Presa Canario. The name of Canaria

The Presa Canario Dog: It's true origin
   Manuel Curtó Gracia
La Laguna - Tenerife
1991

The name of Canaria

Very frequently we heard from the lips of improvised historians that in the Canary Islands are dogs (many and large) from remote times, and that from them come the name of Canaria. One, to tell you the truth, does not have been to the margin of such mistake, due that was what I had heard say.

Years ago (1976-77), I wrote some articles in which I spoke about the bardinos (brindles) dogs, whose origin go back to several thousands years of antiquity. In those days, bardinos, verdinos, or presas, for the immense majority of people were a same thing, all them authentic canary dogs. Soon, with time one begun to clarify itself between that diversity of names to talk about the canary dogs, no matter they provenience. To the historians the subject of the dogs are to them marginal and inconsequential. What interest them is the people, their lineages, their commercial or warrior activities, etc. Due that, the common canary citizen, ignore everything, or almost everything, of the canary dogs, prehistoric and historical, and thus they follow speaking of verdinos or bardinos to talk about the dogs of presa (griping dogs) or Majoreros (livestock guardian dog of Fuerteventura Island) as the same thing.

And all of them, they suppose (and insist on that), descend from the pre-Hispanic dogs, that raised with care the natural ones of these islands before the conquest. In Book IV, T.I, edition 1ª, year 1975, of the “General History of the Canary Islands, by Agustín Millares Torres, page 176, we read "Pliny and Estacio Ceboso were the first who called it thus, Canary, making derive the name from the large dogs that in her were at the time of the famous expedition of Juba, and from whose animals took two to the king of Mauritania.

This etymology, accepted by all the authors that later commented that trip, has found serious impugners. Doubtless is that in Canary there were not dogs of extraordinary corpulence, because the chaplains and historiographers of Bethencourt, when describing this island, say specifically: "There are in her wild pigs, goats and ewes and dogs that seem wolves, although are smaller". In Book II, page134 we read: "It has been much discussion in inquiry the true correspondence between the names that the envoys of Juba gave to the different islands and those that have today, dissertation that, although is peculiar, does not involve that great historical importance that later was given by some of our chroniclers.

Unquestionable is that the two main islands are designated by the names of Canaria and Nivaria, important circumstance that dissipate all suspicion of falsification and it does not allow doubts respect to the exactitude of the narration of Pliny.

It can be assured, however, that the news gathered by Juba and transmitted to us by Estacio Seboso and Pliny have arrived truncated and without the accurate correlation and connection, or by deficiency of unfaithful copyist or ignorance of their commentators". And it follows: "In reference to the Fortunate Islands, Pliny quote Estacio before Juba, which could induce us in a mistake due his source on the data that provides us, very doubtful by the way.

Someone pretend that Seboso obtained those news during a trip that he did to Cadiz, without knowledge about the relation of Juba; but we think more plausible than he consulted the work of this one and that he added what could find out between the gaditans sailors". "The arbitrary positioning that Pliny gives to the islands and the repetitions that he uses in his story are vehement indications that he speaks reminding, or trying to remember what he has read many years before. Confusion that also is notice in the distances and the note whereupon conclude relative to the salubrity of the climate -giving by cause the rotting of the corpses that the sea throws to beaches -, it also proves us that is precise to admit with certain reservations his observations ".

And in page 135, where the author speaks of the historians and geographers say: "Or we have seen that Juba, philosopher and naturalist in the universal meaning that then was given to this word, was the first that obtained the more exact news on this Archipelago, being evident that from his famous exploration, took these islands the name of Canary Islands, by the dogs "ingentis magnitudinis of which speaks Pliny, or by other different causes according to what others believe with better criterion".
Now we return to Book IV, T.I, page176, where we read: "Considering this one and other judicious observations, they have appeared some new etymology that we are briefly going to expose. Assures Pliny that, in the western slopes of the Atlas, exist populations called Canarian, perhaps by that cause, called Ptolemy to the Cape Bojador Extreme Caunaria. But, come these names from which primitively was given to the Canary Island, or on the contrary was the island that lent its name to those populations and the African promontory?

In any case, this peculiar identity must not be forgotten, by the correlation that to each other keeps both designations.

Suppose others that the Euforbio Canariense, bitter cane of the Latin and know by Juba- that wrote a work on this vegetable, giving him that name like memory to his doctor Euforbio -, were the one that lent its denomination to the Gran Canaria, making derive it from canna.

Thomas Nichols, that wrote in 1525, gives by plausible this hypothesis, and add: "I have heard say to its old inhabitants that were call thus (Canaria), by certain cane of four phases that grows in abundance in the country, of which a milk is extracted that is a very dangerous poison". And in page 177 he says: "the island of Canary was named by its primitive inhabitants Tamarán or Tamerán, which seems means in their language “country of braves".

"Presa Canario" puppy from Gran Canaria Island. 1973.
      Photo from archives of Clemente Reyes Santana.