Bimbache or Bimbape is the name given to the inhabitants of

El Hierro El Hierro, nicknamed ''Isla del Meridiano'' (the "Meridian Island"), is the second-smallest and farthest-south and -west of the Canary Islands (an autonomous community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a populatio ...

, who inhabited the island before the Spanish conquest of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

that took place between 1402 and 1496. The Bimbache are one of several peoples native to the Canaries, with a genetic and cultural link to the

Berber people , image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber flag, Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , p ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. The Bimbache people shared a common link with other aboriginal peoples of the Canary Islands. The island of El Hierro was known to the Bimbache as Eseró or Heró. The word ''"Bimbache"'' means ''"Sons of the Sons of Tenerife"'', so were believed to be descendants of the

Guanches The Guanches were the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean some west of Africa. It is believed that they may have arrived on the archipelago some time in the first millennium BCE. The Guanches were the only nativ ...

, the ancient inhabitants of the island of

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

Division of aboriginal territory

Unlike the other Canary Islands, El Hierro had no internal territorial divisions.

The Spanish conquest and the Bimbache

The Spanish conquest was carried out in late 1405 by

Jean de Béthencourt Jean de Béthencourt () (1362–1425) was a French explorer who in 1402 led an expedition to the Canary Islands, landing first on the north side of Lanzarote. From there he conquered for Castile the islands of Fuerteventura (1405) and El H ...

, who promised to respect the freedom of the Bimbache, and there was no resistance from the small aboriginal population. This promise was broken by de Béthencourt's son, who sold most of the Bimbache inhabitants as slaves, and the island was repopulated with Spanish and Norman settlers.Historia, El Hierro, Islas Canarias
/ref> Before the arrival of the Castilian and Aragonese crown forces, the population was largely pastoral, raising cattle, goats, sheep and pigs, alongside the cultivation of grain and maritime resources. As there was no merchant trade routes servicing the island, the vessels that brought the inhabitants to the island were destroyed with time, and left a domestic market whose trading system was based on the exchange of local produce. Land and other common resources were managed and distributed equally by collective agreements held during meetings chaired by a mediating king, using a system of participatory democracy where the king was a figure of justice and democratic mediation.

Bimbache mythology

Each island of the Canaries had its own gods, distinct to each island, though the islands shared common concepts in their mythology, such as divine power represented by Nature. The two benign deities in El Hierro were the god Eraorahan and the goddess

Moneiba Moneiba was the protector and tutelary goddess of women on the island of Hierro in the Canary Islands. The god Eranoranhan played the same part for men. She formed part of the mythology of the Bimbache the aboriginal inhabitants of Hierro, who w ...

, with a third malevolent god, Aranfaybo, who was prayed to in times of desperation. The gradual expansion of control by the Crown of Castile and Aragon delegated benefits of both land and commercial production rights to a minority by means of a feudal regime. Additionally, the native religion's symbols of nature were suppressed in order to introduce

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

to the island. Both before and after the incorporation of El Hierro to the Spanish crown, some population of working age were taken from the island to Castile for slave labour, before later regaining the status of human beings, and being returned to the island. Later, the island was also populated by people of French and Galician origin, also under a feudal system by the Crowns of Castile and Aragon.

Genetics

examined the remains of a large number of Bimbache buried at Punta Azul, El Hierro c. 1015-1200 AD. The 16 samples of

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...

extracted belonged to the paternal haplogroups E1a (1 sample), E1b1b1a1 (7 samples) and R1b1a2 (7 samples). All the extracted samples of

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

belonged to the maternal haplogroup H1-1626. E1a is most common in

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

, while E1b1b1a1 is very common in North Africa. R1b1a2 is considered a typical

Europea Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

n lineage, but is also found at low frequencies in North Africa. About 10% of examined

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that co ...

have been found to be carriers of R1b1a2. The dominance of a single maternal lineage (H1-1626) suggested that the Bimbache were a

matrilineal Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...

society. The authors of the study suggested that the Bimbache were descended from the earliest of two or more migration waves from North Africa to the

References

Sources

External links

GuanchesMuseums of Tenerife
{{Culture of Canary Islands Ancient peoples Indigenous peoples of North Africa Berber peoples and tribes History of the Canary Islands Guanche El Hierro