The Northern Manchegas Witches
In the Castilian-Chanchegas lands, the phenomenon of witchcraft was little extended compared to other areas of the Peninsula. There is not much documentation about it. But these references are only scarce in the historical plane, because in topography, in folklore, we can encounter enough footprints. Not only the legends proliferated;A very widespread Manchego saying says: "Neither people without witches, nor boiling without bubbles, nor basket of brevas without papandujas". And an extended saying of much of La Mancha said that one was "caught by the witches" when he suffered from venereal evil. Anyway, the latter denotes the confusion between sorcery and witchcraft, separated in this area by a thin line.
In what is now the provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real and part of Albacete, which were under the jurisdiction of the Toledo Court during the Modern Age, there is only reference to a case of witchcraft, that of the Daimieleña Juana Ruiz;The rest of the causes in these areas of Castilla la Nueva did not go from accusations per sorcery. Nor is there a trace of covens, although there is a reference to group flights to reach night meetings to Daimiel’s places (again), in the process against the sorceress María de la O, a young maid of the town of Malagón.
The most important city in the entire region was Cuenca in terms of witchcraft. All of very early dates. 1519 already extended a witchcraft psychosis among the neighbors. And shortly after, various spotlights were discovered in other locations where its inquisitorial court, as a couple, Sacedon and Molina had jurisdiction, where it seems that various modalities of meetings or covens were held. However, the rapid action of the Supreme Court, with more or less benevolent sentences, ended this situation. It seems that the Cuenca Court was quite hard with this type of crime and the supreme had to revoke their bonfire penalties.
But well, let’s go a little further south to meet the Manchega Witch. This is a typology that is defined because it is a woman who has dark and secret knowledge, which moves away from the divine, although that does not mean that they register directly into the diabolical. They are concrete, identifiable people, encompassed in the same group in which witches and sorceresses are mixed. On the one hand we find the group of women aware of the secrets of herbs, which allows them to alter the will of people they wish, either by their own interest or commission. On the other hand, those women where magic is more personal and are able to acquire the external appearance of any animal or family object to go to make their "witchcraft". They are the ones that would identify with the most traditional and extended figure of the witch.
But these stain witches have a defining note: the "playful" character. These are dedicated to altering the established order, but not in a malefic way like the Northern Witches. They are dedicated, above all, to make mischief or around the villages, or make fun of the young men. The women suffered the jokes in their own world, the kitchen: the witches changed the utensils, the meals threw themselves on the ground or simply gave them scares. In this sense, witches act as a kind of corresponding elves. For its part, the male was mocked in their workplace, especially through those metamorphosis. But, with them, witches also laughed taking advantage of their vices, such as greed, gluttony or lust.
But their most dangerous actions aimed what the family union represented: the children. They are the most vulnerable victims of witches: they receive more easily the evil eye and, in extreme cases, they can be torn from their parents’ side. Anyway, the Manchega Witch can play or get to produce some more psychic than physical discomfort, but it will almost never produce real, physical and direct damage to the members of their own community. And much less knowing.
The Northern Witches were characterized by their anti -Catholicism, for facing the forces of good. The witches of the land of Don Quixote did not establish such a radical division.
Font:
- Garzás Garzás, B. and González-Gallego Sánchez-Camacho, J.: Daimiel, Pueblo de Brujas, Ayto. Daimiel, Daimiel, 2000
- Article by Javier Alcaraván (@iaberius), which is also one of the two authors of Daimiel, town of Bruges, the book cited at the Fuente.
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