Mauricia la Bruja, mohan, Venezuela

Max Dashu

In the 1600s, the Spanish Inquisition persecuted Mauricia la Bruja ("the witch") and other people from Humocaro Bajo for practicing Native ceremonies. They held gatherings in a cave "to sing and shake the little rattle." Her trial record says those attending heard a roar. A little voice from the darkness cried out, telling the people to ask for what they wanted. They asked for cattle, goats, sheep and food, and “were told that they would receive all this if they lived like the old ones.” [Contramaestre 1979: 28]

In the minds of the colonizers, the religion of these Arawakan or Carib people was devil worship and their medicine people — mohanes or piaches — were “witches.” The priesthood persecuted them, destroying altars, “idols,” and sanctuaries, as recorded in the archives in Boconó and Trujillo parishes. In 1607 bishop Antonio de Alcega boasted to the king back in Spain that “I personally have had 1,104 sanctuaries, houses, and idols burned to date, and another 400 have been burned on my orders.” [Contramaestre, 30]

A century later, this repression was still going on. In 1713, the entire Indigenous community at San Juan Bautista de Carache were accused of holding “corrupt and cursed” ceremonies before altars with 74 idols. The Church staged a big auto-da-fé, forcing prisoners to march to the plaza to be exorcised by the priests, who made them spit on their divinities and drag them to the stake to be burned, all the while reciting the creed. They were flogged, fined, excommunicated and given other “penances.” [Contramaestre, 31]

A woman named Sebastiana was denounced to Inquisitors for casting spells. She was described as prophesying in the name of god and the sun, who said that “my servant here will give you the remedy...” [Contramaestre, 28]

Victims of these religious persecutions were not only Native, but also Diasporic Africans and mestizos, in Colombia and Peru and Mexico too. The Spanish Inquisition also persecuted Jews and European women accused of witchcraft in the American colonies, and while in Brazil the Portuguese Inquistion carried out the same repression.

Source: Carlos Contramaestre, La Mudanza del Encanto, Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia and Universidad de los Andes, 1979

Other prophetesses:

Dahia al-Kahina, Amazigh prophetess, Aurès mountains, Tunisia

Essie Parrish, yomta and Bole Maru Dreamer, Kashaya Pomo, Stewarts Point, California

Muhumusa, exiled Rwandan queen, oracle of Nyabingi in Uganda

Teresa Urrea, la Santa de Cabora, healer and revolutionary seeress, Sonora, Mexico, El Paso, Texas, and Clinton, Arizona.

Libuše, prophetess, tribal judge, and founder of Prague, Czechia

Pau, kaula wahine / seeress, Hawai'i

The Prophetic Women poster
18 x 24 inches on high quality heavy stock.

Gift. Pay shipping only for one copy ($4 in USA, $14 to all other countries).


Order here. To pay securely with your credit card, look for the gray Checkout button (beneath the yellow Paypal button.)

 

More on Prophetic Women

Home | Catalog | Articles | Secret History of the Witches