Page 386 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

386 from Italy to the Canary Islands

both kingdoms had coalesced to drive Malocello out of the island.
For the analysis of subsequent events, essential is the work Majos. La
primitiva población de Lanzarote by José C. Cabrera Pérez, Antonia Per-
era Betancor, and Antonio Tejera Gaspar, published by Fundación César
Manrique, Madrid, 1999, which claims that the Franco-Normans Jean de
Béthencourt and Gadifer de La Salle landed on the beach of Papagayo,
which two Majos interpreters (named Alfonso and Isabel) had recom-
mended as an excellent anchoring place. The Majos had apparently been
bought as slaves in Seville and were nephews of the aforementioned Af-
che, an authoritative personality in Lanzarote.
Where they landed, the Franco-Normans built a tower that was later
called “Rubicon”.
Actually, the Majos were none too happy about the arrival of foreign-
ers on their territory, as they had suffered several depredations by pirates,
including a devastating one in 1393. Cioranescu, in le Canarien text G,
4, 1980:19, states that as a result of a formal treaty between natives and
Franco-Normans, the latter committed themselves to the military defense
of the island in exchange for the opportunity to build a castle in the place
now called “Rubicon”. This settlement would turn into a real village with
houses, wells, factories, and a church, and would eventually become the
city of San Marcial de Rubicon.
The aforementioned work Majos. La primitiva población de Lanzarote
(pages 302 and following) states that with time the indigenous and Euro-
pean cultures blended together; a tomb was found in the field of “Los Ro-
feros del Castillo”, where the deceased was laid on its back and decorated
with fragments of pottery and shells of molluscs as well as a necklace
of glass paste joined by metal wire. The absence of metals in Lanzarote
would imply religious syncretism.
Again Cioranescu (le Canarien, text b, ch. XLVI, 1980:134) states
that, “In the year 1405, on Thursday 25 February, before the carnival, Gua-
darfia, the pagan king of the island of Lanzarote, asked to be baptized by
Mons. de Béthencourt. Guadarfia was baptized along with his whole fam-
ily on the first day of Lent by Mr Juan Le Terrier, Mons. de Béthencourt’s
chaplain, and was named Mr Luis”. The king’s conversion led to the sub-
sequent conversion to Christianity of all his subjects, so that religion was
instrumental in the European culture replacing the indigenous one.
Again according to Cioranescu, the Franco-Normans organized “in-
struction or catechism” for the natives in order to convert such “barbarous