Witchcraft in Early North America - Alison Games [70]
Leaving the Rio del Norte, and departing toward the east ten leagues from the [Queres] nation, the Tompiras nation begins with its first pueblo of Chililí,1 and extends in that direction more than fifteen leagues, with fourteen or fifteen pueblos, in which there must be more than ten thousand souls; with six monasteries and very good churches; all [are] converted, and for the most part baptized, and others are being catechized and taught, and with their [training] schools of all trades, as in the other [pueblos]. . . . I cannot refrain from telling here a saying of the Demon, by the mouth of an Indian wizard [who was] convinced of the word of God. . . . And it befell that seeing himself convinced, and that under my reasoning all the pueblo had determined to be Christian, the wizard was much angered and said at the top of his voice: “You Spaniards and Christians, how crazy you are! And you live like crazy folks! You want to teach us that we be [crazy] also!” I asked him wherein we were crazy. And he must have seen some procession of penance during Holy Week in some pueblo of Christians, and so he said: “You Christians are so crazy that you go all together, flogging yourselves like crazy people in the streets, shedding [your] blood. And thus you must wish that this pueblo be also crazy!” And with this, greatly angered and yelling, he went forth from the pueblo, saying that he did not wish to be crazy. Over which matter all were left laughing, and I much more, since I recognized and was persuaded that it was the Demon, who [thus] went fleeing, confounded by the virtue of the divine word.
Moqui Nation
It is a general custom among all the infidel Indians to receive the Religious in their pueblos very well in the beginning, and submit themselves soon to Baptism; but seeing, when they are catechized, that they have to give up their idolatries and sorceries, the sorcerers so resent it that they disquiet all, and turn them aside that they be not Christians. Not only this, but they drive the Religious out of the pueblo, and if not, they kill him. Thus it befell in the principal pueblo of this Province of Moqui; that they received very well the Father who went to convert them, and his companions, and a few soldiers who were there for escort with them. And seeing that the Religious, with an original Cross of [which had belonged to] the Mother Luisa de Carrión,2 constrained them with lively and efficacious reasoning, to the adoration of one God and Lord, Creator of all things, and who for our Redemption had died upon a cross like that [one] which they were under obligation to adore likewise, and not their idols with which the Demon had them so deceived—at this the sorcerers were irritated; and seeing that they were being deprived of the jurisdiction which as infernal ministers they had over those souls, they persuaded all the people that the Religious and all those who accompanied him were so many liars who were going to fool them, and that therefore they should kill them. And when they wished to carry this into effect, on sundry occasions, they dared not, on account of the vigilance of the soldiers, but chiefly on account of heaven’s aid. . . .
These are the populations which we have, in this region, converted and baptized, in what we call New Mexico. . . . All of which [together] must have close to eighty thousand souls. All these folk and nations were in their gentilism divided into two factions, warriors and sorcerers. The warriors tried, in opposition to the