Mencey

Guanches

Statue of Bencomo at Candelaria, Tenerife
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Guanche language · Silbo · Canarian Spanish
Religion
Animism (Guanche mythology)
Related ethnic groups
Berbers, Canarian people

Guanches (also: Guanchis or Guanchetos) refer to the aboriginal Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago around 1000 BC or perhaps earlier. The Guanches were the only native people known to have lived in the Macaronesian region before the arrival of Europeans, as there is no evidence that the Azores, Cape Verde, Madeira and the Savage Islands were inhabited before that time. After the Spanish conquest of the Canaries they were ethnically and culturally absorbed by Spanish settlers, although elements of their culture survive to this day, intermixed within Canarian customs and traditions such as Silbo (the whistled language of La Gomera Island).

The native term guanchinet literally translated means "person of Tenerife" (from Guan = person and Chinet = Tenerife). It was modified, according to Juan Núñez de la Peña, by the Castilians into "Guanchos". Though etymologically being an ancient, Tenerife-specific, term, the word Guanche is now mostly used to refer to the pre-Hispanic aboriginal inhabitants of the entire archipelago.

Roman author and military officer Pliny the Elder, drawing upon the accounts of Juba II, king of Mauretania, stated that a Mauretanian expedition to the islands around 50 BC found the ruins of great buildings, but otherwise no population to speak of. If this account is accurate, it may suggest that the Guanches were not the only inhabitants, or the first ones; or that the expedition simply did not explore the islands thoroughly. Tenerife, specifically the archaeological site of the Cave of the Guanches in Icod de los Vinos, has provided habitation dates dating back to the 6th century BC, according to analysis carried out on ceramics that were found inside the cave.

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Wikipedia