Movilidades geográficas, alianzas y parentescos en torno a las prácticas supersticiosas. Lima y sus hechiceras, siglos XVII y XVIII

This paper analyzes eight files held in the Inquisition section of the Historic Archive in Madrid. These files recount inquisition trials for practices that were penalized by Catholic orthodoxy because they were related to superstitious activities practiced by poor and lower-class peoples. They define the subjects involved as, for example, single women, widows or abandoned women who practiced a trade to offset their economic precariousness. At the same time, they also describe the individual, and at times, group needs that motivated these women to cast spells. The accounts in the files also imply a series of alliances, friendships, feuds, kin relationships, and, above all, spatial mobilities. As a result, it is possible to reconstruct the internal dynamics and interrelationships of the different social groups under the Spanish monarchy. This paper therefore examines the circumstances related to superstitious practices and witchcraft, in particular those circumstances that produced conflict and reflect daily life in a city that is interactive, changing and mixed despite its geographic divisions.