Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Episode: Martin Austin Nesvig, "The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico"
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Martin Austin Nesvig
Date: September 14, 2025

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on historian Martin Austin Nesvig’s new book, The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. The discussion dives into the tangled cultural, legal, and gendered realities of early colonial Mexico, looking at how women (and occasionally men) navigated and transformed both indigenous and colonial systems of belief, magic, and justice. Nesvig and Melcher dissect case studies unearthed from difficult, rarely explored Inquisition archives, revealing a rich network of women situated at the intersections of Spanish colonialism, indigenous knowledge, and the emerging legal mechanisms of the Spanish Inquisition. The episode dispels myths about witch trials in the Spanish world and foregrounds the real, everyday lives and agency of women in a syncretic, plural society.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Project and Research Journey

• Background: Nesvig explains the book’s genesis as part of a multi-pronged, long-running project originally (humorously) titled “Hucksters, Orgies, Peyote and the Devil,” which evolved into separate books on different facets of Mexican colonial life ([03:50]).
• Focus: Unlike standard ethnohistory (which focuses on how native people adapted to Spanish rule), Nesvig’s work asks: How did indigenous Mexican culture influence Spanish and non-native colonists?
• Challenges: The difficulty of reading early colonial paleographic scripts limited previous research. These sources yielded wild, complex stories that had gone mostly unstudied ([07:04]).

2. Witchcraft, Law, and Inquisition in Colonial Mexico

• Mythbusting Witch Craze: Contrary to popular belief, large-scale witch hunts as in northern Europe were rare or nonexistent in colonial Mexico. Witchcraft was not a high priority for inquisitors—heretics like Jews and Lutherans ranked higher ([10:15], [13:41]).
• Legal Nuance: Early on, witchcraft and folk magic were often dismissed as “superstitious nonsense” unless they involved explicit invocation of the devil or violated key Catholic doctrines ([10:15]).
• Institutional Landscape: Local diocesan inquisitors heard most early cases; a central Inquisition office in Mexico City was only founded in 1571, increasing the volume but not fundamentally changing the witchcraft focus ([13:41]).

3. Cross-Cultural Ideas: Witchcraft, Indigenous Magic, and Linguistic Exchange

• Shared Concepts: Both Spanish and Nahua traditions contained ideas of magic, sorcery, and trickery. For instance, throwing corn for divination (tlapo walitsli) echoed both cultures’ interest in lots and fate ([17:22]).
• Gender & Role: Women were most associated with love magic, healing, and midwifery—often blending Spanish and indigenous ritual, knowledge, and language ([17:22], [30:26]).

4. The Stories in the Archives: Microhistory and Social Networks

• Case Studies: Early trials reveal that even elite Spanish women were learning magical practices from indigenous women and communicating in Nahuatl, as in the case of Catalina de Vergara—caught sweeping naked and incanting late at night, likely performing an indigenous-style house-cleansing rite ([22:37]).
• Networks of Women: Rather than isolated individuals, many accused women formed ethnic, professional, and possibly friendship-based networks cutting across lines of race and status. Groups included Africans, Moriscas (women of North African/Muslim descent), Spaniards, and indigenous Nahua, with knowledge and magical practice passing between them ([30:57], [33:45]).
• Gendered Justice: Punishments were harshest for Black and indigenous women and men; elite Spanish women were often let off with warnings or no punishment, showing sharp racial and social stratification in colonial justice ([41:41]).

5. Syncretism and Continuity Over Time

• Adaptation: The blending of Spanish and indigenous knowledge was especially pronounced among midwives, who were trusted community figures, important in both birthing and spiritual medicine (like treating the evil eye, mal de ojo) ([47:19]).
• Notable Cases: Women like Barbola de Zamora, a wealthy mulatta midwife, were accused of magical and sexual deviance, yet also widely trusted as healers spanning both cultures ([47:19]).
• Community Embeddedness: Contrary to the stereotype of the “solitary witch,” the accused women were often socially central and well-integrated until targeted by rumor or enmity ([60:00]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Archival Stories:
  "The stories are so insane. You can't make them up... I just thought, why hasn't anybody written about these crazy stories?"
  — Martin Nesvig ([07:29])

• On Witchcraft and the Inquisition’s Priorities:
  “Their main priority in Mexico as well as Spain... are people who are Jewish... and Lutherans. Witchcraft’s not really a high priority.”
  — Martin Nesvig ([13:41])

• On Networks of Magical Women:
  “There’s a network... two African women, a couple Spanish women... Morisca women, and a Nahua man who supplied the herbs... all these women knew him and were able to communicate... in very specific detail.”
  — Martin Nesvig ([33:45])

• On Social and Racial Bias in Punishment:
  “Justice is racialized. So apparently some things never change. The Black women and the Nahua native man are given very severe sentences... The high status Spanish women don’t even get arrested.”
  — Martin Nesvig ([41:41])

• On Midwives as Intermediaries:
  “Midwives seem to be people that were trusted... but then they, you know, were suspicious about these things that she did.”
  — Martin Nesvig ([47:19])

• On Everyday Life and Rumor:
  “These are women that live within the communities. Everybody knows them, and in many cases they’re trusted and valued members of society—until they aren’t, and someone decides they don’t like them, and then they’re screwed.”
  — Martin Nesvig ([60:12])

Key Segment Timestamps

• [03:50] — Nesvig’s unconventional project origins and approach to ethnohistory.
• [10:15] — Legal framework: Spanish and canon law on witchcraft, differences from northern Europe.
• [13:41] — Why witchcraft was a low official priority; archival patterns before and after 1571.
• [17:22] — Indigenous and Spanish concepts of sorcery; linguistic and cultural overlaps.
• [22:37] — Earliest witchcraft trials in Mexico; adaptation and linguistic exchange.
• [30:57] — Evidence for social networks of “magical” women across racial and status lines.
• [33:45] — Details of a “network case” involving Spaniards, Africans, Moriscas, and a Nahua man.
• [41:41] — Patterns of accusation and punishment: the role of race, status, and region.
• [47:19] — Mixture of Spanish and indigenous healing practices, especially among midwives.
• [60:00] — Women as community insiders rather than isolated “witches.”
• [60:54] — Sneak preview of Nesvig’s next projects: books on men’s rituals and hallucinogens.

Sneak Peek: Future Projects

Nesvig outlines a planned trilogy:

• Book One: Women and acculturation (featured book).
• Book Two: The Xolot Rite, about Spanish men adopting indigenous sorcery and priestly roles, focusing on epistemological shifts.
• Book Three: On the history of hallucinogens (peyote, mushrooms) in colonial Mexico and how Spanish/mixed-race Mexicans appropriated them for secular uses ([60:54]).

Conclusion

The Women Who Threw Corn offers an intricately detailed, myth-busting account of how a diverse cast of women navigated magic, medicine, and law in early colonial Mexico. Nesvig’s research combines gripping stories, linguistic insight, and clear-eyed analysis, showing how these women shaped and were shaped by a plural world. Listeners looking for witch hunts, isolated sorceresses, or lurid violence will find instead a more nuanced, socially embedded reality.

Recommended for: Historians, anthropologists, gender studies scholars, and anyone interested in colonial Latin America, witchcraft, or microhistorical research.