Author: Daniel Hernández

The Tejal’s house or the Clérigo’s house?

This old house is known by two different names: the “Casa el Tejal” and the “Casa el Clérigo”. The former is indicative of the existence of a small artisan weaving industry.

Three elements are needed to make roof tiles: water, firewood and suitable soil. The surroundings are rich in reddish clay soil or masapé, there is an irrigation channel nearby and abundant bushes. It seems that the old kiln was dismantled in order to reuse its stones.

On the other hand, it is said that the house housed a clergyman who visited Las Vegas periodically. This estate, known as the jewel (hoya) of the Clérigo, belonged to the Augustinian Recollect nuns of Los Realejos. Next to the house there is an oven for drying fruit and, on special occasions, for baking bread.

Camels were the driving force of the island’s countryside.

The Tejal threshing floor is about 25 metres in diameter and is notable for being carved directly into the volcanic tuff.

At some points the hollows were filled in with basalt slabs to complete the necessary smooth surface. It is very likely that camels were used for threshing in this threshing floor and that these animals frequently travelled along the Camino Real, loaded with cereals and all kinds of products.

The Canarian camel was introduced from Africa in the 15th century and became an essential working tool on all the islands. This native breed is characterised by its strength and muscularity, adapted to work in the fields. Known as “the island tractor”, the camel was used for ploughing the land, for transport, for loading goods in ports and even for carrying stones in quarries.

The power of the water moved the millstones

These are the remains of a mill that was moved by water channelled from the summit. Its abundance offered the possibility of good milling.

The rural environments of Tenerife offer good examples of the sustainable management of natural resources and the territory. A good example is this mill that offered the possibility of transporting cereal already ground and ready for consumption, sale or exchange, right where it was harvested.

To turn its gears, there was nothing better than the nearest resource. A water pipe transported the water that was extracted from the peaks of this area to the village. Taking advantage of the arrival to this property and the force it brings by gravity, it was only a matter of passing it through the mill’s gears. Without wasting a drop, the water continued its course to fulfil the purpose for which it was extracted, the irrigation of the fields and human consumption.

The remains of this ancient mill speak of two cultures, that of cereal and that of water. Lives around them created them and made them evolve, thus achieving survival.

The south of Tenerife can well be considered a source of knowledge of ancient practices and ancestral knowledge that draw in the territory innumerable ways of sustainability. Let us learn from them because the present and the future demand them.

In Las Vegas there are many trees with a personality of their own

The Guirre pine is an example of the close relationship between rural dwellers and their trees

Trees have always accompanied human beings and there are many contributions offered by these living, complex and beautiful beings. In Las Vegas many of these relationships have been immortalised in the names given to these wonders of nature by its people: Pino Campanero, Pino del Rayo, Pino del Guirre, Pino El Tame, Pino Alto, Pino Gordo or Pino del Haba.

This close bond ranges from primary needs to coexistence between people. Examples are the cutting of wood to build a house or for cooking, the description of the tree that provides shade at work or the tree that is the boundary between properties.

Other names refer to its physical virtues: the reminder of a stormy night, the place where food is planted, the place where a bird perches or, of course, the tree that serves as a bell tower for festive and religious events.

El Seco owes its name to an ancient pine tree.

This house, the wide hill on which it stands and many other elements of the place, such as various fountains, the path and the threshing floor, take their name from the Pino Seco, an ancient Canary Island pine tree.

The area was mainly devoted to goat herding. Its owner, the landowner Arístides Guimerá, owned two large herds, one in this summit area and the other on the coast. The plants in the Seco were very different and this was reflected in the production of less fatty milk and cheese, with a different flavour and composition to those on the coast.

There is still a herd of goats grazing on the El Seco estate. Their cheeses are made in Chimiche and sometimes the milk is sold to the Benijos cheese factory or to other cheese factories in Gran Canaria.

A way of preserving food in an area rich in fruit trees

The need to preserve food all year round meant that different techniques for drying fruit were practised in the south. Ovens were essential for this purpose.

Las Vegas, being an eminently agricultural settlement, lived from various crops, mainly cereals, where fruit trees also played a fundamental role in feeding its people.

Rural areas prepared for the coldest time of the year by storing as much food as possible. In this sense, one problem they tried to solve was the preservation of fruit. Ovens such as this one were able to solve this problem by allowing figs to dry. On exceptional occasions, such as weddings or christenings, the ovens were also used to bake sweets and bread.

In this case, the abandonment of these practices is reflected in the state of conservation of these small infrastructures, losing with them part of the architectural and cultural heritage of the islands.

In Las Vegas, an oasis of fertility was found in the arid south of the island

The origin of “Las Vegas” is linked to the fertility of its farmland.

But what is a vega? It is a low, flat and fertile part of the land that is periodically flooded as a result of rainfall.

If you look at this landscape, you can see an abandoned plain. The watercourse of this ravine was home to potatoes, vegetables, vines and fruit trees, although it is now covered by wild vegetation. It is logical to think that, historically, these areas were particularly valued for the development of a permanent settlement. You can imagine where the name of this hamlet comes from.

The appearance and use of these cultivation areas gave it the possibility of becoming an authentic oasis in the middle of the south of the island. The existence of this treasure and the proximity to the water were the reasons why the hamlet of Las Vegas became the first Castilian colonial settlement in the entire southern region known as Abona.

Threshing floors like this one remind us of the importance of cereal cultivation in the past

The midlands of the south of Tenerife are dotted with threshing floors that remind us of the importance of cereal production for feeding the population. In the seventies of the 20th century, the arrival of tourism and massive food imports led to the progressive abandonment of agriculture in less productive areas such as this one.

The Canarian peasants used certain stars and constellations as weather markers and “signs” to predict the arrival of rain, a fundamental issue for their agricultural and livestock tasks: sowing, harvesting, transhumance or the release of livestock. Popular names were passed down from father to son, such as “The Plough” (Orion’s Belt), “The Shepherd” (The Hyades), “The Gañán” (Sirius) or “The Cabrillas” (The Pleiades).

Some peasants were able to predict the dry and rainy months by observing the sky and the winds at very specific times of the year. These practices are known as the reading of the cabañuelas. These techniques have parallels in Iberian and Mediterranean cultures, both in the methodology used and in their link with the saints and the dates of prediction.

A volcanic eruption changed the relief of the Las Vegas area

After the Castilian conquest, the water and fertile land of Las Vegas boosted the settlement of the population, but is there a secret ingredient behind such fertility?

From the subhistoric eruption of La Arena Mountain, located some 8 kilometres above, a huge basaltic lava flow formed an extensive black “aa” type of badlands. The lava flow was channelled through the pre-existing ravines until it reached the sea and modified the relief of Las Vegas, creating a relatively flatter area.

Volcanoes are a danger to the population, but they also provide extraordinary fertility to the fields. In this case, the basaltic minerals from the eruption provided important essential elements to the soil. The fertility of Las Vegas is directly connected to its particular volcanic origin.

A settlement with basic resources for life

Since pre-Hispanic times, the ravines were places where nature provided much of what was necessary for human subsistence: water, shelter and food.

If you look closely, on this hillside opposite, you can see a form of dwelling that was very common until recently: the cave-house. The geology of the area facilitated this type of construction, which forms part of the traditional culture of the south of Tenerife.

Two important infrastructures also pass through: the “Canal del Sur” and the “atarjea del Consuelo”.  The first comes from the heights of Fasnia and runs for 73 kilometres, bringing water to the entire south of the island. The second, more modest, brings water from the Galería El Consuelo in the El Río ravine, the municipal boundary between Granadilla and Arico.

The cave-houses, the canals and the tajeas or atarjeas speak of the search for survival in the inhospitable south of the island, making the most of every last resource in the territory.