Photos

The church at Teror on Gran Canaria, viewed through the jets of a fountain. The church is home to the Virgin of the Pine, the patron saint of the island. Wooden statues of Virgin Marys made a habit of popping up in places sacred to the the stone-age inhabitants of the islands during the Spanish conquest. This one is said to have appeared in the braches of a sacred tree in the settlement of Teror. The Spanish went on to build a church on the site, incorporating the tree into its structure. The original church, not surprisingly, fell down when the tree died. Of the Guanches, the original inhabitants, there is precious little remaining. Their language and oral traditions died out and they live on only in museums. They were the guinea pigs on which the Spanish conquistadores tested out their tactics before proceeding on to the conquest of South America.