Lévi-Strauss I now see culture through different eyes. I wondered that the people on Gomera know the old stories so well but on Gran Canaria many traditional rituals the people who live on the island today take for granted and do not question their meaning.

Unfortunately I was not able to find out whether the ‘Guanches’ also practiced this like the people do it now- basically a mud bath- and if, I wonder whether this could have had a similar meaning to the ‘Guanches’ as mud had for the cultures analyzed in The Story of Lynx.


Speaking of this story I found another similarity to The Story of Lynx or rather to the Virgin Mary Story we read in the Cambridge Companion. When I once asked one of my Spanish friends why they are so religious and why so many of them are carrying necklaces with the picture of the Virgin Mary, he told me the story of ‘La Morenita’ (which funnily enough means ‘the (small) brunette’).

He was told that once a boy from the island was captured by the Spanish colonists and brought to Spain, but soon he could escape and so he came back home. When he arrived at the house of his father, who was the ‘guaire’- the headman of the village- he saw the stone sculpture and explained that the Spaniards called this women ‘Virgin Mary’.

At first they viewed critically at the sculpture but soon they found out that everybody who was ill or injured and touched the stone figure was cured in an instant and from then on they believed in Virgin Mary being their Goddess.


My friend further on explained that because of this story- which is told to every little child who hurts itself -they still today believe that going to church when they are ill or injured and praying to ‘La Morenita’ or Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria how they also call her, helps to heal injuries faster.


So, this is also one of the myths of the ‘Guanches’ which, from a historical point of view, was one of the reasons why the Guanches they did not put up hardly any resistance when the Spanish colonialists came to the islands and persuaded them to convert to Christianity.

Comparing this story to what Peter Gow wrote in his article “Of the Story of Lynx: Lévi-Strauss and alterity” in the Cambridge Companion, it shows striking similarities. Except for the difference that the story Pedro Manuma Fumachi from Peru tells is that Jesus passed by and punished the ‘’bad, elder sister’ because she did not help to clean him and rewarded the ‘good, younger sister’ by choosing her as the Virgin.



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