The hundreds of foot-shaped engravings that decorate Tindaya have played a key role in the controversy. Their discovery triggered the declaration of the mountain as a Cultural Asset, and yet only preliminary archaeological studies have been funded or allowed by the state. Indeed, the engravings aren’t signalled or protected, and have been vandalised.
Archaeologists and activists argue that the engravings indicate Tindaya’s sacredness for the mahos, and as such it represents one of the most – if not the most – precious indigenous site in Fuerteventura.
Archaeologists and activists argue that the engravings indicate Tindaya’s sacredness for the mahos, and as such it represents one of the most – if not the most – precious indigenous site in Fuerteventura.
The current interpretation of the engravings, and of the pre-colonial practices associated to Tindaya at large, highlights the mountain’s centrality for indigenous life and cosmovision. Archaeologist María Antonia Perera speaks of a sacred mountain that acted as the religious epicentre for the mahos, as evidenced by the sheer concentration of foot-shaped engravings, unseen anywhere else in the archipelago, and the mountain’s distinct and commanding presence in the surrounding landscape. Indeed, this type of engravings are also used by Amazigh populations in Northern Africa to sacralise certain spaces and are interpreted as a collective manifestation linked to ritualistic practices.
In the case of Tindaya, Perera and others1 have argued that the fact that 80% of the engravings point towards the West, more specifically to the Winter solstice’s sunset, which takes place precisely before the rain period starts, may be an indication of a shamanic rain ritual. The remains of bones and other organic matter found at the top of the mountain would support such hypothesis. Maho society was largely dependent on these seasonal rains for survival, and their proto-religious practices are well documented in the historical archive. It may be argued that they had developed a technique aimed at introducing an element of predictability in the cycle of the seasons and the life affordances it brings with it, perhaps taming the insecurities associated to the realm beyond experience.2 These strategies are characterised by an embodied continuity between the social, the environment, the cosmic and the spiritual, where being able to tame the future depends on an understanding of the rhythms and relations within which persons are embedded.3
1. Perera Betancort, María Antonia, Juan Antonio Belmonte, Carmen Esteban Esteban, and Antonio Tejera. ‘Tindaya: un estudio arqueoastronómico de la sociedad prehispánica de Fuerteventura’. Tabona: Revista de prehistoria y de arqueología, no. 9 (1996): 165–96.
2. Adam, Barbara, and Chris Groves. Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden and Boston: BRILL, 2007.
3. ibid.