Secret_History

488 The Secret History of the World
It has not been possible to ascertain the origin of the Guanches, or whence they
came, for as the natives had no letters, they had no account of their origin or
descent, although some tradition may have come down from father to son. […]
The old Guanches say that they have an immemorial tradition that sixty people
came to this island, but they know not whence they came. They gave their
settlement the name, “The place of union of the son of the great one”.
Although they knew of God, and called Him by various names, they had no rites
nor ceremonies nor words with which they might venerate Him. […] When the
rains failed, they got together the sheep in certain places, where it was the custom
to invoke the guardian of the sheep. Here they stuck a wand or lance in the ground,
then they separated the lambs from the sheep, and placed the mothers round the
lance, where they bleated. They believed that God was appeased by this ceremony,
that he heard the bleating of the sheep and would send down the rain.
…They knew that there was a hell, and they held that it was in the peak of Teyde
[the volcanic mountain}, and the devil was Guayota.
They were accustomed when a child was born, to call a woman whose duty it was,
and she poured water over its head; and this woman thus contracted a relationship
with the child’s parents, so that it was not lawful to marry her, or to treat her
dishonestly. They know not whence they derived this custom or ceremony, only
that it existed. It could not be a sacrament, for it was not performed as one, nor had
the evangelic law been preached to them.[…]
The inviolable law was that if a warrior meeting a woman by chance in the road, or
in any solitary place, who spoke to her or looked at her, unless she spoke first and
asked for something, or who, in an inhabited place, used any dishonest words
which could be proved, he should suffer death for it without appeal. Such was their
discipline. […]
This people had very good and perfect features, and well-shaped bodies. They were
of tall stature, with proportionate limbs. There were giants among them of
incredible size…
They only possessed and sowed barley and beans. … If they once had wheat, the
seed had been lost… They also ate the flesh of sheep, goats, and pigs, and they fed
on it by itself, without any other relish whatever… The flesh had to be half roasted
because, as they said, it contained more substance in that way than if it was well
roasted.
They counted the year by lunations… The lord did not marry with anyone of the
lower orders, and if there was no one he could marry without staining the lineage,
brothers were married to sisters.