On the origin of the tradition of the tables, up to three different versions can be distinguished, some more historically documented and more rigorous than others, but the vast majority of them born of oral tradition.
As a master’s thesis by Adrián García Luis refers, the dragging of the tables does not have a direct relationship with the onomastics of San Andrés, beyond the day of its celebration. However, “stories that link the beginnings of the tradition with religious motives” have been popularly installed in the collective memory. González de León points out the stories “about the drunkenness of Santo Andrés as the origin of the party,” who in a drunken state decided to use a board and crawl down the street. However, currently this explanation of a religious nature is not so deeply rooted among the population.
The most established version is the one that establishes a link with the winery line. According to León Rodríguez, Delgado López and González de León «the dragging arose due to the need for winegrowers to wash their barrels or casks with salt water, eliminating the acidity and characteristics of the wines that had been previously stored, so that so the new wine did not acquire these properties ». In this way, the winegrowers were forced to transport the heavy barrels from their cellars to San Marcos Bay, where the cleaning was carried out. Thus, downhill and on boards that protected the barrels from friction and blows, the winegrowers transported them to clean them with seawater, taking advantage of the sloping streets of the Icodean municipality.
The last theory is related to the timber industry. From a scientific point of view, it is the most supported version, since there are bibliographical references on this approach. “The timber route did not end in the town of Icod, but continued to Playa de San Marcos to supply different needs of the place,” says Adrián García. The evidence indicates that the dragging and use of boards began due to the use of the steep roads and the need for timber transport.
No two tables are the same. From the building material, size, shape, color, weight, dimensions, etc. Its elaboration has evolved over time, and the boards and corsets that were originally used to drag the wood from the mountains to the center of the city have little to do with the current ones, which no longer transport wood, but to one or more several people.
The main material with which it is built is wood, specifically the torch, obtained from the Canarian pine trunk, used due to its abundance, the hardness and resistance of the wood, durability and of course its ease of sliding on the sloping streets. The use of riga is also common, of a lower quality, lower price and easier to acquire and extract than that of pine.
Currently, a board that is built entirely of tea is conceived in the context of dragging as a truly traditional board.
The table is the main part, the base where the other elements are fixed; the chamfer is a cut or recess that is made mainly in the front part of the board so that it can overcome the imperfections of the road more easily; the sleepers involve two small wooden slats, as wide as the board itself, which are placed transversely at the front and rear to serve as a limit or stop; The bars can be made of metal or any other resistant material and are anchored from the front to the rear, plus the oars, two sticks or branches of heather or fara that were used to guide the board to where it was desired during the drag.
