Witchcraft in Early North America - Alison Games [105]
S. W.
Source: Samuel Willard, A briefe account of a strange & unusuall Providence of God befallen to Elizabeth Knap of Groton, transcribed by Samuel A. Green, ed., Groton in the Witchcraft Times (Groton, MA: [s.n.] 1883), 7–9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17–18, 19, 20–21.
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18. Possession at Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1763–1764
A major outbreak erupted in Abiquiu, New Mexico, in 1756, when Fray Juan José Toledo reached the mission church. The letter excerpted here was written by the priest in 1764, and it describes an outbreak of possession among women in the church of Abiquiu in December 1763. While many women were involved, two, both Indians, come through clearly in Toledo’s account: María Trujillo, who started to manifest the signs of possession right before she gave birth, and who was the focus of Toledo’s attention, and Francisca Barela. The account also introduces us to some important witches: Jacinta and Atole Caliente, and Joaquin, the discoverer, who helped the Spanish identify the witches in Abiquiu and surrounding pueblos. Who was in charge in Abiquiu, the priest or the possessed?
Fray Juan José Toledo to Carlos Fernández, Abiquiu, 22 January 1764, C.
Lord don Carlos Fernández: retired lieutenant of the royal presidio, alcalde mayor and war captain of the Villa nueva de la Santa Cruz and its pertaining pueblos, commissary judge in the proceedings regarding the discovery of genizaro Indian sorcerers at the Pueblo of Santo Tomás Apóstol de Abiquiu.
My Lordship, . . .
On the seventeenth day of December of the past year, I started to exorcise María Trujillo in the Holy Church, who is the wife of José Valdez, resident of this jurisdiction, who for the love of God pleaded with me to exorcise María, who, since the month of June and for nine consecutive days after mass and inside the church, would faint at the moment of the prayer of exorcism. We have witnessed that she would become covered with purple blemishes on the right shoulder, the elbow, the palm of the hand, and the knee.
She appeared to be free of this illness until the eleventh day of November, when, having arrived at the hour of childbirth close to daybreak, she experienced a great fainting spell and, coming to, she followed through in the delivery with great ease. When the sun arose, she had given birth to a child that was well and healthy.
On the fourteenth day, she felt a great headache, and there appeared a weight in her stomach and a blockage in her intestines. After all this, apparently she was given to great sadness of an extreme nature. On the day of the allegiance to Our Lady, it happened that while in the church, she would get very sleepy during the mass and sermon and could not be amused by the diversions of the fiesta.
She remained in her state of melancholy until the fourteenth day of December, when she fainted after the prayer in her house and, instead of awaking, she went into a fury and began to exhaust herself with unnatural strength. For this reason and because of the continued evil which continued at all hours, I resorted to the spiritual remedy and as such I proceeded exorcising on the eighteenth day of the month of December, which was Sunday.
Francisca Barela, also a resident of this place, a young maiden, poor and cloistered, eighteen years old more or less, left her home about four in the afternoon with an earthen jar to supply the house with water. Upon
reaching a small spring which is located between two rocky and rugged hills close to the chapel in order to take some water, she felt a certain motion in her body. With great dread and fear and without knowing from where this originated, she returned to her home. She then heard the sound of a pig, which lived in those places as well as in domestication. She could not see what had scared her. Having got her water, she arrived at her house and, having placed corn in her mill to crush it for supper, she was suddenly stunned by a tingling sensation