The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

This book tells the stories of women from Spain, North Africa, Senegambia, and Canaries accused of sorcery in sixteenth-century Mexico for adapting native magic and healing practices. These non-native women - the mulata of Seville who cured the evil eye; the Canarian daughter of a Count who ate peyote and mixed her bath water into a man's mustard supply; the wife of a Spanish conquistador who let her hair loose and chanted to a Mesoamerican god while sweeping at midnight; the wealthy Basque woman with a tattoo of a red devil; and many others - routinely adapted Native ritual into hybrid magic and cosmology. Through a radical rethinking of colonial knowledge, Martin Austin Nesvig uncovers a world previously left in the shadows of historical writing, revealing a fascinating and vibrant multi-ethnic community of witches, midwives, and healers.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 06/26/2025
ISBN: 9781009550529
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.75lbs
Size: 9.06h x 5.91w x 1.10d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 12/15/2025