week 9

Learning about witchcraft this week, was very interesting to see how easy the human mind can be steered.  Another struggle that the women of the Latin American society had to go through.  To only be accused of witchcraft because someone does not like you, for something you did, or for the having a crazy over active imagination is scary.  If they failed the inspection to see if they were a witch, such as being able of float in a river, they could easily be sentence to death by being burned.  This is another reason why I believe that the people of Latin America must have been paranoid of always watching their backs.  It was also disturbing to learn how some women who actually practiced witchcraft, did their witchcraft, such as putting bodily fluids in their husbands food and drink.  Learning more about their ways of witchcraft practices, has me wondering, did the women actually think that it was working, them getting sick from their witchcraft.  Because if you think about it, when a wife puts something disgusting in her husband’s drink, and she sees him getting sick after the intake of bodily fluids, she may think that the practices of witchcrafts work, not realizing that the intake of others fluids can make someone ill.  If you put it in that perspective it can be true witchcraft, if the intent of the person was to make them sick, and not being guided to find out if their husband’s were cheating on them.  This could also be a way superstition in Latin America society grows.  I know that I am looking at this from a modern viewpoint and it is easy to say that people believing in witchcraft are ignorant, but maybe if I were put in their time zone I would be one who is a believer of the evils of witchcraft.  In a time of illness spreading like wildfire and not having knowledge of germs, witchcraft could be an easy reason of understanding why the evils of illness were haunting a town, when looking for answers.  One think that I like of the whole views of witchcraft, well the only thing, was that anyone female could be accused of witchcraft.  From the rich to the poor it tied the classes of the Latin American society together.  Overall it sucked for the Latin American women, and it could have made them extra scared of being called out knowing that any women no matter which class they were could have been accused of witchcraft.  One of the few things that I saw that showed Spanish leaders of Latin America had some Justice, what the fact that they allowed the idea of witchcraft in Latin America because they were new Christians.  It must have been a scary time to live in but different viewpoints slowly got us to where we are today, of trying to understand what makes each person unique.