Free thinking women, oh my!

This week we explored beatas,  unofficial nuns who were still very religious and devoted to the Catholic church. These nuns were not officially recognized by the church but lived in convents and did about everything an official nun did. The Inquisition was often on the watch for nuns like this for signs of heresy because of the fact that they did not go through the same things like women who became official nuns. We looked at two cases recently of two beatas who got in trouble with the church and had a run in with the inquisition. The first of these was a beata by the name of Marina de San Miguel who was arrested by the Inquisition in November and question for 4 months before “released”.  The Inquisition brought people in “arresting them” and they held them in captivity for an unset period of time, then for a week or so they would bring the person in or questioning asking northing but open ended questions. Since the person doesn’t know why they were arrested it makes them think of anything they could possibly have been arrested for and they’ll confess all sorts of things. Marina confessed of a conversation wit ha man about whether or not Satan exists, something that could be considered heresy but the Inquisition sent her back to think some more. As the weeks dragged on her confessions got weirder and she confessed to masturbating to an image of God, having a relationship 20 years ago with her nephew, and a couple other random things to try and figure out why she was being held. This tactic used by the Inquisition was very effective in weeding out heretics or getting information on other people if the person they had presently wasn’t one.

The next case was of the beata in the movie we watched whose love for knowledge and free thinking began to get her in trouble with the church. She had a ton of books and poems she had written and tons of artifacts around her room but free thinking people and especially women were seen as dangerous in the eyes of the church. This didn’t help with the fact that the Archbishop actually hated women and thought they had a certain role within the church and this further got Juana in trouble when she spoke out against him. Although she had gained some respect from the Vice Roy and his wife and a few others that did not stop the Church from condemning her and to try and force her back into the path of God.

The point of all this is that beatas were dangerous women because they were unofficial nuns who had access to the same education official nuns did but were targeted more  for not taking the same steps.

Catholic Church in Latin America

The church has always been a big institution within any modern society and often where many go for moral direction. It’s no surprise that when any of the European powers conquered others lands that it was done with some religious intentions. Taking territory for the King was important but it was also very important to spread the word of God to these conquered people. Spain would conquer indigenous people with their army but they would also send missionaries with them to try and convert those there and show them the Bible. It was no easy task to get people to convert to Christianity when another religion or practice was in place before for decades or centuries. The priests would have to adapt their teachings to those of the indigenous people first and in time get Christianity to take over. Once towns and homes and churches were built, converting could take full swing and in time the Spanish did get the natives to practice Christianity. But still traces of the natives old religion was placed within the churches by painting some of their gods or people in the churches on the walls. Sometimes paintings that were done by the natives often blended Jesus and the natives together like one such painting done that depicted Jesus as a child Inca King. This is odd mostly because when people think of Jesus as a kid they view him as a baby with Mary and not as a seven year old and never as a king in the monarch version. The church was often seen as a financial institution that was used to fund missionaries and pulled money from real estate and loans  and dowries in terms of women who became nuns. Women often became nuns in Latin America because it was a way for the church to gain money and then those families were given a kind of blessing from the church. Not only could the family gain something from this but also becoming a nun was the best way for a woman to get an education.

I’ve seen a few instances when the church would send out missionaries to foreign countries to try and spread Christianity. Japan was a place where it worked a little bit but mostly failed because the Japanese were mostly just using them for their guns and when the priests tried to spread it to the common people it all ended. They were kicked out of Japan and the ones who tried to get in after that could be killed. Luckily for the Spanish they had their army in Latin America with them.

She’s a Witch!

1) Ruth Behar, Lots of confessions and accounts to the courts.

a) Women are generally subordinate to men in the public sphere and any power a woman gains is considered to be negative to society or “pollution”. b) Spain was different than other countries in Europe when it came to Witchcraft. While other countries carried out witch hunts mostly targeting women, Spain had bigger heretics to deal with such as Islam and Judaism and did not have mass movements to take down “witches”. The Spanish religious elites considered witchcraft as more of stupidity and not heresy.

c) Indians, Mulattas and Mestizas seemed to be the ones most accused of witchcraft

d) Sexual witchcraft and kinds that made their men submissive to them

e) Women mostly used witchcraft to gain some kind of power over men.

2) Irene Silverblatt, first hand accounts from letters.

a)  Women were seen as the inferiors in society and had no voice in politics or church and women could not own property. According to the church this made women dangerous and most likely to use evil ways to get what they wanted.

b) Witchcraft was tied to demonic acts of the Devil and black magic and this was seen mostly done by poor and old women in the Andes.

c) The devil began to take on many forms to the indigenous people of the Andes and eventually appearing as a Spaniard and things that did not mirror the image the Europeans had for the devil.

3) Guaman Poma, 1992

a) Magic that made people fall in love or punished thieves for stealing crops and ones that punished parents for having twins, a cleft-nosed baby or if the baby was born feet first. And also magic used to cure injuries or diseases.

b) Magicians or high Priests of the Incan society

c) These acts don’t seem to be done just by women and aren’t really about control but more about helping others or punishing those who have done bad deeds. every now and then these practices were used to abuse others.

4) Michaela de Molina, 1696

a) Michaela to me seems to be just a candy seller who happened to get into a fight with the neighbor Maria and Maria got sick from the pregnancy but it also seems like she or someone else used witchcraft on her for some reason. The mistress and niece seemed kind of mean towards Michaela because of her friends.

b) Michaela was charged with using witchcraft on Maria because of the fight they had over the man and the witnesses only claimed that she was a witch because of the fight and the friends that she had one being a person who had already been accused of being a witch before.

c) I think maybe that Teresa might have used witchcraft on Maria in order to get back at her for fighting with Michaela.

Homosexuality in Latin America

This past week we talked about homosexuality in early Latin America and exactly how the issue was dealt with by the local authorities. During the Spanish conquests the soldiers were told to look for unusual sexual practices so there would be some kind of justification for the conquer. Immoral natives were mistreated often and the women generally raped by the soldiers. Long after the conquests the local neighborhoods had established a kind of neighborhood watch that would go around the towns, these people were referred to as “Alcalde Del Barrio”. The job of these individuals was to specifically look for anything illegal that the townspeople might be engaging in. Often times they would search the house of certain people based on a suspicion from another towns person that they were conducting immoral acts. We went over a few cases in class of a few individuals who were under the suspicion of having a same-sex relationship with each other. In both of the cases it seemed that a lot of the charges against them were the same generalities and often misunderstandings according to the ones being tried. In this day and age there was no DNA evidence or most of the time eyewitness accounts so the main way to get someone caught was to basically have a feeling about them. Many of these cases also happened to be brought about because a friend or family member suspected them of having a same sex relationship. We saw how the punishment for something like this could be several years working with tobacco.

It sucks that many of these people were “caught” through word of mouth by someone who might just have a grudge against them and the evidence or lack there of could be so stacked against them. But it just goes to show just how against homosexuality the church and others were that suspicion would be enough to lock these people up. But some of the things we talked about were really disturbing that some of these people too religion to places it shouldn’t go. The woman who pleasured herself to images of Jesus and all of that with the candles and whatnot was a bit odd and I couldn’t imagine what the person questioning her was thinking.  However it’s not surprising that religion had such big influence over people and infrastructure as it normally does throughout all of history. It’s also not surprising that acts of homosexuality go back this far even though back then it might not have really been viewed in the way we know it today.