Un estudio de la hechicería amorosa en la Lima virreinal

The interest in witchcraft trials during the Colonial period led us to develop a diligent research in the files of the Madrilenian Inquisition about these processes in the viceroyalty of Lima. In the development of our work, we have found a series of complex social, political and cultural relationships that are revealed by the witchcraft trials and thus, we decided to study these relationships. We therefore determined, or came to know, that witchcraft in Lima was configured from three perfectly differentiated cultural matrixes: European, African and Indigenous and that the most requested and recurrent spells were those of an erotic-amorous nature. From the status reached by witches in the colonial society in Peru and the diversity of people who resorted to their help and magical practices, we can envision the construction of witchcraft as a resistance factor to the predominant order.