The Women Who Threw Corn

'This is a beautifully crafted historical reflection on how dozens of mid sixteenth-century humble women from Spain, North Africa and West Africa used Nahua herbs and spells to manipulate bodies and nature to heal, seduce, and curse. The Inquisition did not try any of these women as witches, but it left rich documentation on the massive acculturation of Old-World newcomers to indigenous practices and ideas.' Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, The University of Texas at Austin
'Martin Nesvig brings astounding historiographic erudition and irreverent humor to this tour de force of archival scholarship, this time guiding readers through the Nahuatlization of love and sex magic as practiced by plebeian women in sixteenth-century Mexico City and beyond.' Nicole von Germeten, author of Death in Old Mexico: The 1789 Dongo Murders and How They Shaped the History of a Nation
'Martin Nesvig has written a gripping study of the occult in early colonial Mexico. This book, the first of a projected trilogy, is a gripping collection of the histories of non-native women who had recourse to activities considered sorcery or witchcraft. This is a truly outstanding study that breaks new ground on nearly every page.' John F. Schwaller, Professor Emeritus, University at Albany (SUNY)
'One of the book's key contributions is its attention to linguistic evidence in tracing cultural hybridization, inviting comparisons with other colonial knowledge systems … Overall, this book is both methodologically rigorous and accessible. The author is refreshingly open about the challenges of working with fragmentary sources and it vividly illustrates the curiosity and method required to reconstruct lives from the margins of the historical record.' Charlotte Ortiz, The Americas
'… an intimate and moving picture of women coping with 'living in the very earliest stages of a monumental culture encounter'.' Susan Kellogg, Hispanic American Historical Review
'This intriguing study from historian Nesvig catalogs the ways in which Native and European supernatural beliefs met and intermingled in post-conquest Mexico … worth checking out for those interested in the intersection of women's history and magic.' Publishers Weekly
'Nesvig's scholarship is, simply, meticulous. His careful and always transparent reading of the case files is a pleasure to read, offering a veritable clinic in the use of Inquisition records. The writing is wry, occasionally ribald, and lively … Encyclopedic, ambitious, engaging, and characteristically erudite, The Women Who Threw Corn will long reward specialist and student readership. It offers much to cross-disciplinary conversations among scholars of magic in other regions and periods and leaves this reader eager for the volumes to follow.' Jacqueline Holler, The American Historical Review
'Martin Nesvig makes a major contribution … He draws attention to the less formal, more domestic and intimate ways that cultural exchanges took place. But Nesvig makes a crucial and largely ignored point about intercultural exchange and transformation. … Based on painstaking research into a relatively small number of Inquisition and criminal records, Nesvig explores how non-Indigenous women engaged with Nahua plant-based healing, love magic, and the divinatory practice of throwing corn. … Upper-division and graduate students as well as scholars of the history of women, gender, and sexuality in Mesoamerica, Latin America, and Iberia will find this book useful and important.' Susan Kellogg, Hispanic American Historical Review