Cultural Encounters "nsd0e4013"

Four— Sorcery and Eroticism in Love Magic

1. The documents in the Archivo Histórico Nacional (hereafter AHN) in Madrid dealing with cases of superstitious practices include sixty-six men and two hundred women. They are incomplete as to the sentences, and in some instances the case record consists merely of a denunciation. According to the investigation that I have carried out--which includes files 82-89 with a total of 113 proceedings, from A through L--the cases can be grouped under the following headings: twenty-eight men were accused of practices related mainly to the search for enchanted treasures which they tried to recuperate through a more or less extensive knowledge of the cabala, derived from "learned magic," although there are also spell-casters (ensalmadores) and curanderos; nineteen women testified before the inquisitors regarding their superstitious practices for healing sick people, generally employing cants and similar ceremonies; another thirty-one women were also accused, however, of performing the evil eye ( mal de ojo ) or curses ( maleficios ), that is, of attempting to make their neighbors ill by means of magical practices; finally, thirty-eight women were tried for performing superstitious practices related to amorous ends, what I have called "love magic" in this essay. To complete the picture, we need to keep in mind the four women considered witches by their neighbors, accused before the Holy Office of this supposed crime. This makes a total of ninety-two women versus the twenty-eight men I have mentioned. According to the previous classification, the four types of superstitious practices in Castile and the rest of Spain are evident: masculine magic, approximating "learned magic" in most of the cases and generally dedicated to the search for enchanted treasures; feminine magic, which emphasizes the woman's connection to evil or to curses (maleficio); the male and female spell-casters (ensalmadores); and the enamored women spoken of in this essay.

2. When I wrote the first version of this study, "love magic" spontaneously suggested itself as a title for these typically feminine manipulations, since I had already employed it in previous lectures. At the time, I was unfamiliar with Professor Noemí Quezada's interesting work, Amor y magia amorosa entre los aztecas (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1984), an ethnological investigation of cants and techniques similar to the Spanish ones. This significant coincidence of titles demonstrates, from my point of view, the pressing need to identify the rich repertory of magical practices accumulated by women continue

in Europe and the Americas during various centuries. It is important to remember Covarrubias's definition of hechizar : "a type of incantation which controls the bewitched person in such a way that his judgment is distorted and he desires what would normally repel him. This occurs through an express or tacit pact with the Devil; and sometimes, or concurrently, he rejects what he rightly desired before, as in the case of enchanting a man so that he rejects his wife and pursues another woman." Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua española, ed. Martín de Riquer (Barcelona: Editorial Alta Fulla, 1987). Covarrubias believes that the term derives from the Latin fascinum: fachizar-hechizar-hechizería.

3. The discussions in which the theory of the "diabolical pact" was formulated by theologians from the Sorbonne, as well as the evolution of ecclesiastical legislation, are found in Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1906; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1966). Refer to vol. 4, chap. 8, "Sorcery and Occult Arts." On the evolution of beliefs surrounding the problem of relations with the devil, see Jeffrey B. Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972).

4. In order to understand the evolution of the Spanish Inquisition on these issues, refer to the indispensable works by Julio Caro Baroja, Las brujas y su mundo (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1961) (Eng. trans., The World of the Witches [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964]), and Gustav Henningsen, The Witch's Advocate (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1982).

5. For a more complete approximation from a formal perspective on the practices of these women, see my La Inquisición y los gitanos (Madrid: Taurus, 1988).

6. The complete versions of these conjurations and cants which I will analyze below are found in La Inquisición y los gitanos . The rites I examine in this essay represent, from my point of view, the "fundamental repertory" familiar to and employed by most of the women dedicated to these practices throughout Spain. The common store or "basic recipe book" deserves to be examined carefully in its entirety.

7. In this essay, I focus only on the phrases and gestures that are erotically or amorously significant. As I pointed out previously, the complete versions are in my book, La Inquisición y los gitanos. The sorceries used to identify a husband or male friend are, in effect, very frequently employed by single women and can be traced to very recent times; see R. Salillas, La fascinación en España (Madrid: E. Arias, 1905), and Julio Caro Baroja, La estación de amor (Madrid: Taurus, 1980). This does not mean, however, that this essay does not comply with its own basic suppositions. The "honest" woman could use love magic during the early stages and reserve the rest of the ritual for more serious situations which we will examine below. We must add to the rites of the beans and the cards that of the egg floating in water taken from a urinal or a wash bowl, which reveals, according to the way the egg floats, whether or not the boyfriend ( novio ) will arrive. This rite usually took place on the night of San Juan, and Caro Baroja has beautifully depicted the almost immediate repercussion of these rites. break

In any case, the theses I have arrived at in this essay seem to be confirmed by the admired late José Antonio Maravall's study in El mundo social de " La Celestina, " 3d ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1972), and by the theories of the Swiss philosopher Denis de Rougemont in L'amour et l'occident (Paris: Plon, 1939).

8. As noted earlier, I am concerned in this essay with what I have denominated the "fundamental repertory." It is necessary to emphasize however, that this "basic recipe book" coincides almost completely with the one compiled by Sebastián Cirac Estopañán in his book Los procesos de hechicerías en la inquisición de Castilla la Nueva (tribunales de Toledo y Cuenca) (Madrid, 1942). The reasons for this "coincidence" are explained in my book La Inquisición . Quoted by Cirac Estopañán, Los procesos, chap. 8, p. 150.

9. The Valencian sorceresses I have alluded to in this essay were tried in 1655 in an auto de fe condemning forty women for the same crime. For the complete study of this auto, see my La Inquisición .

10. AHN, Inquisición, libro 942, fol. 230v. Laura Garrigues's version includes the word martelaço, augmentative of martelo, jealousy or amorous anguish brought on by jealousy. Covarrubias does not record the term, which appears for the first time in the Diccionario de autoridades . It is interesting to note that the word appears to have a learned origin. The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (1980 ed.) states that it is derived from the Latin martillus . The Espasa encyclopedia attributes an Italian origin, since the same term appears with the same meaning in that language as well ( Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeoamericana, vol. 33, [Barcelona: Espasa, n.d.]). This dictionary notes the meaning of dar martelo as equivalent to "to provoke jealousy."

The sorceresses, therefore, employ a learned term which Covarrubias did not consider to be worth recording; it has survived in modern Spanish in the term estar amartelado as synonymous with "to be in love." Laura Garrigues spoke of martelaço in the conjuration of the wicks and said martillaço in the conjuration of the palms because of its relation to the nail, which also desired the lover: "[Man's name], I send you this nail, I strike you with this hammer" [Fulano, te envío este clavo, te doy este martillaço], AHN, Inq., lib. 942, fol. 230v.

11. Doña Juana de la Paz, from the group of sorceresses tried in 1655, said, "[Man's name], I send you this shooting pain / I extend your life / and I shorten your steps" [Fulano, yo te envío este ramalaço / y te alargo la vida / y te acorto el paso]. She made the sign of the cross and said, ergo sum . At the end of the conjuration one should swallow saliva and strike the left palm three times with a closed fist. Esperanza Badía, also from the same group, recalled the conjurations utilizing fire with her formulas: "May the fire of love burn you, let the fire of love be consumed as Christ was crucified" [Fuego de amor te abrase, fuego de amor sea abrasado así como el Cristo fue crucificado]. There are many variations that depend on the sorceresses' imaginations, as they try to expand and enrich a frequently repeated augury.

12. Quoted in Cirac Estopañán, Los procesos, chap. 8, p. 126.

13. AHN, Inq., lib. 942, fol. 27v.

14. Ibid., fol. 60v. break

15. Ibid., fol. 282.

13. AHN, Inq., lib. 942, fol. 27v.

14. Ibid., fol. 60v. break

15. Ibid., fol. 282.

13. AHN, Inq., lib. 942, fol. 27v.

14. Ibid., fol. 60v. break

15. Ibid., fol. 282.

16. Quoted in Cirac Estopañán, Los procesos, chap. 8.

17. The exclusive use of the spoken word in this group of cants and conjurations led me to denominate this group "the power of the word" in my aforementioned book as a means of emphasizing the persuasive power of these women.

18. Prudencia Grillos's trial can be found in the AHN, Inq., legajo 87, numero 20 (1571). I referred to this woman in my essay "La mujer en el Antiguo Régimen: Tipos históricos y arquetipos literarios," in La mujer y la inquisición en la perspectiva inquisitorial (Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 1988).

19. This was the case with María Ruiz, processed for bigamy, who fled from her husband for this reason. See my essay, "La mujer en el Antiguo Régimen."

20. AHN, Inq., lib. 942, fol. 55r.

21. Quoted in Cirac Estopañán, Los procesos, chap. 8.

22. AHN, Inq., lib. 942, fol. 56v.

23. Quoted in Cirac Estopañán, Los procesos, chap. 8.