Find the hidden goats at our Coliving space in Tenerife

🐐 Tenerife Before the Spanish Conquest.

Right, you might imagine it was some kind of idyllic island paradise — hammocks between palm trees, everyone sipping piña coladas.

Wrong. There were no piñas. No coladas.

What they actually had were goats. Goats everywhere. If you were Guanche — that’s the name since given them — your life revolved around goats. Eating them, milking them, dressing up in their skins. In fact, goats were basically your Amazon Prime subscription, your IKEA, and your Tesco all rolled into one bleating package.

💀 The Embalming

And then there’s the embalming. Yes, embalming. Because why not? When a Guanche died, they didn’t just pop them in the ground and get on with things. No, they carefully mummified them, wrapped in goat skins. Which, I think we can all agree, is both respectful and slightly creepy.

Imagine if you went round to someone’s house and instead of photos of Nana on the mantelpiece, Nana herself was on the mantelpiece. “Oh don’t mind her, she’s been there since 1473, lovely woman.”

👑 The Menceyes

They also had these tribal kings, called menceyes. Each valley had one. Which sounds very Game of Thrones, except instead of dragons and battleships, it was more like: “I control this ravine, and my 700 goats. You? That ravine, and your goats.” Not quite Westeros, more Goateros.

🌋 Achamán & Guayota

Religion? They believed in a god called Achamán, who lived above the clouds on Mount Teide. Which, let’s be honest, is a much better idea than having your gods lurk under the sea or in some gloomy underworld. He’s on top of a volcano! Very convenient for smiting people. And when the volcano did erupt, they could simply say, “Ah yes, that’s Achamán, in a bit of a mood.” No weather app required.

Now, if you’re going to invent a god — and let’s face it, every civilisation does, it’s practically a hobby — you might as well make him live somewhere dramatic. The Guanches went straight for the volcano. Not just any volcano, but Mount Teide: the third tallest in the world if you measure from the seabed. Which is cheating, by the way, but that’s religion for you.

So Achamán lives up there, surveying the island, presumably tutting whenever someone nicks their neighbour’s goat. He’s the god of sky, earth, water, basically the lot. The full portfolio. And below him, you’ve got Guayota — a sort of underworld demon who lives inside the volcano.

The whole setup is basically: Achamán upstairs, Guayota in the basement, and Tenerife stuck awkwardly in the middle. It’s like living in a block of flats where the landlord is divine but your downstairs neighbour is literally Satan.

And the mythology gets wonderfully specific. Apparently, Guayota once kidnapped the Sun — yes, the Sun — and shoved it into Teide’s crater. Imagine the panic. “Sorry, it’s dark, Guayota’s taken the Sun again, can someone ask Achamán to sort it out?” And Achamán did, heroically, by chucking Guayota back in the volcano and sealing him inside. Which is why, when Teide erupts, it’s not geology — oh no — it’s Guayota trying to get out again.

⚖️ Sensible God…

Compared to the Olympians, who were constantly seducing swans and turning into golden rain, Achamán sounds almost sensible. A stern but fair type. Keeps the Sun in the sky, keeps Guayota locked up, makes sure the goats keep multiplying. I mean, if you were a Guanche herdsman, that’s all you really wanted in a god.

Of course, the Spanish then arrived and said, “Sorry, everyone, wrong god.”. If you’ve lived on an island for centuries with a perfectly good volcano deity, and suddenly some bloke in a hat says: “No, no, the real god is over there, nailed to a bit of wood,” you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d drawn the short straw.