time of Cadamosto, the population of Ganaria Grande
amounted to 9000, and that of Teneriffe to 5000 soulsi ; The
natives of the latter island are said to have been of great and
even gigantic stature. They were people ofjj very simple
habits and possessed of few arts, were ignorant of the use of
metals, and are said to have ploughed the land by means of
the horns of bullocks. They believed in a future1 state, and
worshipped aSupreme Being whom they termed Achuharahan,
the author and preserver of all good things. They also be-,
lieved in a malignant being, termed Guayotta, and placed
the abode of the-wicked in the burning crater of Teneriffe.
They had a solemn institution of marriage, and various moral
and social observances.*
The practice of embalming bodies and laying them up in
mummy-caves or catacombs, in the sides of mountains, ds
the most curious circumstance in the history of the Guan-
ches; it is at least that which has attracted the greatest atten-
tion. The mummies were placed erect upon their, feet; against
the sides of the caves ,- chiefs had a staff placed in their hands,
and a vessel of milk standing by them. Nicohan English
traveller,'stated that be had seen 300 of these corpses -together,
of which he says that the flesh was dried up, and the
bodies as light as parchment. Scorey was assured that in
the sepulchre of the kings of Guimar, there was to be seen ;a
skeleton measuring fifteen feet, the skull of which contained
eighty teeth. Of late years we have obtained from Golberry,
Blumenbach, and De Humboldt, more correct accounts ,of these
• The extermination of this race of people is one of the many fearful tragedies
which modem history, the history of CfiHsfian nations; presents. It is thus briefly
sketched by the Baron De Humboldt.
“ The Archipelago of the Canaries,” he observes, “ was divided into several small
states, hostile to each other. Oftentimes the same island was subject to two independent
princes. The trading nations of Europe, influenced by that hideous policy
which they still exercise on thé coast of Africa, kept up intestine warfare among the
Guanches. One Guanche then became the property of another, who sold him to
Europeans. Several who preferred death to slavery killed themselves and their
>hiiflwn- What remained of the Guanches perished mostly in 1494, in the terrible
pestilence the Modorra, which was attributed to the‘ quantity of dead bodies
left exposed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle of La Laguna. The nation
of the Guanches was therefore extinct at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
A few old men only were found at Candelaria and Guimar.”
mummies, and of the mode employed in preparing them. The
bodies were imbued with a .sort of turpentine, and dried before
a slow fire or,in the surfe Their desiccation was. so complete,
that the whole mummies, were found to be remarkably
light, and Blumenbach informs us that he possesses one which,
with its’ integuments entire, weighs only seven and a half
pounds, which is nearly oné-third less than the weight of an
entire skeleton of .the same stature/-rfecently stripped of the
skin and muscular flesh. On opening these mummies, the
ïemains of aromatic plants are discovered, among which the
Chenopodium Ambrosioides is said to ;beconstantly present.
vThe corpses are decorated with small laces, on which are
hung little disks of baked earth.
M. Golberry ;took much pains to collect information re-
#pefcting thd'mb/le ipsed< by the Quanches in preparing their
mummies, and he has described a mummy in his possession,
“which.; he selected from among many others still remainingin
his time in the mummync^ives in Teneriffe. Of this he says, the
hair was-long and black, the, skin dry and flexible,, of a dark
brown colour, the back and breast covered with hair, the
belly and breast filled with a kind of grain resembling rice,
the bódy wrapped in bandages' of goats’ skin.
Blumenbach thought he discovered* some resemblari’ce-in
the style of ornament bétween the mummies of 4he; Guanches
and those n f the Egyptians. Strings- of coral beads are found
in both. But this may be an accidental,re&emblapçe^,and the
use of goats* skin , instead, ef cloth, and the mode of filling
the body and drying it, and all other particulars; differ essentially.
' The incisores are worn down to truncated colics in
the mummies of both nations.-' This may have arisen from
their using similar food, or from both nations being in the practice
of eating hard grains. We shall find proof hereafter
that it was not among the Egyptians, at least, a natural peculiarity.
On the whole; proof, is wanting of any connexion
between the Guanches and the,Egyptians,
There seems to be sufficient evidence in what remains .of
the language of the Guanches to prove-their descent from the
Berbers of Atlantica. It is difficult to imagine how such a
people as the Berbers oivfBhûluh, who are not known to have
d 2