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The
capital of the province is the city of Camagüey, one of the seven first village
founded by Diego Velazques in 1515, with the name of Santa Maria del Puerto
Principe, in the place known as Punta del Guincho, at the west side of the
Nuevitas Bay. The constant pirates' attack obligated to their firsts residents
to move the city in 1516 to the border of the Caonao river, in 1528 the city was
settled finally in the indian place known as Camaguelo Camaguebax, in the center
of the province.
Very soon
it lose this peculiar name and it was named as Puerto Principe, which was losed
too. Today every body call it Camagüey.
Camagüey is known as the Tinajones city. Its first residents were in serious
problems with the absence of water, since its extensive plain is not plentiful
in water sources. However, it rained so much. The problem was how to stock the
precious liquid: Spanish potters settled in the village found the solution to
the problem of stock water.
They made
the now famous tinajones, a kind of vessel to stock water, following the models
of the spanish vessels that came from Spain with wine and oil. They found that
some local clays were easy to mold, resistant and with refractory properties.
With this
clays began the manufacture production of big vessels named as Tinajones to
stock the water. In that way surged the most important ceramic industry in the
country, which maintain its production in the actual days.
Since that time, the Tinajon became an important element in every home in
Camagüey.
It was
located in the most shadow areas, where you can still see them, over the ground
or sunken in the ground to its middle size, but under the channels that collect
the rain water from the roof.
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