Tijarafe (Canary Islands), mid-14th century. When the first Catholic monks came to the area of the island of La Palma, the Awares, the local Aborigines, saw that they worshipped the sun, the moon and the stars.
And this has been confirmed by the archaeological campaigns carried out in recent years in Tijaraf. In the framework of the West project, organized by the City Hall and the company Cultania, the III was celebrated this summer. The Archaeological Campus has been completed and about 30 sites have been identified. “This represents the high density Aboriginal occupation,” according to the archaeologist Javier Soler. In total, more than 100 sites have been recorded. It has been found that some of the many ravines and caves in the area were used to bury the dead and worship the stars, while others, more suitable for it, were used as a place of residence. “They formed large domesticated units that economically exploited the environment and symbolically appropriated the landscape.”
Awa's beliefs were not destroyed without further destruction, but were interpreted according to Catholic theology. “They knew the discourse of the natives and manipulated it strategically, among other things, imposing the cult of images as a dogmatic model”
But when the Castilians arrived, both symbolically and economically they took over these places. After the Catholic monks, in the 15th century, came the military conquest and forced evangelization with it. “They banned indigenous practices, rejected the islands’ cosmogony and destroyed their own forms of knowledge to incorporate new ones,” says Miguel A. The historian Martín González and founder and director of the journal Iruene on Prehistory of the island of La Palma. “The Christianization process was pretty fast, thanks to wild acculturation and syncretism.” In fact, Awa's beliefs were not destroyed without further destruction, but were interpreted according to Catholic theology. “They knew the discourse of the natives and manipulated it strategically, among other things, imposing the cult of images as a dogmatic model.” For example, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, they brought to Tijaraf an image of the Virgen del Candelario, they put Pino Araujo in a cave of the ravine, used until then by the awares, and from then on it would be called “Cueva de la Virgen”.
Today, around Candelaria Day, on February 2, from the Church of the Candelaria of Tijaraf, the appearance of the star Canopus among the rocks of La Pileta and Guanche can be observed. These two rocks have found engravings, canals and other marks on the cliffs, indicating that they were sacred places for the Aware. Before being conquered by Catholics, for them the star Canopus announced the rainy season.
And today, on 12 October, some still celebrate the cultural destruction that has taken place in the Canaries and America.