The Canary Islands in general, and Tenerife in particular, have always been linked to all kinds of rites, rituals, beliefs and legends, from before the conquest of the Crown of Castile and later. the guanches already they danced before the advanced ones arrived in sailboats in the area that we know today as the Bailadero de Anaga. They did it then to promote the rains and that the harvests of the scarce and primitive cereal that the earth gave and with which, once roasted and ground, they made their gofio were abundant. An area such as the Macizo de Anaga, with its eucalyptus forests, laurel forest and areas of fayal-brezal as well as the cardones that are intermixed depending on the height at which we are, also contains legends that despite the darkness of past times have reached our days wrapped in a halo of mystery and curiosity on the part of those who do not know them.
Despite the fact that this aboriginal tradition is attested, it is true that there are not a few places in the Canary Islands that are called “bailadero” a term that derives from “ballad” which is where the cattle were taken to give them shelter and make them “bleat”. But perhaps, the Macizo de Anaga is the least suitable for herding cattle, due to the steepness of the place.
The customs of the aborigines soon intermingled and merged with others of foreign origin during the Castilian conquest, which gave rise to the birth of new syncretic traditions from the arrival of the Catholic faith, transformations of other old ones that would still be preserved during the years after the settlement of Castilians and Portuguese. Others, on the other hand, disappeared, but are remembered by historians specialized in the magical world of our natives, the Guanches.
However, after the Christianization of the Island -and although there are no written remains, the oral tradition testifies to it- some of those ancestral rites were soon changed for others of a more European nature. Those who came to the islands and hid their mystical beliefs from the church soon found out which places had been considered magical by the ancient settlers and were reused for new rites to take advantage of the magnetism they gave off.
This was what happened in the Bailadero de Anaga, which went from being a silent witness to the dances and dances of the Guanches, to groups of women who danced in intoxicating and intoxicating covens around a bonfire.
The so-called witches of Anaga, dressed in long and dense black clothing, ascended to the upper plain of the Massif, entering the thickness of the thermophilic forest. In the past, the area was very sparsely populated, much less than now, so it was a place to carry out dark practices away from the eyes of the church, the inquisition and common neighbors who could denounce them to be judged in an auto de fe.
The popular legends of the area relate that an intense fatuous brightness allowed to guess the swing of the shadows of bodies that danced and danced around the heat, hence the nickname of witches dance hall.
Although these ritual practices are preserved in the popular heritage after being transmitted orally between generations, legends have never revealed whether animal or even human sacrifices took place in this area of Tenerife, as is well known to have happened in other areas of the Canarian territory. However, the place has always been considered an enclave of power where practices and rituals of all kinds could be carried out, many of them branded as witchcraft although most of them could be considered as “pagan” rites that are difficult to understand for a Mentality strongly influenced by the Catholic religion of other times.
Some of those rites or customs are actually true ethnographic gems since they have survived to this day.
The Maguadas
The rich folkloric heritage around the dances of witches, is a manifestation of the dances performed by the native priestesses and that has already been of interest to scholars of Canarian folklore, such as Lothar Siemens Hernandezwhich points to a link between the witch dances with rites of the ancient canaries. The dances and songs performed by the Maguadas they are, curiously, later repeated by the witches. The tapping and palms are the most common element in these dances, which, accompanied by songs, serve for the purpose of witches and in almost all of them, they have a great erotic charge, hidden in the lyrics.
Most of these dances were performed by women, but there are testimonies that some men also took part in them.
Oral tradition says that the meeting of the witches in the places where they prepare their misdeeds and their subsequent dance, presided over by the devil, takes place at twelve o’clock at night and that the dance takes place after the arrival of the angel of darkness, at half past three in the morning.
In some of these places to receive the devil he was greeted like this: “You are welcome, Reverend crooked-horn male, how many dandelions have you eaten?” .
The Weevil Dance
One of the dances attributed to witches is the weevil dancewhich has its origin in aboriginal dances dedicated to fertility.
This dance consisted of the women, “once they twisted the two ends of their petticoats between their legs in the form of pants, they were placed in a row and squatting in front of another row of men in the same position, whose purpose was to finish , men and women scrambled on the floor as they lost their balance due to the frantic increase in beat that the musicians imprinted on the dance”. With the first notes of these, the dancers began to squat jumps, while the following verses that constitute the song of the weevil dance:
“The weevil is on the rock where it is, give me signs, let me go, let me go, let me find it. The dance of the gorgojito, is danced squatting, bending the knees and from jump to jump. Last night a cricket bit you, I thought it was a weevil, last night I didn’t catch it, but tonight I did. My weevil is among the rocks, from there give me signs, to go from here a little bit to dance with my little weevil”, according to pick up Fernando Hernandez Gonzalez.
Lothar Siemens refers to this weevil dance that was practiced in certain places of Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura, whose memory still endures as a certain occult dance, primitively also related to witch practices, called the weevil dance. This dance was danced at night in secluded places, squatting and jumping, and sometimes the dancers appeared completely naked.
