Guanche (Canary Islands)

Guanche
A Canary Islanders List for ‘Hordes of the Things’
by Karl Heinz Ranitzsch and Antonio Santana Alonso

The Canary Islands are an archipelago off the North African coast that most Europeans know only as a holiday resort. They were known to the ancient Phoenicians and Romans and conquered by Spain in the late Middle Ages. Columbus stayed there on his way to the New World. The native inhabitants, the ‘Guanches’ put up a long and bitter struggle against the invaders, although their technology was only at a neolithic level.

Stronghold: ‘Tagoror’ sacred precinct, a sacred cave with decorated entrance or a roughly-built step pyramid (as at Guimar).

Hero general @ 4AP (Chieftain)	1
Cleric @ 3AP (Faican and/or harimaguada)	1
Sneaker @ 3AP (Disguised Guanches)	1
Warband @ 2AP (‘Guayres’ Noble Guanches with javelins and wooden maces)	2
Shooter @ 2AP (Guanches throwing javelins or stones)	4
Beasts @ 2AP (War dogs)	1

Alternatives: Hordes @ 1AP (Undead Mummies), Beasts @ 2AP (‘Tibisena’ hell-hounds)

There are various tales of Guanches who performed impressive feats of arms and could qualify as heroes, for example “Stone-backed” Adargoma, described as very thick, long-nosed Doramas and Maninidra

They are supposed to have had a monotheistic religion. ‘Faicans’ are clerics, ‘Harimaguadas’ are sacred virgins. They mummified their dead.

On one occasion, Guanches hid themselves among a flock of goats, on another they dresesd in captured Spanish clothes to attack an outpost. They were very skilled with wooden javelin and at throwing stones.

In antiquity, the islands were famous for their large dogs. Indeed, the name ‘Canary’ is derived from Latin ‘canis’, dog.

For figures, use Ancient Numidean infantry.

Apart from Conquistadores, appropiate “historical” opposition could be anybody who sailed North African waters in antiquity: Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, West African. The Portuguese and Norman French tried and failed to conquer the Islands before the Spaniards. More fantastic opposition could be Atlanteans – some have claimed that the Canary Islands are the former mountaintops of that lost continent -, an Irish expedtion led by St.Brendan or some Native American army.

Terrain would be very rough, with patches of desert, steep volcanic mountains, and sub-tropical vegetation.