The Chronicle of a People

The island was populated by the gomeros or gomeritas, indigenous to the island. Several traditions are preserved from them, but the most famous is the language of the silbos (or silbo gomero), a form of communication to overcome the limitations of the rugged terrain. The gomeros were a "maverick" and "rebellious" people that rose up every time there was an outrage or injustice towards their people. Its modern history begins with its conquest by the Crown of Castile. The conquerors found La Gomera divided into 4 kingdoms called Mulagua, Hipalan, Orone and Agana, equivalent to the Hermigua, San Sebastián, Valle Gran Rey and Vallehermoso valleys (in this order) The Hermigua coastline hides a lot of history, such as that of Juan Rejón, the first conqueror of Gran Canaria, who arrived in these waters in the 15th century, fleeing a storm when he was on his way to conquer La Palma. Rejón anchored his ships in the bay of Hermigua and prepared to rest on the Playa de Santa Catalina, but he was killed by the emissaries of the local tyrant, Hernán Peraza, by old personal feuds.

The first nucleus of population of Hermigua was that of Valle Alto, with the Church of Santo Domingo and the Convent of the same name, built between 1515 and 1520. The creation of the nucleus of Valle Bajo was later, raising the church of Nuestra Señora de La Incarnation in 1650 Due to the wine crisis in the 18th century, the economy is seriously affected, increasing emigration, and therefore, a decrease in the number of inhabitants occurs. At the end of the 19th century, agricultural production in La Gomera changed again, it goes from non-perishable products, easily storable like mealybug, to other perishables like banana and tomato At the beginning of the 20th century, a series of works were carried out in the valley to bring water to all crops, characterized above all by plantains. The area of El Peñón on the Hermigua coast was built El Pescante, an engineering work where its concrete columns are still preserved, being an indispensable part of the municipality's economic, agricultural, social, demographic and industrial development, marking an important milestone in the socioeconomic history of the valley.

The creators of this particular language were the first settlers on the island of La Gomera. It was all an indispensable tool for the shepherds who were far from each other and in turn from the villages. Despite the fact that after the conquest of the aboriginal language, Guanche, it was disappearing and only some words remained, the whistle adapted to the language of the conquerors, the Castilian of the sixteenth century. La Gomera, has physical and geographical characteristics that distinguish it from the other islands, and therefore the impact of the whistle on the island can be understood, and the factors that helped make it possible, such as the orography of the island with mountains and ravines. At the beginning of the 20th century it was on the verge of disappearance, there were dozens of people who used the whistle, due to the less and less frequent grazing activities and the development of telecommunications. It was then when the Government of the Canary Islands introduced the teaching of the rubber whistle in the curricula in schools and was recognized as the ethnographic heritage of the Canary Islands (1999) and Unesco proclaimed it as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.