![Professor Manuel Lorenzo Perera. Sergio Mendez](https://cdn.diariodeavisos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DOMINGO-pagina-46-47-scaled-1024x683.jpg)
Summarize your academic career. Manuel Lorenzo Perera it is a complex task. He has written more than 40 books, articles in specialized scientific journals and has participated in projects of ethnographic and archaeological studies. He is a teacher, has a degree in Geography and History and a Ph.D. in History, but he considers himself an ethnographer, a person who dedicates himself to writing down the facts of traditional culture. He retired in 2016 after 44 years teaching continuously, because he never took time off work. His passion for education remains intact to the point of continuing to be linked to the Faculty of Education of the University of La Laguna (UL), as director -he was also its founder- of the Cultural Classroom of Ethnography as well as the Folklore Classroom of the Faculty of Education. He has been awarded dozens of awards and he is an Adoptive Son of the Buenavista del Norte City Council. But if there is something that distinguishes him, it is being considered “as the greatest contemporary scholar of traditional Canarian culture”, and this was recognized by the jury of the Canarian Awards, which awarded him this distinction on March 25 in the category of popular culture. .
-Did the fact of being born in La Orotava influence your passion for ethnography?
“Yes, a lot. I was born in 1947 and at that time the streets were made of dirt and stone and a car passed by every four or five hours. We boys and girls played in the street and when the bus passed we stood on the sidewalk and sang to the conductor moving our legs and touching the cakes: ‘The conductor of the bus/ has a girlfriend on the plain/ and when he passes by she/ waves goodbye to him’. That happened a few times a day. The street was an authentic ethnographic museum and our mothers, when they wanted us to go home, stretched out the window and called us by whistle. And each one knew his own. In my street there were three shops and two bakeries. I remember seeing the people of Benijos with the mules loaded with firewood to supply the bakeries and the herds of goats in the La Garrrota field, in Villa de Arriba. Then they went to the Matadero ravine and later they were kicked out of the municipality despite the fact that the shepherds are bearers of a thousand-year-old culture that dates back to the time of the old Guanches. All those memories are tremendous, that’s why six years ago when I read the proclamation of the Villa festivities I titled it ‘Vindicating my childhood’.
–You were born in La Orotava, lived for more than 20 years in Puerto de la Cruz, currently reside in Buenavista but your great love is the island of El Hierro…
“And I’m going to tell you why. After presenting my undergraduate report, Archeology professor Manuel Pellicer Catalán recommended me to do my doctoral thesis on Phoenician burials in the western Mediterranean. I read a lot of books and filled out a lot of files but then I thought about what I was doing in the Mediterranean with everything that remained to be discovered in the Canary Islands and since I was passionate about the subject of grazing, I decided to do the thesis on grazing in the Archipelago. I went to La Palma, La Gomera and then to El Hierro, but on this last island, when I started talking to the teachers of the land, many of whom have already passed away, I realized that there was enough material there to do my doctoral thesis and I focused on El Hierro. And that was the title of the thesis that I presented in 1992 at the University of La Laguna, ‘Ethnohistoric study of grazing on the island of El Hierro’, eight volumes, three of them text, based on oral sources, because in the Canary Islands, as in many other places, the written sources are related to the rich, to the ruling class”.
-Don’t you think that oral sources are being left aside to focus more on quantitative data?
“It depends on the work that you want to do, but oral sources are essential. I have written more than 40 books and they are all based on cultural orality. I owe a lot to the French masters of the Annales School, who worked at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and distinguished three classes of masters; of books, of teaching, and of the land. And there is an imposing phrase that I usually repeat and it is that ‘history is made with written sources when there are any, but it has to be done without them when there are none’. It must be borne in mind that until recently most of the Canarian people were illiterate, did not know how to read or write, they are the silent majority, it is the history of the poor and if we want to recover all that, the essential basis is cultural orality . Archaeological and ethnographic maps have been drawn up in many municipalities in the Canary Islands, but in none of them has a memory map been drawn up, which consists of talking to older people and collecting their memories, strategies and knowledge. Retired teachers could dedicate themselves to that”.
-Is there still much to learn about the ethnography and popular culture of the Canary Islands?
“Yes. About each animal you can write a book or an article, about each plant and each person the same. And there are thousands and thousands of books to write and precious topics. The one who gets bored is him because he wants to”.
-Has Canarian ethnography been forgotten for a long time?
“Very forgotten and there was also for a long time in the university a great contempt for oral sources. They were frowned upon and there are still people who view them frowned upon despite the fact that it is an impressive field of research. And what the teachers and teachers of the earth know, people who many times do not know how to read or write because they did not have the opportunity to learn but they can tell a lot of things, they are very intelligent and many of them, with means, would have held positions very important and even become ministers. For this reason, when I started working at the School of Education of the Faculty of Education in 1972, I taught my students to investigate. I think that a teacher should know how to talk to older people, who are sources of wisdom, and that theoretical part of the research was complemented by doing practical work that is all saved. That means that we have the best ethnographic archive in the Canary Islands and I have offered it to the institutions, specifically the Buenavista Town Hall, which in turn has spoken with the Historical Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands to order a task that has been carried out for 44 years”.
-The folkloric group of the Faculty of Education of the ULL that you chair was born in 1981. What is the work you currently do?
“In a world as convulsive and difficult as that of the university, where traditional culture has also been underestimated and marginalized, it is dedicated to researching, studying and transmitting its values as a whole and the songs, dances and music of the villages. The musical folklore of the Canary Islands is one of the richest in the world in terms of genres despite the fact that it is so undervalued. There is a folklore of drum, one of strings and another of emigration, related above all to emigration to America. We do not invent anything, we base ourselves on tradition, which is what enhances the conscience of the people. But the authentic tradition, not the things done in Chavacano plan”.
-Are there manifestations of popular culture that are unknown even in the Archipelago?
“I think if. Before, nothing was known about ‘Frightening the crows’ or ‘Calling the mushrooms in the bush’- ‘Hongo orejón de La Habana/come back here tomorrow’, which were sung to better find certain varieties and were repeated until they were found . There is another, unknown, to call the bees, to stir the milk and obtain the butter. All this was unknown until a few years ago, but when you put on your boots, your backpack and start walking and talking to people, new topics appear. Traditional culture is a whole world and we have to take advantage of that vein and give it consistency”.
– Is a greater weight of traditional culture necessary from primary school?
“Of course, you have to put it everywhere, in primary school, in university and in high schools.”
-How do you motivate the little ones?
“In the same way that they motivated me. When I was little there was no television. My grandfather met every day with about 20 people including my parents, my uncles and my neighbors and they talked about a lot of things and we learned. This can be done with children at school, but for that it is necessary for teachers to get involved, learn to investigate and send jobs to students so that they can interview their elders and thus be able to grasp the importance of the books that are in their heads, which are very interesting from every point of view. You have to relate children to older people and today that is not done”.
-Is the work carried out by institutions such as the Center for Popular Canarian Culture or the Pinolere Cultural Association essential to publicize the traditional culture of the islands?
“I am a member of the first institution. His work, his dignity and his perseverance is highly commendable. It is run by people who could be dedicating themselves to other things and are there working every day, like its president, César Rodríguez Placeres, who is fighting there, like a boar for all these values. He is deserving of all honors, and so are other groups, like Pinolere”.
-Canaries feel proud of their culture?
“I think that does not happen because they do not know it. And what is unknown cannot be loved or defended.
-Which is the island that best preserves cultural manifestations and traditions?
“All of them, including La Graciosa, where there is an impressive wealth related to the sea. In each one there are topics to do a lot of things. Consciousness moves pride and the people who are not proud end up being carried away by the current of the ravine, they are useless. We must have pride and protect our values. The institutions must do it, but also the politicians, the people of the culture and each one of us”.
-Did you ever imagine that you were going to win the Canary Islands Award?
“Many people had proposed me for many years and told me to look for acquaintances to pressure, but if there is something I have never done in my life, it is to run after someone or make a ball for them to give me an award. But they have given it to me and I feel very proud and one of the things that I like most about this award is that the island of El Hierro has supported me in weight, because it has recognized the work that has been done for many years and I in turn recognize the teachers of the land, because without them, all the work I have done would not have been possible”.