The Virgin of Candelaria she is “the prettiest and the darkest”, but is it possible that she was blonde and blue-eyed? Currently, the image of Our Lady of Candelaria is part of the group known as black virgins. These dark-toned carvings are venerated not only in Spain, but also in other parts of Europe and America.
Regarding the reason why these images of the Virgin are obscure, the experts will lower several hypotheses: the first is related to the adoption by the first Christians of the iconography that peoples like the Egyptians used to represent their goddesses -Isis she is a goddess of African origin and, therefore, she is black-; the second has to do with the materials used to make the carvings, for example, wood, and the third has to do with the layers of bitumen that were applied to the effigies to protect them from the passing of time, humidity and of insects.
In the case of the brunette it is difficult to know what it was like. Because? The reason experts can’t know for sure what it looked like the original representation of the Virgin of Candelaria found by the Guanches -name that is used to designate the ancient settlers of Tenerife-, it is because it was lost during a storm that occurred in 1826. The image maker from La Orotava Fernando Estévez was in charge of making the new carving that today is shown in the Basilica of Candelaria.
What is known is that The Guanches located the carving of the Virgin at the mouth of the Chimisay ravine, in the municipality of Güímar, 95 years before the conquest of Tenerife by the Spanish. For this reason, Some historians consider that the ancient inhabitants of Tenerife had to find a Gothic image of the Virgin, that is, blonde and blue-eyed. Only the layers of bitumen applied by the Dominican friars and the action of the candles that were kept burning day and night would have made it dark.
However, there is another theory about why the also known as Patroness of Canary Islands -the festivities in his honor are celebrated on August 14 and 15 in Candelaria- be a black virgin and is related to the evangelization work carried out before the conquest. This second hypothesis considers that the carving of Our Lady of Candelaria to Tenerife by Majorcan friars, who would have settled on the Island for a while and would have introduced Christian elements among the aboriginal population. This way It would explain why the Virgin of Candelaria is just as dark as the Virgin of Lluchpopularly known as the brunette.
