Bernegal

Bernegal canary of anonymous author, made in the neighborhood of El Cercado, the most important locero center of the entire island of La Gomera.

The bernegal is a term with two meanings, both referring to a drinking container: either a wide-mouthed cup with a slightly wavy edge, or a large vessel or small jar, which it receives the distilled water through a filter. It is accepted as a valid etymology: from the Arabic berniya, clay or crystal glass.

In the context of Spanish and Venezuelan pottery, bernegales are typical pieces of primitive Canarian locería. Like almost all the ceramics in the Canary Islands, they were made by women, the traditional loceras, artisans who preserved ancestral ceramic methods and forms for several centuries.

The canary bernegal varies greatly in its appearance depending on the origin of production, and even in the same pot center it presents different forms: in the Tenerife town of La Victoria de Acentejo, the bernegal did not have a lid but did have very simple ornamental incisions; those of Chipude, in La Gomera, used to be complemented by a small gánigo to draw water. On the island of Gran Canaria, in the troglodyte neighborhood of La Atalaya in Santa Brígida (Gran Canaria), some models were adorned with four handles or simple linear decorations. The largest bernegales can have about ten liters of capacity.