Nature is at war with its own creation in Gran Canaria, as if it wants to knock it below the sea and start again. There are no rolling hills, no place where the landscape is at peace. Boulders the size of office blocks sit poised to roll down to the sea. We farm, eat and shit on land that yearns to be underwater.
Artists fail utterly to describe this landscape. The aquarella artist caricatures it with quaint cottages and improbable bougainvillea bushes. Canvas sucks the details from oils. A photograph can only ever capture a section, a facsimile copy of what is no longer there. Better to leave your camera and paints in the hotel than carry them with you and fail.
Unamuno, exiled on the island, called it a petrified storm. He was writing for escapism rather than love. He wanted the storm to come back to life and carry him home.
Perhaps the Guanches (Canarii to the pedants) are the only ones to offer a fitting tribute. They mummified the dead so that they could become a part of the landscape for as long as possible. Sad then that we drag their limp remains out of sacred caves and encase them in glass.
We eulogise the Guanches, tell our children of their great strength and nobility. But we are the descendants of their exterminators. Our praise is born of guilt because our home belonged to others. Conquerors tear down cities and build new ones rather than live in the houses of their victims. Here that is impossible. There isn’t enough dynamite in the world.
The Canarii live on only in the collective conscience of the modern day Canarians. They died because of an experiment. The Spanish came with a hypothesis: That land could be liberated in the name of the Cross. That muskets, horses and steel were more righteous that sticks and stones. That cannon were god’s mouthpiece.
It took 100 years to subdue to Canarii. They clung to their rocks with goat-hide shoes for as long as possible, choosing to smash themselves into them rather than surrender. Now we desecrate their tombs to satisfy the curiosity of children and tourists.
To the sandalled bone polishers with their spectrometers and theories I say the Canarii have gone for ever. Their language is dead, their culture extinct. What you have in your museums is no more significant than a pretty pebble taken from the beach. Without context it is nothing but a dull rock. Put them back in their caves and leave them to erode away in peace.
They have nothing to teach us that we can’t learn by sitting on a rock and eating almonds in the breeze.
Artists fail utterly to describe this landscape. The aquarella artist caricatures it with quaint cottages and improbable bougainvillea bushes. Canvas sucks the details from oils. A photograph can only ever capture a section, a facsimile copy of what is no longer there. Better to leave your camera and paints in the hotel than carry them with you and fail.
Unamuno, exiled on the island, called it a petrified storm. He was writing for escapism rather than love. He wanted the storm to come back to life and carry him home.
Perhaps the Guanches (Canarii to the pedants) are the only ones to offer a fitting tribute. They mummified the dead so that they could become a part of the landscape for as long as possible. Sad then that we drag their limp remains out of sacred caves and encase them in glass.
We eulogise the Guanches, tell our children of their great strength and nobility. But we are the descendants of their exterminators. Our praise is born of guilt because our home belonged to others. Conquerors tear down cities and build new ones rather than live in the houses of their victims. Here that is impossible. There isn’t enough dynamite in the world.
The Canarii live on only in the collective conscience of the modern day Canarians. They died because of an experiment. The Spanish came with a hypothesis: That land could be liberated in the name of the Cross. That muskets, horses and steel were more righteous that sticks and stones. That cannon were god’s mouthpiece.
It took 100 years to subdue to Canarii. They clung to their rocks with goat-hide shoes for as long as possible, choosing to smash themselves into them rather than surrender. Now we desecrate their tombs to satisfy the curiosity of children and tourists.
To the sandalled bone polishers with their spectrometers and theories I say the Canarii have gone for ever. Their language is dead, their culture extinct. What you have in your museums is no more significant than a pretty pebble taken from the beach. Without context it is nothing but a dull rock. Put them back in their caves and leave them to erode away in peace.
They have nothing to teach us that we can’t learn by sitting on a rock and eating almonds in the breeze.
