Working toward a world in balance.

So here's the topic I skipped over last week. Might be a little stream-of-consciousness, since I've run across a couple of other points this week that are still gelling in my brain, but I think it hangs together pretty well. Here we go. 

yuliaglam | Deposit Photos

(I know it looks like a scales-of-justice, but it's not in this instance; it's just a plain old set of scales.)

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'm studying up on that time the Inquisition came to New Mexico and left, after blaming a Franciscan friar for all the commotion. I'm reading a book on the topic called The Witches of Abiquiu by Malcolm Ebright and Rick Hendricks. I'm still working through the first few chapters, which describe the setting and the cast of characters. But in the introduction, on page 7, there's an initial discussion about fray Juan José Toledo, the Franciscan father who was eventually blamed for the trouble. Fray Toledo was conversant with the Malleus Maleficarum, which I've heard of but never read; it's described here as a witch-hunting handbook. But this is the part that struck me (emphasis mine):

Missionaries in Central Mexico and beyond learned to depict the Devil and his realm of Hell in vivid detail to convince the Indians to repent their sins. The Indians, however, held a different worldview in which creative and destructive forces existed side by side in their gods. They had no deity like the Devil and no word for evil. The Nahuas of Central Mexico and the Incas of the Andes believed in concepts of order and disorder rather than good and evil. In the Andes, for instance, the serpent did not embody evil as it did for Christians, but rather a destructive force attempting to re-create balance when relations of equilibrium had not been maintained." (page 7)

In other words, the missionaries had to teach the Indians what (in the church's view) Good and Evil were. Pre-contact, these Indians were interested in living in balance. I believe this is similar to the Navajo philosophy of hózhó, which you may have heard referred to as the Beauty Way; the idea is to live in balance and harmony.

Then there's the relationship between the Slavic gods Perun and Veles, which I know I've talked about here before. Perun is the thunder god; Veles is the god of the underworld and also of the forest. They have an epic battle every spring. But they're not enemies; they are not the embodiment of Good and Evil. Their battle is aimed at bringing the world into balance.

I dunno, man. Does it sound like Good and Evil are absolute concepts to you? Because it doesn't sound like it to me. Too many cultures around the world operated under a different philosophy for centuries -- probably millennia -- before Christianity became dominant. But there's danger in giving all your power to a single deity: the message of that deity can be misinterpreted at best and abused at worst. So we get things like the fear of the devil. And the patriarchy. And the concepts of Good and Evil, which are then used to categorize and stereotype people (men Good, women Evil; white folks Good, folks of every other color Evil or at best misguided and must be "civilized"; our political side Good, their side Evil; and so on).

Yesterday I shared a Facebook post about Rebecca Solnit, a feminist author and activist who identified the phenomenon of mansplaining (although someone else named it). The post calls this her most devastating line: "Men invented standards they could meet and called them universal." In other words, in our culture, the patriarchy assigned Good to men and Evil to women. Rationality is a male quality, emotion a female one (and guess which one is prized and which is dismissed?). There's no continuum in this worldview, no shades of gray -- everything is either one or the other.

That prompted me to comment: "I begin to think that men in ancient times invented every dichotomy that permeates Western thought because they were uncomfortable with ambiguity."

Men can be emotional and women can be rational. Other cultures' philosophical systems can also be legitimate.

As for politics in this country? I hope that someday we can have conversations with the other side again, to find areas of agreement and work toward a better nation. But we have a lot of work ahead of us. I hope we're not doomed to fail.

***

Oh, here's an update on my whiny post of a couple of weeks ago: 

• Session proofer training ended on Friday, and we all survived; we're having a meeting this week amongst the trainers to talk about how it went. 
• As for the condo board, it looks like nobody else wants to be secretary, so I may keep the job for another few years. I'll know more after the annual meeting next Saturday. 
• And as for the Pagan group, I decided that I don't need to make a decision right now. Kicking that can down the road, baby!

***

These moments of bloggy balance have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

Historically witchy New Mexico.

Samhain, the Pagan New Year (for some Pagans, at least) -- aka Halloween -- is coming up at the end of this week. And like clockwork, intrepid local journalists around the country will interview some witch or another. It's all pretty harmless these days -- or it should be, unless somebody takes it upon themselves to declare witches brides of the Devil and try to have them executed, or at least shamed out of the community.

It has happened in the past, as you know if you've ever heard of the Inquisition in Europe, or the Salem witch trials here in the US. And New Mexico had a brush with the Inquisition in the 1760s. It happened in Abiquiú, a village better known now as the site of one of painter Georgia O'Keeffe's homes.

 A peaceful fall picture in Santa Fe.
Heatherms27 | Deposit Photos

And it started with a Franciscan priest named Fray Juan José Toledo, who came to Abiquiú from Mexico City with a manual of ways to spot witchcraft and sorcery -- brujería y hechizería -- and root them out, as missionaries were wont to do, to save the natives from their savagery and bring them to Christ.

I've just begun looking into this; I had a brainstorm yesterday while at Spirit Halloween to offer to portray a bruja during next year's Spirits of New Mexico event at El Rancho de las Golondrinas. The offer's been accepted, so I have a year to study up. But here's what I know so far. 

I talked about Abiquiú here on the blog a couple of weeks back -- about how it was created as a land grant to several families of genízaros. You may recall that genízaros were Native Americans of various tribes who were enslaved by Spanish settlers and eventually set free, after they'd been Hispanized and had lost most of their own tribal traditions. Genízaro communities acted as a buffer between communities of settlers and Native Americans looking to attack them. But the genízaros themselves were different -- and feared by some settlers because of those differences.

Enter Fray Toledo. He accused the local men running the town of being sorcerors (in Spanish, hechicero or brujo) and some of the women of being brujas and causing a horrible illness. The illness was real enough -- it caused a fever and a powerful thirst, blackened teeth, and, in some cases, death. There was also a rumor that the stomachs of some of the dead burst open and insects crawled out.

Fray Toledo made enough noise about it that eventually the territorial governor, Tomas Vélez Cachupin, arrested a group of the accused Abiquiú witches and sent to the office of the Inquisition in Mexico City to see what should be done.

By this point in time, the Catholic Church was winding down the Inquisition, and eventually accused Fray Toledo himself of stirring the pot, saying he should stop with the accusations, learn the natives' languages, and work harder on converting them to Catholicism.

So nobody was burned at the stake here in New Mexico. However, some of those suspected of witchcraft were sentenced to servitude in local Hispanic families. Imagine being a member one of these fine, upstanding Catholic families and being forced to take in someone suspected of being a witch! Not a prescription for sleeping soundly at night.

***

As I said, I've just begun researching this. I'll let you know how it goes. For this post, I've relied heavily on this article written by Rob Martinez, the state historian of New Mexico.

***

This weekend was the 2025 Spirits event at the ranch, our last of the season. It was, as always, a lot of fun. The ranch buildings are especially spooky at night, with the kiva fireplaces lit and candles everywhere. (These days we use LED candles, but the fires are the real thing. I was stationed in the Cuarto de la Familia -- the ranch owner's family's quarters -- and as the night got chillier, a whole lot of guests were happy to just come in and sit by the fire, warm up, and maybe dream a little.

***

These moments of historically witchy blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Happy Halloween! Blessed Samhain!