Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Women's Powers: Views from the Mexican Inquisition

Abstract

The approaching quincentenary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Caribbean is stimulating much discussion about how the native peoples of the New World perceived and reacted to European intruders during the sixteenth century. Indian folk traditions, often recorded generations after the events occurred, suggest that native North Americans believed the first European ships they saw to be floating islands inhabited by supernatural spirits and sometimes covered by white clouds from which lightning and thunder were discharged, or else the mobile dwelling places of powerful spirits whom they prepared to welcome with sacrifices, food, and entertainment. In any discussion of how native peoples perceived Europeans, the far more abundant data from the seventeenth century are of vital importance. If native beliefs continued to play a preponderant role in determining native reactions to Europeans so long after first contact, it would reinforce the assumption that they had done so during the previous century.

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