I am very interested in any research anyone may have or know about concerning the arms, armour and tactics of the people who inhabited the Canary Isles before the arrival of the Spanish. They were called Guanches and could field armies of some quite considerable size,. They managed to see off the initial Spanish assaults on the isles.
Any help gratefully received.
Adrian
There's one Guanche warrior in a colour plate in the Osprey Portuguese the Age of Discovery. And there's an old Slingshot article (short series?) - ah, I've just seen I mentioned that when you asked on dbmmlist.
Edit: Oh yes, this book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Before-Columbus-Exploration-Colonisation-Mediterranean/dp/0812214129/) is valuable on the colonisation of the Canaries.
Thank you very much Duncan, another book to add to the pile!
I forgot about the Slingshot article, do you remember what volume it was in so I can seek it out please?
No ... and I can't find it in the pdf index from soa.org.uk. Maybe it was Arquebusier, not Slingshot?
I found this while Googling about
https://archive.org/details/historyofdiscove00abre (https://archive.org/details/historyofdiscove00abre)
18th century but does have description of appearance of Guanches, weapons, customs etc.
I lied, it is in the Index after all, I just didn't search for enough terms -
Medieval Colonial Wars - The Canary Islands (128/3-7, David Sweet; comments 132/17-18, 133/40, Karl Heinz Ranitzsch)
Thank you very much for these finds Anthony and Duncan, much appreciated :)
Found this
http://encyclopedieberbere.revues.org/2046 (http://encyclopedieberbere.revues.org/2046)
which shows Guanche weapons (and if you scroll right down, 16th century pictures of Guanches).
Guanche re-enactment seems to be popular, if images on internet are anything to go by :)
Thank you to everyone who has given me much meat on what was at first appearance a very skinny bone! :D