The legacy of the Los Verga family in the Game of Palo Canario stars in a newly opened exhibition which will remain until August 10 at the Casa de la Cultura in El Rosario. Five generations of this Esperanto family, decisive for the preservation of this autochthonous practice that comes from the Guanches, star in this exhibition based on photographs. The inauguration, held last Saturday at the Casa de la Cultura, became a tribute to the popular saga that has kept this hallmark of Canarian identity in its DNA over the years.
The relationship of the family of Los Verga or La Verga de La Esperanza with the Palo Game was born with Eugenio Díaz Estévez, whom his descendants continue to consider as the great master. There are a technique that is exclusive to this saga and that is why it bears his name. Francisco Osorio, curator of the exhibition, one of the main scholars of this art and author of the book El Juego del Palo Canario according to Los Verga, assures in a speech that his son Teno read at the opening that “it is a family determined to conserve all its purity» this discipline. “No one in the Canary Islands surpasses the game technique of Los Verga,” explained Osorio, who could not be in the act due to heat stroke.
Eugenio, Elisa, Luciana, Santana, Chencho, Juan, Manolo, Jorge, now Oliver Díaz… Francisco Osorio cited in the text some of the mythical names of this family that “has never changed anything of everything learned.” But he focused on Luciana Díaz, of the second generation, of whom he said that as a child she insisted so much on her father to learn the techniques of the Game of the Stick that in the end he ended up accepting. In the first months of her apprenticeship, Luciana received from all sides. One day, however, she responded to her father with a tremendous stick that left him sitting. «She asked him for forgiveness and helped him to get up, and then her father told him: You are already taught. There is fear in which it is put in front ».
The Canario Palo Game or banot is believed to be an evolution of warrior techniques used by the first settlers of the Canary Islands, the guanches. This kind of stick fencing is practiced between two players who fight with sticks: they score blows on any part of the body, without contact between one adversary and another, or they defend themselves against those they may receive. The sticks can be long, up to 3 meters; medio or palo canario, which is the most popular; and short stick or macana, 60 centimeters. The first news about the use of sticks by the Guanches is found in the Chronicle Bethencouriana (1402) and refers to the bimbaches or settlers of El Hierro. The second is by Leonardo Torriani, an Italian engineer who wrote the History of the Islands in 1590 and who left a very valuable document: a drawing of two canaries in a small square in a kind of ritual with medium-sized sticks.
In the exhibition of the House of Culture of El Rosario there are not only photographs. Also texts of the Palo Game by Francisco Osorio, information panels on the five generations of Los Verga and press articles. Many of the photographs in the exhibition were taken by Fernando Clavijo Redondo, who died in 2019 and who was General Director of Security of the Canary Islands Government, great defender of Canarian traditions and father of Fernando Clavijo Batlle, the senator and leader of CC who was president of the Government of the Canary Islands and also mayor of La Laguna. Clavijo Batlle, who attended the inauguration, recalled that he accompanied his father when he took some of those images. «I applaud the work of the El Rosario City Council when it comes to recognizing those who maintain our traditions. Because a people that does not respect its traditions loses its memory and identity”, he assured.
Escolástico Gil, mayor of El Rosario, the Game of Palo and Los Verga take him back to his childhood. «In 1977, when he was in the eighth year of EGB, a teacher appeared who came from Gáldar and began to talk to us about the Palo game and the Los Verga family. That teacher is Francisco Osorio, today the curator of this exhibition». “Thanks to him,” the mayor remarked, “we know the cultural heritage of this Esperanza family and we know this very Canarian art.”
Representatives of the latest generations of Los Verga were at the opening of the exhibition and they were honored by the Rosario City Council. One of them was Alejandra, who participated in a demonstration of the Palo Game at the Casa de la Cultura. Another was Juan Manuel, who received from the mayor an album with photos of Fernando Clavijo, which Francisco Osorio donated to the Consistory. “Thank you very much for this recognition. We only hope that the next generations of the family maintain the respect and promotion of this art”, concluded Juan Manuel Díaz.
Several moments of the opening of the exhibition 5 generations preserving a tradition: the Palo Game, held at the Casa de la Cultura in El Rosario.
