BASILICA DE NUESTRA SEÑORA DE LA CANDELARIA TENERIFE

The Basilica of Our Lady of Candelaria is dedicated to the patron saint of the Canary Islands. Profoundly revered, she is always depicted holding the Child in her right arm and a candle in her left hand. Spiritually, her role is as the symbolic bringer of Christian light to the darkness of Guanche life, and so she represents the rightness and justice of the Spanish occupation of the islands.

The legend told by early Spanish settlers, not by the Guanches, was that over a century before the arrival of the first Spanish conquistadores the Guanches found a statue of the Virgin and Child set up in a seaside cave. A multitude of legends claim the statue worked miracles to prevent the Guanches from harming her, and that the overawed Guanches began to worship the figure, which they called Chaxiraxi. In a mix of fact and fancy, it is related that the mencey (chieftain of the Guanches) welcomed the Spanish at this spot, but that the Guanches were already Christians when the conquerors arrived.

The huge modern Basilica de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria (1958), set back from the sea, dominates the small town. Inside, the statue of the Virgin sits enthroned in a glorious gilt setting behind the altar, among devotional murals.

The statue dates from about 1830 what became of the Guanches' Chaxiraxi (which may have looked quite different from today's Virgin) is the stuff of myth. Even before the Spanish arrived in Tenerife, a European living on Fuerteventura is said to have stolen the Guanche statue, but replaced it. Either the original, or its copy, was damaged by fire in 1789 and repaired or replaced. That statue was washed out to sea and lost in 1826, being replaced by the present version a few years later.

In the big sea facing plaza outside stand sturdy, dignified, sad statues, representing the Guanche chiefs who were the rulers of the island before the coming of the Spanish.