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Witchcraft in Early North America - Alison Games [93]

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Catherina, wife of Zhiconqueto, is because when coming from the farm, in company with her husband, Miguel Martin, to the village of San Juan to get a little lime, this declarant said to him that he might leave her at the house of Catherina Lujan, and that her said husband took her to the house of the painter, Zhiconqueto, and seeing that he had deceived her, she quarreled with her husband, who smiled and the said Caterina Rosa, having offered to eat a bit of roast meat and some bean [teguas] cakes, he told her to eat, to which this declarant replied that she was fasting and the said Catherina said to her: What, today, Sunday, you are fasting? and that at this moment she looked at her said husband and at Martin Fernandez, his neighbor, who was there, who said to her: Eat what they give you, it won’t hurt you, because this Indian woman (pointing to the girl, the wife of little Domingo) is your husband’s mistress, and at this moment her said husband’s horse started off, and on that account he did not remain.

3rd. Asked if she has any further proofs of what she declared that her husband, Miguel Martin, had been criminally intimate with the said Indian woman, the daughter of Catherina Rosa and of Zhiconqueto, and the wife of little Domingo, that she should speak and so declare it; the declarant said that she has many other reasons because the wife of Peter de Avila, alias “the louse,” told her while this declarant was grinding corn kernels that her said husband had slept with the said Indian woman “por una tobaja” [under the sheet—old word for towel] and that this declarant said to her: No matter, I don’t want to know anything, and that likewise, while chatting with Alfonso Rael, the cousin of this declarant from Mosedades, her said husband, said he had had two Indian mistresses in the village of Taos and another in the village of San Juan; and that she said nothing to him then because her brother-in-law, Tomas Giron, and her sister, Antonia, his wife were present, and that afterwards, when they were alone, she asked him who the Indian woman was in the village of San Juan, and he told her the woman aforesaid was the wife of little Domingo and that on this occasion her said husband, having gone to the village of San Juan, returned with his arms and hands so swollen that he could not even eat with his hands, and this declarant fed him and that to this day he is suffering, and this is her answer.

4th. Asked to what other persons besides her sister-in-law, Casilda, wife of Francisco Martin, the reaper, she had spoken and communicated what had happened to her on Holy Thursday with the said two Indian women, the two Catarinas, let her speak and declare it: the declarant said that on leaving the said church her said husband met her by chance and she gave him a slap in the face, saying: “Curse you, it is on your account that your mother-in-law hates me,” and that the said Miguel Martin replied, asking “Who is my mother-in-law?” and this declarant told him “The wife of Zhiconqueto”; and he answered her—“Don’t be a fool, what was not in your year, was not to your injury” and that afterwards, in narrating just what happened with the two Indian women, as well as with her said husband, the said Casilda, her sister-in-law, having been present through it all, said to her: “You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm”; and that this declarant and her husband, leaving the church, went to the New Town and that he was still scratching his arm, and nevertheless she went that night to church, and at the time of the sermon the agonies seized upon her such as she had begun to feel before, so that it was necessary for two women to hold her by force, who were her sister-in-law, Juana, wife of Arrata and Petrona Supa, wife of Simon Martin, and that since then until the present hour the pains and ailments have not ceased to torment her and which she still suffers, and that prior to this aforesaid day she had enjoyed and was enjoying perfect health, and that the convulsion she had that night of the aforesaid day, Holy Thursday,

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