Arguineguín, a toponym designating a town, a ravine, and a mountain in southern Gran Canaria, is much more than a simple geographical name. Its history dates back to pre-Hispanic times, as an important aboriginal settlement that, over time, has evolved from fishing and agriculture to tourism. However, its etymological origin suggests a deep and ancestral connection with the coasts of Africa, specifically Mauritania.
The word Arguineguín is a linguistic puzzle that has baffled historians for centuries. Its transcription in ancient chronicles, such as the 15th-century Le Canarien, shows up to six different variants, proving the difficulty Europeans had in writing names in an unknown language. Despite these variations, oral tradition has preserved the name as we know it today.
Modern etymological explanations, especially from Berber philology, point to a connection with North Africa. Abrahan Louth's theory suggests that Arguineguín is a name composed of three elements: arguin-n-guin. The first component, arguin, would be related to an islet off the Mauritanian coast that is a key fishing enclave for the Canary Islands. The word could also be the plural of argan, the typical tree of the semi-desert regions of southern Morocco. The full meaning of the word could be "the argan trees there," an interpretation also supported by researcher Ahmed Sabir. Given Mogán's fishing tradition and the absence of argan trees on the island, its connection to Arguín Bay seems the most logical.
The history of Arguineguín is full of key moments that connect it to the region's past. The pre-Hispanic settlement, known as El Pajar de Arguineguín, with its cruciform "deep houses," was an important population center. Chronicles even describe it as a "city" or "village," and archaeological excavations have revealed remains of the daily life of its inhabitants.
The connection with Africa is even more evident in historical accounts, such as those collected by Viera y Clavijo, about whaling in 1778, which suggests that whales harpooned off the coast of Arguineguín fled to the Barbary coast. This not only demonstrates the intense relationship between Canarian fishermen and the Saharan bank, but also the existence of a shared ecosystem and culture across the ocean. Thus, beyond physical distance, the name Arguineguín stands as a living testament to Gran Canaria's deep, ancestral relationship with the African continent.
The Dictionary of Guanchisms of the ULPGC by Professor Maximino Trapero says: "Very different is the explanation that Rodríguez-Dincourt (2014) recently gave of the Gran Canarian Arguineguín, saying that it is the result of the composition of the voices of the Tuareg arahar-engi-a-iggin, which together come to mean 'valley where there is running water', and that if it has etymological plausibility with the reality of the Canarian place it would be due to the Arguineguín ravine, the longest on the island, but not the one with the greatest or even special flow of water, because it is located on the south side of the island, although naturally the climatology could have been very different from the current one at the time when this toponym was born."
