Witchcraft in Latin America

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Witchcraft in Latin America" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article is missing information about a full range of Latin American countries and witchcraft traditions. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (August 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series on
Witchcraft
Neopagan Wicca Feminist Dianic
By region Africa Asia Europe Goetia Roma Latin America Middle East North America Oceania
Related topics Cunning folk Folk religion Magic Black Grey White Magic and religion Shamanism Witch as an archetype Witch-cult hypothesis Witch hunt in the early modern period
v t e

Witchcraft in Latin America, known in Spanish as brujería (pronounced [bɾuxeɾˈi.a]),^[1][2] is a complex blend of indigenous, African, and European influences. Indigenous cultures had spiritual practices centered around nature and healing, while the arrival of Africans brought syncretic religions like Santería and Candomblé. European witchcraft beliefs merged with local traditions during colonization, contributing to the region's magical tapestry. Practices vary across countries, with accusations historically intertwined with social dynamics. A male practitioner is called a brujo, a female practitioner is a bruja.^[3]

When Franciscan friars from New Spain arrived in the Americas in 1524, they introduced Diabolism—belief in the Christian Devil—to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.^[4] Bartolomé de las Casas believed that human sacrifice was not diabolic, in fact far off from it, and was a natural result of religious expression.^[4] Mexican Indians gladly took in the belief of Diabolism and still managed to keep their belief in creator-destroyer deities.^[5]

Witchcraft was an important part of the social and cultural history of late-Colonial Mexico, during the Mexican Inquisition. The presence of the witch is a constant in the ethnographic history of colonial Brazil, especially during the several denunciations and confessions given to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of Bahia (1591–1593), Pernambuco and Paraíba (1593–1595).^[6]

Yet, as anthropologist Ruth Behar writes, witchcraft, not only in Mexico but in Latin America in general, was a "conjecture of sexuality, witchcraft, and religion, in which Spanish, indigenous, and African cultures converged."^[7] Furthermore, witchcraft in Mexico generally required an interethnic and interclass network of witches.^[8] According to anthropology professor Laura Lewis, witchcraft in colonial Mexico ultimately represented an "affirmation of hegemony" for women, Indians, and especially Indian women over their white male counterparts as a result of the casta system.^[9]