The Gomero landscape is humanized. The man from La Gomera fought against the inclination of the land, he converted, after a titanic struggle, the slopes of the hillsides into horizontal terraces to support the land and be able to cultivate. Colossal stone walls were built throughout the island, creating a landscape shaped by stone and man. That is not easy at all, although it may seem to us that these raised stone walls are something very simple, not at all, they require an entire work of engineering, a knowledge of the stone, where to strike, how to place it so that These walls last 50, 60 or 100 years and are still standing there. This stone is the one we are placing. So, let's see if this stone is threaded. It's a little outside, you have to put it inside. Then we take the barge and hit it like this, hitting the stone inside. Then, we take, now this is outside, this part is outside, we take the mandarria, we leave the bar, this is called the mace, and we cut here. We leave this piece and take this hammer to cut this peak, this thing that is here. Fitted with each other. This stone can step on both. This one is stepping on only one, but this one is stepping on both. And this one, stepping on two, and this one picks up this one and this one, they cross each other. Here we have another counter corner. This. It also can't go higher than this. Because?. Because then it doesn't settle this one, the next one. It has to be lower than this or level. So, this is rubble. Ripios means so that there are no gaps, we take and put this like this, so that the wall is protected. Before, houses were made from stone because there were no blocks, so you had to work with stone, stone was something that you had at hand for everything, to make the walls, to make the farms, to make a block, to make a house, everything was stone, stone, only stone. You had the stone here for everything. The quarry, you had a quarry and if not, well you had to build a house and if you didn't have stone on your property you had to take care of the neighbor, if he had a quarry to let you get the stone, to supply the house. So, they were caught and carried with cows dragging, walking, on a doe, a doe is called a piece of wood that has two hooks, you cut it in front so that it doesn't get stuck on the ground, you stick a stone on it there and drag it to the home. The first thing to do when making a wall is to open the foundation, which is the first plants to be placed. There is a large drawer, a large base, depending on the height of the wall. If the wall is five meters, you give it three meters of base below, or it is six meters, you give it three meters of base below. Depending on the terrain, it has to be the walls. The sloped terrain has to use large and deep stone down, lower it quite a bit. What's happening? That on even, flat terrain, the walls are lower and the foundation is not so low either and you can work with smaller stone, but on sloped terrain you have to work with large stone and depth downwards. The crew is seven men working here on the wall, on the top, lifting, so there is a master stonemason and a servant, one who serves stones to him. Help him carve stone, help him bring artungo closer, help him fit, because you have to fit. You lift and he fits, fits firmly and that's it. While you are placing that stone, the laborer is bringing you the other one and has it already half-cut for you. This is another wall that we are going to start making. We had to open it, throw it over here, stuffed. And now, here, since we already have some stones here that have already made the pavement, that we cannot continue down below, and here we can make a wall, we can plant the wall, we are going to start to implement it. Always at the same level as those who come and those who stay, to carry them with each other. Fit it well so that it does not fall backwards. The filler that is pushed back should never be on top of the wall or the stone that is placed. It has to be more or less even with the wall. José Gabriel Clemente is a master stonemason and has been commissioned to restore a wall that fell in Hermigua due to heavy rains. At the base of the wall Gabriel continued with the orderly placement of stones until reaching a considerable height. The stone has to remain seated, sitting here in front, well seated so that the wall does not turn again, well wedged back here so that the stone does not move, because if it is mounted and not wedged, the stone can fall. backwards or forwards. If she is not sitting. Let's place it. Let's put it on. We are going to shod it so that it is well shod. We put the filler back here at the base, to make the base, from back to front, so that the wall does not have a lot of soil nearby, because it goes away again, and having the filler here, you can't go the wall. I have the bed of the stone, which goes down, in the lower part. There. And this is the receipt. Then, the stone is put on, the shoes are put on. And here, for him to receive, I have to sting him here a little more. To be able to later put another stone on top. It's very far out and you have to hit it a little with the hammer. We are going to fit the stone, and this one, and this one. The stone doesn't go there either in or out. From this height we already match with what is there, to the right. Then we have the little piece that is lower, to block the wall in the old, in what fell, in the part that remained. After a few hours, the wall has reached sufficient height and the master stonemason proceeds to raise the lining, which is the completion of the wall that will store and hold the fertile land for cultivation. We are leveling the wall. We are already at the top, leveling it. We have to look for the stones for that, to level it. Let them be flat on top so that this is very even. How are you doing. And then throw a little bit of dirt back, throw the dirt back. We're throwing the dirt at the wall, now. And at least I want it like this in case there's any leftovers that roll to the back of the wall. We are going to finish adding the earth to the wall, to start leveling it now. A wall like this never goes away in life, whatever happens can happen, because it is blocked stone with stone and without plaster, just stone with stone. It never leaves. It doesn't matter what load you put on it. Because it has a very large stone base and placed, well seated, this does not go away. Some of these walls had stairs built with stones protruding from the wall itself, which facilitated access from one terrace to another. Manuel Raya is the master wall maker of the Escuela Taller de Vallehermoso, who, with a team of people, is in charge of restoring the walls of the town. A normal day is to say, well today we are going to go that way to build a wall. Let's make a wall. We arrive, our colleagues come to an agreement and so on, some of us start to carve the stone and others to lay it. And if we see something that needs to be corrected, we correct each other. Always checking how the rules are, how the thread is and so on, to correct it. If there were people for that, some of us would fit them, others would put them in, but if not, the same person who put them in had to fit them. Notching them is called doing what Guillermo is doing. It is not the same for me to get there and take the stone from there and place it, as it is to have to notch it. So that is to say, it is a work that is advanced, because the carver, the one who carves the stone, knows how to set it. Well, it has changed a lot in the sense that previously people worked in a rough way. Today, the machines arrive, they put the stone there, they put the cement and everything, and the work moves forward further. It is not the same. Because where two workers are employed today, previously it was necessary to have five. In La Gomera, starting in the second half of the 20th century, stone seemed to experience a slow decline, when cement and iron slowly but inexorably replaced its dominance. It seemed that with the new times, the stone symbolized the primitive, what emanated from nature. He sank into ignorance, when it was not hidden, dissimulated. There is an old romance in La Gomera that said: Who has seen in El Cercado, a house of reinforced concrete? This means that the stone has been relegated to the background. but we are living Little by little, we are seeing a resurgence of the stone. We once again see how walls are made with dry stone, we once again see houses that are made of stone, and above all, the work of rough or tuff is acquiring more and more importance, a much more delicate work. Today, stone seems to resurface again, it once again covers the walls of homes, impressive cliffs rise again on the roads, the masters who work with it are valued for their work. Many things have changed on the island but the stone appears unchanged, present in the life of the Gomero. I am Eugenio Monesma, director and producer of the documentary you just watched. If you liked it, I encourage you to subscribe by activating notifications from the bell and so you can enjoy the hundreds of documentaries that I already have on the channel and those that I publish weekly. I'm going to go up.
