the mayor of The Realejos, Adolfo González, and the Councilor for Rural Development, Alexis Hernández, yesterday presented the documentary Los cochineros de Icod el Alto, edited by the northern City Council, together with the producers and managers of Post-Visión, Luis Adern father and son. The work will premiere today as part of the festivities in honor of Our Lady of Good Journey at 8:00 p.m. in the Plaza Poeta Antonio Reyes in this nucleus.
«This is an audiovisual work that values, discloses and makes credible with vital testimonies the adventures and adventures linked to the particular trade of the pigmen, of the itinerant sale of piglets, which was practiced by more than a hundred residents of Icod el High in the past, “said the realejero mayor.
Already in 1983, the City Council of Los Realejos published an outreach work by Professor Manuel Lorenzo Perera on the pig farmers of Icod el Alto, a study that a year earlier had obtained the Viera y Clavijo Research Prize. Likewise, Adolfo González pointed out that since 2011 a bronze sculpture by local artist Francisco García Palmero dedicated to this trade presides over an urban space adjacent to the Icod el Alto general highway.
The local councilor also mentioned “the permanent exhibition on pig farmers that since last year 2021 has been located in the Social Center of Icod el Alto, the result of a joint initiative between the Department of Citizen Participation, the Community Board and the Department of Development Rural, achieving the involvement of pigmen still alive, as well as relatives and neighbors who contributed to creating a rich collection of documents and photographs that give a good account for posterity of the reality of this trade.
It is worth highlighting the recent creation, based on the aforementioned initiative, of the Cultural and Recreational Association Los Cochineros de Icod el Alto, also represented in the presentation this Tuesday before the media by its president, Rosa Ángela Llanos, and its vice president. Raphael Garcia.
«This documentary is, therefore, one more step in the same line of homage and public recognition of this unique profession that is one more element of the broad intangible ethnographic heritage of Los Realejos and, specifically, of Icod el Alto; is to take to the audiovisual format, using live testimonies from pig farmers, contributions from researchers and historians and the fiction and dramatization of some passages, a journey that brings this trade to the present, “summarized the mayor. For his part, Alexis Hernández thanked “the special involvement of the living pigs and their families.”
