Juana Ines de la Cruz April 26, 2010

“I, Worst of All” depicts the life of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, who has been hailed the first Latin American Poet. The movie begins in 1680 with the arrival of a new Viceroy and his wife as well as the new misogynic Archbishop. The movie opens with the performance of a play Juana has written and the Viceroy and his wife are taken with Juana’s passion and gift for writing. Where as the Archbishop promptly denounces the nunnery “a bordello.” Juana became a nun in order to access the knowledge and books ordinarily forbidden to women. She had a passion for learning and had amassed the largest library in Latin America. Then, sin of sins, she had the audacity to express herself and her own ideas through the written word. She quickly became popular for her poems and plays and gained the protection of the Viceroy and his wife. For a time, Juana received not only the protection but friendship of the Viceroy’s wife and the two became involved in sort of a passionate, yet chaste love affair. When asked why she never wanted children, Juana responds by pointing to her books, sundial, astrolabe, and telescope claiming these were her children.  She believed she possessed the sort of freedom that would have been denied her had she gotten married and had children as was expected. However, not everyone was so enthralled by her work or her voracious desire to learn, which was considered the province of men and the Archbishop was not to be dissuaded from his goal of bringing the lascivious poet down Viceroy or no. When the Viceroy was dismissed from his position and sent back to Spain, Juana was left without vulnerable and without defense. Manipulated and betrayed, Juana faced the anger of the Inquisition and suffered the consequences of stepping outside her conceived gender role.

This movie sums up some of the worst aspects of a “male dominated” society, even as women found ways to circumvent convention and express themselves in a way that did not involve matrimony or having children, they still ran the risk of losing everything even their lives when the Inquisition was in full swing. Although, it was interesting that she was supported by so many prominent political and religious men. She unfortunately also made powerful enemies who saw to her eventual fall.

Women in the Church April 19, 2010

The Spanish came to the “new world” and conquered every indigenous civilization with many goals in mind, not the least of which being the acquisition of gold and land; however, there was one other much holier purpose: the evangelism of the Indigenous people, what was left of them. Within Latin America there were two groups that served to minister to the people, there were the secular priests that served the Spanish population and religious orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians that saw to the indigenous community. Overcoming local culture would not be an easy thing so these religious orders served as a towering presence in the community burning idols and ancient religious texts. They then attempted to incorporate indigenous elements in order to shape beliefs using visual representation. Despite the attempts to incorporate a limited amount of indigenous beliefs by some orders, baptism, marriage, and burial rituals completely changed for the Indians.

The Catholic Church soon became a dominant force in Latin America as an institution of social control, religious authority, and even a financial institution. The sources of income such as tithes, donations, and income from the real estate the church was located on provided the church with the ability to make loans. There were also financial connections between the nobility and the church. This close relationship between the church and the elite paved the way for the church lending to local noble families. Then the lesser sons of the local elite often became priests as they would have little or no inheritance. Children of the elite joining the church did not stop at sons though; daughters with dowries could become nuns.

The idea that the church provided a safe haven for women who wanted to live pious religious lives or those who desired to escape marriage became increasingly popular. At one point during the seventeenth century, Lima, Peru had 1,000 nuns. It was not a vocation strictly for daughters with dowries now. Within the convent or monastery itself there were black veil nuns, women who had a substantial dowry given to the church and white veil nuns who often served the black veils. Then there were beatas, who were “unofficial nuns” or women who gave vows of chastity but were not considered nuns. The option of joining the church provided a respectable safe alternative to marriage and allowed women some amount of autonomy and even a chance for an education they might not otherwise receive. On other words an attractive alternative to an unhappy marriage or a life doomed to housework.

Burn the Witch April 12, 2010

                To me, witchcraft in the medieval times all the way through the 18^th century conjures the image of old women standing over  the smoking black cauldrons that when discovered were quickly brought to justice either by fire or possibly drowning.  Although in many places witchcraft was seen as a threat to the community that only death could cure, in colonial Spanish America witchcraft was handled in other ways. The stereotypical version of a witch being an old poor woman did not really exist in Castile and southern Spain. Women who practiced witchcraft came from all different backgrounds and occupations. Witchcraft was not considered to be so much heresy as it was simple ignorance, so instead of putting witches in the hands of the inquisition which would have led to death, the people caught practicing witchcraft were to be educated in biblical doctrine. This then begs the question; if witchcraft is not considered heresy what threat did it pose?

                Indian and mestiza women are the most closely associated with witchcraft but this was a practice and belief that crossed both racial and social lines. There were remedies and concoctions for all kinds of things but remedies for love seemed to be the most common. Women typically made men ingest their witchcraft because as the preparers of the food it allowed easy access to a medium in which they could dispense their remedies. These remedies served many purposes. They were used to keep a lover faithful, to blind him to her affairs, to cause impotence, to spy on lovers, or even increase love. This leads us to a main threat in women practicing witchcraft; it gave women power over their husbands. Ruth Behar points out in her article that men saw this as a “larger threat to a patriarchal structure” that it turned “the world upside down by making husbands submissive to their wives.”

                Though the offense was not usually punishable by death witchcraft and magic were considered sins. The church gained knowledge of these affairs through the confessionals and were generally considered the result of ignorance. The Inquisition really just desired those guilty of such deeds to feel a “sense of guilt and shame.” By denouncing people’s fears of witchcraft as mere superstition, it devalued the women’s power gained by the ability to control a lover and questioned their mental capacity. This slap in the face served its purpose in some cases, causing people to disbelieve in the power of witchcraft, while it also allowed those still inclined  to use the remedies a certain amount of freedom from consequences.