The Guanches: who the first Canarians really were
There is a square in Candelaria where nine men of bronze look out to sea. They are not saints and they are not conquistadors: they are the last kings of an island that no longer exists the way they knew it. And unlike almost everything told about the Guanches, they really were here.
A great deal of legend, and a fair amount of invention, circulates about the first people of the Canaries. What follows is what we know for certain, what is still argued over, and — above all — where you can see it with your own eyes. And where, right now, you can't: the statues on the square have been taken down for building works — I explain that below, before you make the trip. And where, right now, you cannot: the statues on the square have been taken down for building works, and I explain that below before you make the trip.
Who they were, and how we know
For centuries the origin of the Guanches was argued over in romantic theories: Atlantis, shipwrecked Greeks, lost peoples. The answer came from somewhere far less poetic and far more reliable: the DNA of their own dead.
Genetic analysis of mummified remains confirmed that the aboriginal Canarians were of North African origin, related to the Amazigh (Berber) populations of the mainland. This is not a hypothesis. It is published in scientific journals and it rests on biological material, not on chronicles written by the winners.
Archaeology places human presence on the islands from at least the 5th century BC, within the first millennium before our era. And one detail changes the whole picture: they did not arrive all at once. The differences between samples from one island and another point to several waves of settlement, not to a single founding voyage.
What remains open — and it is worth saying, because hardly anyone does — is how they crossed. No boats have survived, and by the time of the conquest the islanders were not sailing between islands at all. It is one of the most interesting unanswered questions in the Atlantic.
Did you know? The Guanches mummified their dead using techniques of their own and buried them in caves that were hard to reach, with grave goods. Some of those mummies are the ones that, centuries later, allowed their genome to be read. They were buried to rest; they ended up telling us where they came from.
They were not one people, but many
Here is the most repeated mistake: talking about "the Guanches" as if they were a single block. Strictly speaking, Guanche was the name of the aboriginal people of Tenerife; the other islands had different peoples, with different languages, a different order and different names.
On Tenerife, when the Castilians arrived, the island was divided into nine menceyatos: nine independent kingdoms, each with its own mencey, or king. Taoro, in the Orotava valley, was the most powerful, and its mencey acted as first among equals. The others were Anaga, Tegueste, Tacoronte, Icod, Daute, Adeje, Abona and Güímar.
On Gran Canaria, by contrast, power was organised differently, around guanartemes and a council of nobles. Two islands you can see from one another on a clear day, and two entirely different political worlds.
An honest note about the names. The nine menceyatos are documented. The personal names of the nine kings need more care: some appear in early sources, but others — the most disputed being Pelinor of Adeje — are considered by many modern historians to be a literary invention of Antonio de Viana, who wrote the conquest in verse in the 17th century. The island divided into nine is history; part of the list of kings is, in all likelihood, poetry.
From the same poem comes the best-loved figure of all: princess Dácil, daughter of Bencomo, in love with a Castilian captain. Modern historians consider her fictional too, and yet her name is still given today to streets, hotels and girls born on the island. Something being invented does not stop it from being real: it has been real for four centuries.
What is left of them today
More than you would think, and almost none of it behind glass.
The names. Tacoronte, Güímar, Icod, Taganana, Tejeda, Timanfaya: aboriginal place names are still on the map and on your bus ticket. When you ask for directions in Tenerife, you are pronouncing words older than Castile.
The whistled language of La Gomera. Silbo gomero can carry a message from one ravine to the next. It is taught in the island's schools and it is on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Canarian wrestling. Lucha canaria, the traditional island sport, has its own rules and pre-Hispanic roots, and is still fought in sand rings across the Canaries — including at the August fiestas.
Gofio. The toasted grain flour you will find in any Canarian kitchen, and on restaurant menus, was already the base of their diet.
None of this sits in a museum. It is in the street, in the school and in the kitchen.
A warning for coeliacs. Aboriginal gofio was made from barley, but the gofio served in most restaurants today is wheat or a blend, and therefore contains gluten. Take particular care with escaldón, which is made with stock and gofio. If you need to avoid it, look for gofio that is 100 % millo (maize) and ask about cross-contamination: it is not an odd question here, and you will get a straight answer.
Where to actually meet them
If you want to go from reading to seeing, three places are worth the trip.
Cueva Pintada, Gáldar (Gran Canaria)
A museum built literally on top of a buried aboriginal village, with a glass dome protecting the wall paintings. Visits are guided and you have to book a time in advance: this is not a place you walk into on the spur of the moment. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 18:00 (last tour 16:30), and Sundays and public holidays 11:00 to 18:00. Phone: 928 895 746.
Museo de la Naturaleza y Arqueología, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
This is where the mummies are. It is the collection that makes you understand in one go what no reconstruction manages to convey: that we are talking about people, with funeral care, with grave goods, with families. If you are going with children, prepare them a little beforehand.
The square in Candelaria — note: they are not there right now
The nine bronze statues of the menceyes, by the sculptor José Abad, were unveiled on 15 August 1993 in front of the basilica, facing the Atlantic, and they are probably the most recognisable image of the aboriginal past anywhere in the Canaries.
But if you go today, you will not find them. In July 2025 all nine figures were lifted off their plinths to allow the complete redevelopment of the Patrona de Canarias square. They are in temporary storage and will return once the works are finished — a project scheduled to run for years, and already behind.
We are saying this because nobody else does: we do not want you making the trip planning to photograph them and finding empty plinths instead. The photographs in this article are from January 2025, before they were taken down.
The good news is that an empty square cancels none of what comes next: the August fiestas go ahead exactly as always, and the central act does not even happen in the square.
And now, in August: the Guanche returns
There is one date when all of this stops being history and becomes something you can watch.
14 August is the big night. At 19:15 the procession of the Virgin leaves the basilica, accompanied by the Las Candelas music band, and heads to the ground beside the town hall. Then at 20:00 the Colectivo Guanches de Candelaria perform the rite of the finding of the Virgin on the beach — not in the square, which is under construction — with costume, fire and hundreds of participants. Afterwards there is a procession to the well and fireworks from the pier.
It is not a show staged for visitors: it is part of the town's festive calendar, and the crowd watching it is mostly islanders.
And there is one detail that changes how you see that ceremony entirely. The Guanches found the image on the beach before the conquest, and they did not venerate it as a Christian icon — they could not, they had not yet encountered Christianity — but as a deity of their own: Chaxiraxi, "she who holds up the sky". What is re-enacted every 14 August is therefore not the arrival of a new faith. It is the moment a people found something on the shore and gave it their own name. The devotion that followed was built on top of that encounter, not in place of it.
There are more days around it:
5 August — opening address of the fiestas of the Patron Saint of the Canaries
12 August — Villa de Candelaria International Folklore Festival
13 August — Canarian wrestling bouts in honour of the Virgin
14 and 15 August — fiesta of the Virgin of Candelaria, patron saint of the Canaries
15 August — Patron Saint's Day: solemn mass, procession and a rain of rockets
A practical warning, because nobody mentions it until you are already there. Candelaria fills up on those days: many pilgrims arrive on foot from other towns, roads are closed and parking in the centre is close to impossible. Come early, or come by bus — check the timetables the day before, as extra services are usually laid on in August. And above all: the square is open stone with not a scrap of shade, in the middle of August, with a high chance of calima, the Saharan dust haze that pushes the heat up. Hat, water and sun cream, especially if you are claiming a spot early for the ceremony.
The Guanches did not vanish overnight, and the sea did not swallow them. They were conquered, and then they mixed with the people who arrived, and it is that mixture which today says guagua for bus, eats gofio and whistles across the ravines of La Gomera. The nine statues of Candelaria do not commemorate a people who died out: they point to the grandparents of the people living on the other side of the square.
If you are going to be in Tenerife in mid-August, go and stand there a while. And stay until the sun drops: the bronze menceyes are looking in exactly that direction.
