An Aboriginal Nativity

Better seen large (1024 x 673) or original (2080 x 1368) for the details.

As I mentioned previously, many nativity displays here, somewhat curiously, but all the more interestingly, portray a location in the Canary Islands. At the Hotel La Quinta Roja in Garachico, last year, their nativity was set on the island of La Gomera. This year their nativity is dedicated to the island of El Hierro, the smallest, most southerly and most westerly of the seven Canary Islands.

In AD 150, the Greek geographer Ptolemy thought El Hierro was the end of the world. El Hierro is also known as the Isla del Meridiano (the "Meridian Island"), because, previously in the 17th Century, the Punta de la Orchilla lighthouse, in the district of Frontera, became the site of the prime meridian - Longtitude Zero Meridian - until it was relocated to Greenwich in the 1880s.

The sacred Garoé tree in El HierroIn the nativity display, we see bimbaches (the aboriginal inhabitants of El Hierro) sitting in a circle at the tagoror (aboriginal version of a court of justice); the geologically active island's fresh lava flows; important aboriginal rock engravings; shepherds and goats and, the most recognizable symbol of the island, the Garoé (Ocotea foetens) tree. (The green bit with cotton wool clouds above.)

The particular tree, growing between sheer walls of a gorge, was held sacred by the bimbaches, as it provided them with water from the clouds, condensed from the branches. The original tree (possibly seen by Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese maritime explorer) was uprooted by a hurricane in 1610, but another laurel began growing in the same location in 1957.

And, I nearly forgot ... As you can see in the foreground, of course, baby Jesus was born to bimbache parents, in a cave, not far from the beach in El Hierro.

About the nativity in Spanish: Otro año de nacimiento aborigen

More tree images: Árbol Garoe, El Hierro. Garoe. Arbol Santo. Legendario Árbol Santo del Garoé, Los Árboles como Fuente de Agua (El Garoé de la Isla de Hierro), What's to do in El Hierro?, El Sitio, Frontera, El Hiero.

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