Today they've hired a car. The roads are very good and very safe but they take a long time to get anywhere because the island is shaped like a crumpled umbrella, all folds and creases. Its roads wind up, down and around the hills with happy disregard for the welfare of car gearboxes, which is great fun if, like Bill, you enjoy real driving.
They spend a few minutes taking photographs of the valley and the ridge beyond, a landscape like a craggy version of the Lake District except for the Canary palm trees scattered around in handfuls by some playful giant. Then our adventurers enter the cafe and order coffee along with two of the little ring-shaped cakes, rosquillas, that Bill spies on the counter. They seat themselves by a window overlooking the valley and Doris takes out her map. 'We're here,' she indicates. 'Degollada de Peraza.'
'Mmm,' agrees Bill. 'Saw the sign. These cakes are scrumptious.'
'Which means' - Doris continues, pausing to consult her pocket dictionary - 'good heavens!'
'What?'
'Degollar means to slit the throat. Behead.'
Bill swallows and licks his fingers. 'I'm going to have another one.'
'So Degollada de Peraza must be where Peraza got... Ooh!'
'His throat cut. Who's Peraza?'
Doris will find out, she enjoys finding out about things. It's a little confusing because the word degollada in this case just means a narrow pass where footpaths cross a mountain. Some hundred metres further along the road there's another spectacular view, this time on the other side of the road, with a path down to the village of La Laja deep in the valley and a series of reservoirs that supply farms and gardens with irrigation water.
However, the Peraza in question was indeed murdered here, or justly executed, depending on your point of view. He died because of a romantic encounter, and his death led to perhaps the most tragic event in Gomeran history.
The victim was a grandson of Hernán Peraza, a Castilian count whose troops invaded the island in the fifteenth century and attempted to subjugate the indigenous inhabitants, the guanches. Two of the island's four tribal regions stubbornly refused to surrender and finally Peraza gave up and agreed a peace pact with the tribal chieftains, sealed by drinking milk together from a clay bowl called a gánigo.
In this new spirit of cooperation, the Gomerans helped the Spaniards to build a defensive tower near the coast of San Sebastián. It was completed in 1450 and still stands today as the Torre del Conde, Tower of the Count, the oldest surviving monument in the Canary Islands.
Everything continued peacefully until 1488, by which time the old count had been succeeded as the island's governor by his grandson, Hernán Peraza the Younger. This one seems to have been a spoiled brat, a thoroughly unpleasant character who ruled as a feudal lord and tyrant, sowing huge resentment among the guanches.
Matters came to a head when the young Peraza launched a romantic affair with a guanche princess called Iballa who lived in a (surely very luxurious) cave near the cafe where Bill and Doris are now sitting. The tribal elders pronounced this affair to be illegal by the terms of the original pact, which forbade any carnal relations between the Spaniards and the locals.
Ya se quebró el gánigo - the milk bowl was broken! The pact was over! They sent a warrior chief, Hautacuperche, to apprehend Peraza. Caught while visiting the princess in her cave, the young count tried to flee but Hautacuperche hurled his spear and killed him.
The count's newly widowed spouse, Beatríz de Bobadilla, ordered the local garrison to exact vengeance but the Gomerans not only repelled the attacks but proceeded to launch a big rebellion, which eventually saw Beatríz holed up in the Torre del Conde with her troops while Hautacuperche and his guanche warriors tried to flush them out. Unfortunately, the besieged Spaniards managed to kill Hautacuperche with a bolt from a crossbow, greatly demoralising the guanches, and on top of that Beatríz succeeded in sending word of her problem to the governor of Gran Canaria, who immediately despatched a two-hundred strong force to help.
The guanches were quickly overwhelmed and the Spaniards set about slaughtering as many men as they could lay hands on. Women and children were sold into slavery. This brutal suppression of the uprising saw the consolidation of Spanish rule in the island, and they've been here ever since.
Nobody seems to mind any more.
'Rebellion of 1488,' Doris later reads to Bill in their apartment, rummaging around the internet on her iPad. Bill watches her contentedly, glad she's happy, a glass of beer in his hand and a bag of rosquillas on the table by his side.
Doris and Bill played a small role in a previous story, The clandestine emigrants (21 December 2016).
For the current story they involved me in some diligent research about Hernán Peraza the Younger and exactly what happened to him, but I'm still not sure. There are conflicting accounts. The juicier version says that the warrior chief Hautacuperche might have killed the young count out of self-interest because he had already picked the beautiful princess as a suitable spouse for himself. His mission had been not to execute Peraza but to haul him before the guanche council for them to pass judgement.
The other view is that by taking part in the milk-drinking ceremony with the guanches, the first count, Peraza the Elder, had effectively sealed a pact of brotherhood with the two tribal groups involved, so that he and his family became subject to the same cultural rules. One of these was a prohibition of sexual relations between members of the same tribe. This might have been a sensible way to avoid interbreeding but sounds a bit unlikely.
I think Peraza the Younger was killed simply because the guanches, a proud people, were not going to put up with being treated as serfs and slaves. Good for them, really, except that huge numbers of them died as a result.
Surprisingly, however, a study in 2011 found that the genome of present-day Gomerans still includes a large element of guanche, perhaps as much as 40% on average and up to 90% in some individuals. Today's exercise: spot the guanches!
But good luck with that because they are said to have been a handsome people, sometimes dark, sometimes blond and with splendid physiques, which of course perfectly describes most of our neighbours.
There is an impressive monument to Hautacuperche by one of the beaches in Valle Gran Rey, holding a broken bowl in his right hand.
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