The Addarui struggle as the true origin of what is seen today in the terreros

The book History of the Canarian struggle, children’s version (2019) confirmed this in its pages, in addition to finding the reason and causes of the changes in the way of fighting after the conquest. A new investigation completed recently has fully corroborated this.

The Berbers, as the Romans called them because they did not know Latin, were a people who, in the Neolithic, dedicated themselves to hunting and lived in northern Asia. In fact, their language is Afro-Asiatic. They went down to the south of the continent and branched out. A large part turned to the right and occupied North Africa, from Egypt to the Canary Islands, and a few marched in the opposite direction, through South Asia. They went from being hunters to shepherds on their pilgrimage and have remained that way over the years. This is one of the different theories of the Berber origin since depending on whether it is Europeans or their own historians who tell it, the hypotheses diverge.

They arrived in the Canary Islands in several waves. It is still being decided whether it was forced or voluntary, although the fact that they did not have knowledge in the art of navigation leads to doubts in the investigations. One of the Western theories is that they were abandoned here by the Romans, as they were tribes that faced the power of Rome. This vision has the but that, on each island, there was a different tribe, with a different language, there are up to 33 among the Libyan Berber or Imaziguen ethnic group, as they have been called since 1950, which means free men.

For own will?

The French researcher and historian, specialist in Africa, Jean Paul Canamas, in his essay on the settlement of the Canary Islands, has another hypothesis: uOnce Juba II, king of Mauritania, discovered the islands and made an inspection of them to extend his dominions, with the permission of Rome, since he was married to Cleopatra’s sister, he would take, voluntarily and with his ships of warsince they were great navigators and across the Atlantic, to the different islands, families, seeds and animals to populate them and establish their physical dominance over them.

It does seem true that, at least on one occasion, the Romans left a group of Berbers here punished, possibly in La Gomera and with their tongues cut off, as a way that some European researchers have of explaining the Gomero whistle, when it is already known. that the whistle was somewhat more common on other islands, although it only prevailed on the Columbian Island and somewhat in El Hierro, but throughout the western province and in Gran Canaria, the whistle was used as a means of communication.

Canamas goes so far as to write: “Why exile rebel tribes so far away, mobilizing large resources, when the kings of Mauritania or the Romans could move them through territories that they controlled perfectly? If you wanted to isolate them, there were no shortage of desert islands in the Mediterranean within reach. “It was not necessary to undertake a long and expensive expedition of 1,500 to 2,000 km in the Atlantic to do it.”

The theories and hypotheses are there, but what is proven is that the fight that these tribes practiced was divided into the Addarui and the Maabza Aljeld. The second was carried out on a cow skin and consisted of one of the fighters having to remove the other from it, but there is no evidence that it was practiced in the Canary Islands. On the contrarythe addarui is the true origin of Canarian wrestling, which took place in pre-Hispanic times and it is enough to compare them in more depth to reach that conclusion without any doubt.

Addauri

If the addarui fight is analyzed, it is observed that it was practiced, fundamentally, for the holidays, although it could also be carried out for a challenge, for the honor of a family or to settle a dispute. The fight took place in a circular sand arena and the fighters, before entering it, threw sand into the sky. The fight was hand-to-hand and they only had their parts covered as clothing, in addition to going barefoot. The winners were recognized in the tribe and achieved social prestige. The way to fight consisted of knocking down the opponent with some technique and immobilizing him on the ground. They trained by running between stones so that when the cracks formed, they could stay on their feet better. This ancestral struggle would, over the years, be the mother of many types of struggles in the world.

In the journey of the Berbers, since they came down from the north to the south of Asia and followed different paths, it can be found that in the places where they passed there are currently similar struggles that suggest that this struggle is the beginning, the origin, the less in those geographical areas, only with the normal small changes, due to human evolution.

The Mongolian Bokh struggle, the Korean Ssirum, the Pakistani Indian Kushti, the Turkish Yaris gures; the Egyptian The Senegalese Lamb, the Moorish wrestling, the Leonese wrestling, the Portuguese Galhofa and the Canarian wrestling have their origins in the Addarui wrestling.

That is the great conclusion of the latest research, and for this it is enough to comparer what these fights were like in the Middle Ages with the addarui fight and see that, except for small details, fundamentally when the grab ends, It is practically the same and it was also fought for the same reasons.

Canary Islands

All the reasons that led to practicing Canarian wrestling are the same ones for which they fought in Addarui wrestling. And the way they fought, too, they even trained a lot physically. The islanders contributed two details over time. Firstcompleted the way of fighting with three flint stones in the left hand, as Torriani indicated at the end of the 16th century. The most logical cause of this circumstance is that the indigenous islanders had an aversion to blood, not in vain butchers were the most detested and reviled profession, considering them second-class citizens, who also could not enter homes. The stones were used to scratch and thereby cause a little blood to emanate and, thus, in some way inhibit or intimidate the opponent.

The second added detail was putting fat on the body, in those years it was a form of butter, so that the opponent would have problems in the grip. This is not Berber, but several similar fights also did it, such as the Senegalese Lamb or the Turkish fight, at least in the Middle Ages, as corroborated by the Games of Aben Humeya in Purchena, before the expulsion of the Moriscos, organizing a kind of Olympics in which there was wrestling, among other tests. The Ottomans who participated anointed their bodies with fat for the same reason, but it is not mentioned that the Moors also did so.

Later, with the conquest of the Canary Islands, neither the clergy nor the nobles wanted the indigenous people to fight as they did, nor to keep their customs, and they tried to make it disappear.

Despite this, Alonso Fernández communicated to the troops of all the islands, at the end of the 15th century, that they could engage in friendly fights with the natives, with the aim of smoothing out differences and gaining their trust.

For its development, an agreement had to be reached on the rules and for this reason, although in the first ones the Canaries were naked, with only a loincloth, in a short time and for religious reasons, they were forced to be dressed, at least with a shirt and pants. The three flint stones from their left hands were also removed. The most important thing was the way to end the fight.

The greater number of Moorish Berbers in the ranks of the conquerors determined that, with the fall, the fight ended, as one fights in the Moorish, once one touches the sand with a part of the body other than the feet. These circumstances are also confirmed in 1527, in the fight for the birth of Philip II, held in La Laguna.

The struggle continued to develop thanks to the peasants, since they established themselves for the festivals and, although the arrival of money in 1852, the first proven fight to datein which the fighters were paid and the public would reward them with money for their performance.

Here they were divided into amateur wrestlers, who competed in town festivals, and professionals, who normally did so in circuses, theaters or closed venues in which an entrance fee was charged and the wrestlers received financial compensation, sometimes also coinciding with the great festivals in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and La Laguna.

In 1943, the first Canarian Wrestling Federation was established, based in Tenerife, although dependent on the Spanish Federation and the rules changed, as teams of twelve wrestlers were formed, the judges were eliminated by the referees and the different holds that existed in each island, an attempt was made to unify, choosing the hand below, that of the place where the federation was established and these are the rules that prevail, with the normal changes over the years, until today.