What is "guanches"

Guanches (also: Guanchis or Guanchetos) were the Berber aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It is believed that they migrated to the archipelago around 1000 BC or perhaps earlier. While it is generally considered that the Guanches no longer exist as a distinct ethnicity, traces of their culture can still be found intermixed within Canarian customs and traditions, such as Silbo, the whistled language of La Gomera Island. The Guanches were the only native people known to have lived in the Macaronesian region before the arrival of Europeans, as there is no evidence that the Azores, Cape Verde, Madeira and the Savage Islands were inhabited before that time. After the Spanish conquest of the Canaries, they were ethnically and culturally absorbed by Spanish settlers, although elements of their culture survive to this day.