CHAPTER 5

Maintaining Bonds of Affection

Outside the town, there near the tanneries, on the bank of the river, this good woman hath an isolated house, rather dilapidated, not in good repair, much less well-provided for. She had six trades, to wit, seamstress, perfumer, skilled maker of cosmetics and re-maker of virgos, procuress, and a bit of a witch.

—Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina

Homer’s Circe, Euripides’ Medea, and Horace’s Canidia were witches of classical times who resorted to magical practices for amatory purposes when dealing with unbridled human passions.¹ During the Renaissance, a new archetype of the sorceress entered the Latin world, common to the urban environments of both Spain and Italy: Celestina, heavily laden with symbolic meaning and created by Fernando de Rojas. It was Caro Baroja who classified her as an archetype: “Celestina, and all her disciples and children—legitimate and illegitimate offspring—is a woman of ill repute, who has passed her youth giving love for money, and becomes a procuress or go-between in her old age. She acts as advisor to a series of prostitutes and panderers; is a skillful maker of perfume, cosmetics, and other beauty products. But she also indulges in witchcraft, erotic witchcraft in particular.”²

Devising philters, potions, and salves and relying on various types of sortilege to help amorous relationships along is therefore quite an ancient procedure. Maybe this is why the judges and inquisitors handling crimes of sorcery tended to sexualize them and often viewed witches as prostitutes or semiprostitutes. The repression of sorcery and the repression of adultery, incest, or sexually deviant behavior frequently went hand in hand.³ Sometimes illegitimacy and sexual promiscuity played a part as well, as was the case in England, where “the more blatantly sexual aspects of witchcraft were a very uncommon feature of the trials,” except perhaps during the period of the barbarous Matthew Hopkins.⁴

In one of his most brilliant and fanciful passages, Gilberto Freyre revealed his perception of the magical syncretism visible in sorcery of a sexual nature. He pointed out that while the phenomenon was often attributed to African influence, it could also be traced to European Satanism. To explain his thesis, Freyre cited cases of sexual magic from the First Visitation. He stated: “Witchcraft in Portugal revolved around the driving force of love. Indeed, it is not hard to understand the vogue of sorcerers, witches, benzedeiras, and specialists in aphrodisiac sortilege in a land that was so drained of people but that through an extraordinary effort of virility was still able to colonize Brazil. Witchcraft was one of the stimuli that somehow contributed to the sexual super-excitation that was, whether legitimately or illegitimately, to fill the enormous gaps left in the scant Portuguese population by war and by pestilence. The Portuguese settlers arrived in Brazil already imbued with a belief in sorcery.”5

So it was following in the steps of fine Latin tradition that Portugal practiced erotic sorcery. As can be gathered from reading the Lisbon auto-da-fé of 1559 (when a number of witches went to the stake), the Celestina stereotype and the association of sorcery with prostitution were likewise not unknown to Brazil’s metropolis. When practitioners failed to heed the Demon’s instructions, he would react: “and if they do not do their trade well, he punishes them, giving them many lashings and beating them, as a panderer may do to his concubine.”⁶

Cartas de Tocar

In her tent, the sorceress and procuress Celestina kept magnets that would attract the senses, grains gathered on St. John’s Eve, and the nooses and bones of hanged men. She also had beans that assisted women and men in their romantic endeavors, so long as the name of the favored man or woman was carved in them. To seal a conquest, it was enough to touch the beloved with the bean.⁷

In Castela, it was commonplace to use beans in amatory conjuration. It is not possible to tell how or in what way these beans might have resembled the cartas de tocar [“touch-letters”] of the Brazilian colony. In any case, Celestina’s witchery is, as far as I know, the only reference to a procedure that bears any resemblance to the amatory sorcery of cartas de tocar from Brazil’s colonial times. Quite likely they were known in Portugal, from whence they passed to the colony. Nevertheless, even in the metropolis, the only mention of which I am aware involves a similar technique, yet one that is not precisely the same. Dona Paula Tereza, the early-eighteenth-century Portuguese witch mentioned earlier, would touch the image of the beloved with a bit of altar stone as it formed in a shallow earthen pan of water, thus ensuring his affection.⁸

At the time of the First Visitation, Isabel Roiz sold cartas de tocar in the city of Bahia. Francisco Roiz had used one “to touch a woman whom he much desired to wed.”⁹ Isabel Roiz, also known as Boca Torta [“Twisted Mouth”]—a sobriquet that recalls the stereotype of the ugly, deformed witch¹⁰—claimed the letter “was of such great worth that as many things as it touched, so would they follow it.”¹¹

In the eighteenth century, touch-letters were still in use in different parts of the colony. In Taquaral, Minas, amatory sorcery and sexual promiscuity appeared together. Agueda Maria “had a paper with some words and crosses that she said was for touching men so that they would have illicit dealings with her.”12 In Recife, Antonio José Barreto, mentioned earlier, had a paper with a sign of Solomon and an inverted creed that offered the double advantage of “sealing the body” and procuring women: “any woman that touched it would subject herself to his will.”¹³ José Francisco, the Lisbon slave, also possessed some cartas de tocar “for lascivious purposes,” which he sometimes carried along with the mandinga pouches that protected his body.¹⁴ In Grão-Pará, Adrião Pereira de Faria suffered through an agonizing trial because he had written cartas de tocar that conjured the Demon. Adrião promised his submission to the devil; in exchange he wanted to be “strong and courted”; to be protected against arrest and injury; and always to obtain the woman he desired.¹⁵ His accomplice, Crescêncio Escobar, author of the letters, fled from Belém when his friend was incriminated. Some ten years later, terrified when the Visitation of Geraldo José de Abranches initiated investigations, Crescêncio voluntarily came before the board. He was a 33-year-old mameluco blacksmith whom Adrião had asked to transcribe a touch-letter of “unfailing power” for the price of three mil-réis. He had acquiesced “out of ambition.” He repented before the Visitor, who nevertheless judged him suspected of minor heresy and read his verdict before the board.¹⁶

Prayers

The use of amatory prayers, a practice known worldwide, was very common in the colony. In this branch of ritual magic, the power of certain divine words was considered irresistible—above all the name of God. But practitioners might also resort to conjuring demons, who were commanded but not worshipped. As stated in the last chapter, prayers entailing submission to the devil represent the influence of the Satanism typical of the final days of the Middle Ages and are therefore of a more early modern nature than invocations where Satan himself is subdued.¹⁷ In the Early Modern age, it was considered a deadly sin to utilize verses from the Psalms “to fool women and maidens, or secure their love and wed them.”¹⁸ The church therefore punished the early modern demonization of medieval conjuration prayers. There were also prayers of another type, which employed neither divine words nor demoniacal formulas.

During the First Visitation, Antonia Fernandes, known by the nickname of Nóbrega, was accused of deploying a number of spells. One involved praying alongside the beloved: “João, I bewitch thee and bewitch thee again with the wood of the vera cruz, and with the angel philosophers, which are six and thirty, and with the bewitching Moor, that thou shalt not be parted from me, and shalt tell me all that thou knowest, and shalt give me all that thou hast, and shalt love me more than all other women.”¹⁹ Nearly two centuries later, indigenous peoples from Grão-Pará were still invoking the cross in prayers used for amorous purposes: “So and so, I swear to thee upon this cross that thy blood shall be imbibed, that thou shalt not be able to eat, nor drink, nor rest, save thou come speak to me.” At the same time the prayer was recited, crosses were scratched on the ground with the left foot.20

Maria Joana, likewise from Pará, was not of indigenous blood, but she knew countless magical practices of a broad variety of origins. Making signs of the cross with her fingers and head, she would pray: “So and so, with two I see thee, with five I command thee, with ten I bind thee, thy blood I drink, thy heart I take. So and so, I swear to thee by this cross of God that thou shalt follow me as the soul followeth light, that thou shalt go and come below, and be at home, and wherever thou be, thou shalt not eat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor rest, save thou come and speak with me.” The generous Maria Joana created variations on the same theme, with her arms outstretched, standing like a cross at the doorway: “So and so, thou seest me in the form of a cross, and in me seest the Sun, and the Moon; no other thing shalt thou see; for me thou shalt be meek, and humble, and still, as God hath humbled Himself when they imprisoned Him. So and so, God can, God willeth, God endeth all for thee, and thou for me, all that I want for me.”²¹

Antonia Maria, the Portuguese sorceress who had been banished to Recife, had her own priceless repertoire of prayers, employed primarily in her travels about the Kingdom. She would call upon souls to guarantee nuptials: “Souls, souls, of the sea, of the land, three hanged, three dragged, three shot to death for love, all nine shall gather and into the heart of so and so shall enter, and such tremor shall cause her for the love of so and so, that she shall not rest, nor be still, save she say yes to his wish to wed.” Antonia advised the man to repeat this devotion nine days in a row. To divine marriages, she would pray barefoot before Our Lady of Grace: “Forgive me, Our Lady, if thus I offend thee, but my need forceth me. God save thee, Virgin of Bethlehem, honor and glory of Jerusalem, pleasure of Israel, by thy pure, clean, and clear conception, I beseech thee, grant my eyes what my heart desireth; I beseech thee, Virgin of Grace, show me if this be so, by turning toward the right, and if it not be so, toward the left.”²² In the case of romantic conquests, Maria Joana demonstrated less reverence before the Virgin than her Portuguese counterpart, going so far as to imply something of a religious anthropophagy: “So and so, the blood of Christ I give thee to eat, the milk of the Most Holy Virgin I give thee to drink; so and so, sighs, cries, and the pangs that the Most Holy Virgin felt when she saw her beloved son dead, the same cries and same pangs and same sighs shalt thou feel for me whenever thou comest not to speak with me.” An ardent practitioner, Maria Joana would make signs of the cross with her head.²³

During the second half of the eighteenth century, St. Cyprian’s prayer was used for romantic ends. No mention of it has been found outside of Grão-Pará. Maria Joana would recite it, having learned it from an Indian: “My glorious St. Cyprian, thou were bishop and archbishop, preacher and confessor of my Lord Jesus Christ; for Thy Holiness, and for Thy Virginity, I beseech thee, St. Cyprian, that thou bring me so and so on his hands and feet, and crying, Sato Saroto Doutor [meaning obscure; perhaps inserted for the sake of rhyme], that he shall desire to take me in.” So as not to lose the habit, she made her usual signs of the cross.24 Manuel de Pacheco Madureira used a very simplified version of this prayer to warm hearts.²⁵ The mameluco soldier Antonio Mogo knew one practically identical to Maria Joana’s; thanks to his aid and this prayer, the cafuza Lívia, a woman of questionable honor (she had been banished to Macapá for this very reason), won back the heart of the soldier João Ventura and had “illicit dealings” with him.²⁶

In Grão-Pará, the most popular prayer for assuring success in romance was St. Mark’s. During the Visitation, at least four individuals were accused of resorting to it: the same Maria Joana, Manuel Nunes da Silva, Manuel José da Maia, and Manuel Pacheco Madureira. Ten years earlier, Isabel Maria de Oliveira and Adrião Pereira de Faria had been tried for sorcery, and among the accusations against them was their knowledge and use of the prayer of St. Mark. Manuel Nunes da Silva pronounced the most complete version, containing elements common to the others, like Maria Joana’s (quite complete as well); Manuel José da Maia’s (quite muddled); and Manuel Pacheco Madureira’s. Da Silva’s went: “So and so [addressing a female], St. Mark of Venice mark thee, and the consecrated host and Holy Spirit confirm thee in thy will, wherewith all shall seem like earth to thee, and only I, so and so, shall seem like pearls and diamonds to thee. O glorious St. Mark, who hath risen to the mountaintops, hath stood against fierce bulls, with thy holy words hath warmed, so do I beseech thee, warm the heart of so and so that she may not eat nor drink nor rest, save she come to me, so gentle and humble as Christ hath gone to the tree of Vera Cruz.”²⁷ In a much more simplified version, Isabel Maria introduced a new element: “Mark, Saint of Venice, mark thee, for the host hath flesh.”²⁸

Maria Joana, veritable champion of prayers, knew other forms as well. These included typically European elements, as noted earlier, and narrated stories from Jesus’s life or drew comparisons with plants.²⁹ For example: “So and so, may St. Mark mark thee, Christ warm thee, Christ was nothing, may he put thy beard in the earth, as the meek lamb of the tree of Vera Cruz: the herb [illegible] that [illegible] went to seek, whose branch is in the sea and its roots in heaven, as this herb be difficult to find, so thou, so and so, cannot be gone from me.” Another starts out in similar fashion but differs from the middle part on: “May he put thy beard in the earth, where the son of God was nothing, may he warm thy heart; the heart wherewith thou makest me suffer, mouth wherewith thou speakest to me, eyes wherewith thou seest me, come to me in great peace and accord, as my Lord Jesus Christ when he hath gone the path of Jerusalem, met with his disciples, and said softly, my friends, so shalt thou, so and so, obey me.”³⁰

In the popular mentality, St. Mark’s job was to mark, as in France it was St. Bouleverse’s role to bouleverser [disturb]. A complex set of symbols surround St. Mark, who was celebrated in Europe on the first day of summer and last of winter, based on the old division of the year into two phases. In Spain, it was an occasion for commemorating a number of rites. The nature of these festivals was highly agricultural and pastoral and at times coincided with cattle fairs. The bull was the pagan representation of the saint, captured and crystallized in folkloric tradition.31 Caro Baroja suggests that since many peoples have considered the bull a sacred beast, it evokes the Horned-God of the Greeks and Romans, thereby implying a parallelism between the rite of St. Mark’s bull and the Dionysian ritual described by Pausanias.³² So it does not seem mere happenstance that the Dionysian St. Mark was invoked by sorcerers (or was the patron behind their prayers) with the intent of sponsoring and facilitating illicit romances.

Not satisfied with the prayer’s Dionysian potential, Adrião Pereira de Faria demonized it in a one-of-a-kind version. The beginning is fundamentally no different from the verses cited above, but toward the end Adrião verbalizes his fondness for the devil: “The demon shall cause it that thou cannot be, nor eat, nor drink, nor sleep, save thou come and speak with me.”³³

With a difference of one century, Maria Barbosa and Antonia Maria also made recourse to demonized prayers that replaced the customary pleas to saints, the Virgin, and Jesus with a kind of diabolic conjuration. As seen in chapter 3, Maria Barbosa had a special liking for the sea demon, whose help she sought in winning the affections of Diogo Castanho. “Great devil maritime, to thee I deliver this pine, and this pine I deliver to Diogo Castanho,” she recited from prison, placing in the window a candle made of tallow that the devil “would swallow with a great shout and earthquakes.”³⁴ Antonia Maria, the sorceress from Recife, had some demonized versions within her sizable arsenal of prayers. To bind a lover, she would cut a bit of goat cheese in three pieces and put it in the window between nine and ten o’clock at night. Then she would recite these words: “We wish to cut the first slice of cheese for Barabbas, the second for Satan, the third for Caiaphas, that all three shall gather in haste, and quickly, and this that we ask shall they grant, that so and so shall come fetch us and shall enter through the door, and without us cannot be, and all that so and so would ask of him, he shall want to do and grant.” Should the request be granted, doors would open and close, guitars would start to sound, and stars to shoot; if not, asses would bray and dogs would bark. Antonia also knew how to attract desire, particularly men’s. She was evidently a charming woman, “small in stature, with a pale face, and a broad one, dark eyes, and handsome ones.” Seated at the doorstep of her house, she would say: “I come to sit in this door stead, and I see not so and so, nor be there anyone to fetch him; go Barabbas, go Satan, go Lucifer, go his wife, go Maria Padilha and all her company, and may all gather together and enter unto so and so’s house, and not let him eat, sleep, nor rest, save he enter my door, and all that I shall ask him, shall he wish to do and grant, and if this be done for me, I promise to give thee a table.” And once more Antonia Maria would begin throwing pieces of cheese to the three devils.³⁵

Besides prayers that invoked saints and holy figures, there were those that turned to the stars, plants, and animals. The prayer of the three stars, of European inspiration, was used by at least two of those accused in northern Brazil at the time of the Visitation, namely, Manuel de Pacheco Madureira and Maria Joana, who, like Antonia, boasted a vast inventory. Manuel’s was simple: “Three stars I see, Jesus Christ and the three kings warm the heart of so and so.”36 Joana, a living archive of Portuguese and indigenous traditions, offered a more complicated version, which in all likelihood mixed elements of various prayers:

Three stars I see, which are three kings, oh Jesus I open the heart of so and so with this [illegible]: so and so, I command thee, by Elis, Elucas, Eloquis, which are three strong horsemen that are shut inside a house, which shall not eat, nor drink, nor clothe themselves, nor see the light of day, antum sum shall eat and go unto the house of so and so, three jolts shall they give him so he be not able to eat, nor drink, save he come and speak with me. So and so, I command thee by seven virtuous friars, and by seven virgin maids, and the altar stone that was found in the sea, and consecrated on land, as the clerics cannot say mass without thee, thus thou, so and so, cannot be without me.³⁷

This habit of invoking the stars while concomitantly summoning forth the three magi who paid homage to Jesus in Bethlehem is most certainly Portuguese. But conjuring by means of stars was common to early modern Europe, and Caro Baroja contends that similarities between Spanish and French conjuration are a product of the press’s role in publicizing small books of medieval or Renaissance tradition; the magic of medieval conjuring as analyzed by Cohn is thus adjoined to the more demonized magic of the Early Modern age. Joana’s prayer points precisely to the intersection of these two currents, one older than the other. Elis, Eloquis, and Elucas are the demons summoned forth by Joana, who subdues them in her conjuration. Beelzebub, Barabbas, Satan, and Lucifer are called upon in the Spanish version, while the French variant names not only Beelzebub but also private demons: Alpha, Rello, Jalderichel, and the Hunchback of Mount Gibel.³⁸

In a most curious example of syncretism in progress, Maria Joana would learn prayers from indigenous people and then translate and shape them to fit the European mold of conjuration. From the cafuza Rosa she had learned the properties of a certain herb known as supora-mirim. She would use the plant in ablutions and then go to a crossroads at midnight, where she would say: “Supora-mirim, as thou sleepest not at night, may it be that so and so cannot rest without me.” To attract men, she had learned a song from the mulata Luzia Sebastiana in an indigenous language and had then translated it into Portuguese. The English version is: “Bemtevi [a Brazilian bird], bemtevi, as thou art a bemtevi, and thou knowest not how to take leave of thy nest and offspring that be born from thee, and even as thou goest far, thou returnest there at once, so be it, so and so, O bemtevi, even if far he be, soon shall he return to me.” Spitting and blowing, she would add: “Fly away, bemtevi. As thou art poor, even poor may so and so come fetch me.” Luzia Sebastiana had taught her yet another song, already translated into Portuguese. In English it goes: “Jabuti, jabuti [a type of turtle], as thou art always in thy corner, thy eyes tearing and crying, thus shall so and so always cry with tears in his eyes for love of me, nor can he be wherever he be, nor can he eat, nor drink, save he come speak to me.”

Maria Joana learned many other songs “that she herself [did] not understand for they [were] words known only to the Indians that dwell in the forests.” Some of the translated ones bear signs of the region’s geography: “Seagull, seagull, as thou, every day and every night, goest about seeking thy food with the blowing of the wind and swaying of the sea, crossing the bay of Marajó, thus shall so and so come to me through my door and behind my house every day and every night.” Others referred to people’s struggles against creatures that wrought havoc on their plantations: “Deer, as a field be planted and thou tirest not, save they kill thee, thus shall so and so not rest, save he come to me.”39

Sortilege

Maria Joana used her prayers in conjunction with sortilege. She would fumigate her pudenda with smoke from the resin of an animal that resembled a small frog, called a cunanaru. Then she would say: “Cunanaru, as thou startest thy resin inside a piece of wood, and there dost thou eat and drink and never take leave of it, save thou finish it, so shall thou, so and so, never take leave of me.” In the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the mestizo population of northern Brazil was therefore syncretizing prayers and sortilege known to the colony since the time of the First Visitation. It was from a cafuza of her acquaintanceship that Maria Joana had learned that “there was much worth for a woman to wash herself with water on her pudenda, on the soles of her feet, and in the pits of her arms, and then to scrape the soles of her feet with a knife and throw this water in a mortar, and the next day give it unbeknown in some drink” to her beloved so that he would desire her and be unable to part from her.

Maria Joana was set to marry a certain man, who lived with her in the same house. But he was so scurrilous that he brought into this house “a certain other woman whom he used without heed” to Maria Joana. So she had him drink this brew from the mortar, and her boyfriend “soon left said woman and acceded to the will of her, the Confessor.” Indigenous females “from days of yore” also believed that herbal ablutions possessed sexual powers. They used the bark of a tree called caure juira; according to folk tradition, they would go up to the tree, knock on it “as if it be a door”; if a response came from inside said tree: “What dost thou desire?” then they would state the names of the one knocking and of the man they wanted to captivate. In reply, the tree would tell them to take a bit of its bark—a kind of syncretic, colonial version of the holy oak of classical tradition.

Maria Joana also knew that when mixed with pipe tobacco and given to a lover to smoke, the leaves of two other trees, the caãxixo (or tree that cries) and the urubu giriá (or raven that turns), had the merit of attracting men. For his part, João Mendos believed in the powers of herbal ablutions. He once coveted an unmarried indigenous woman who shunned him and said he was not about to have her. A male friend of indigenous blood then taught João an ablution using leaves and shavings from the root of the tabarataseú tree. He should thrice sprinkle his entire body and all his hair, invoking the demon. In the wee hours of the day on which this ceremony took place, the Indian woman he so greatly desired knocked on his door. He “drew her inside, and both soon offended God.”40

In 1591, in Bahia, the sorceress Nóbrega (Antonia Fernandes) was already resorting to this kind of magic where the genital organs played a central role. In one case, the woman should take three hazelnuts or pinenuts, stick them with pins, remove their meat, and stuff them with hair from all parts of her body, as well as with fingernail and toenail parings and scrapings from the soles of her feet. She should then swallow the hazelnuts or pinenuts “and after [they were] spewed out below” should administer them to her beloved, who would be irresistibly captured.⁴¹ Nóbrega advised her female acquaintances to make recourse to potions made from their lover’s sperm: that “the seed of the man, given to drink, would make him desire greatly, it being the seed of the very man from whom affection was desired, after having carnal coupling and flowing from the woman’s vaso [vagina], and that this seed, given to drink to the same man who spilled it, would make him feel great affection.”⁴²

A contemporary of Maria Joana’s, the black slave Joana (who was harshly punished by her masters and had poisoned a fellow slave out of jealousy, as mentioned earlier) had learned from an indigenous woman how to bind a man using the water left after ablution of the pudenda. The first water should be cast aside, but the second kept and administered in food and drink.⁴³ Not long before this, in Lisbon, the young slave Marcelina Maria cooked an egg, slept with it between her legs, and then gave it to the man whose heart she wanted to win. She had been taught that “when she copulated with a man, she ought to moisten her finger in her vaso natural [vagina] and make two crosses over the eyes so that said person would always stay beside her and never take leave of her.”⁴⁴

Powders and roots likewise wielded magical power over sweethearts. Ardelhe-o-rabo [“Butt-That-Burns,” i.e., Maria Gonçalves Cajada] would hand out powders when her assistance was sought. They came wrapped in small pieces of paper and were supposed to be thrown at whomever her client wanted to secure.⁴⁵ Catarina Fróis asked her for some special spells to make her son-in-law satisfy all her daughter’s whims. For this purpose, Catarina gave the sorceress a button and a scrap from her son-in-law’s cloak, and in exchange Maria Gonçalves “gave her some powders, saying to her that they were from a . . . toad and that it had required much labor for her to make them, and that she had gone into the woods to speak with the devils and that she had come back wearied by them.” Since Maria Gonçalves had come “out of the woods all disheveled,” her person confirmed her words. She instructed Catarina Fróis to throw the powders beneath her son-in-law’s feet, and he would be subdued.46

Maria Barbosa rubbed Diogo Castanho’s dishware with wood dust, in the hopes of ensuring that her beloved would not leave her.⁴⁷ Isabel Maria de Oliveira placed scented roots inside the clothing of the men she wanted to win over; Isabel Maria starched and ironed for others, so she earned her living by working. Many people accused this unmarried woman of being a sorceress. They also said that when she was with her lovers—whether actual or potential—she would chew licorice root to make them fall madly in love. Interrogated by the Holy Office, Isabel Maria claimed that she used these roots so the clothes she ironed would smell fragrant and pleasing to her customers. As to the licorice, she chewed it to sweeten her breath.⁴⁸ Manuel da Piedade carried about some crumblike powders squeezed in his hands; as long as he held them so, “a certain woman . . . would not be able to take leave of him, and would only go once he had released said powders.”⁴⁹

There were various kinds of sortilege. Early in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, in Recife, Ana Ferreira counseled her betrothed daughter to go out at night in her petticoats, with her hair falling loose down her back, and to knock three times on a church door—and this would guarantee her marriage.⁵⁰ In the early seventeenth century, Maria Barbosa, mentioned earlier, gave her husband a broth to drink that put him to sleep for three days and three nights. The episode became public knowledge in Pernambuco, where her husband served as a soldier, in the town of Recife. The unfortunate man had left his barracks on Saturday and returned only on Tuesday. When questioned about why he had been away so long, he asked in astonishment if it was not Sunday morning; he had completely lost his sense of time. While her husband was sleeping, so went the gossip, Maria expended her charms on other men.⁵¹ In the region of Ouro Preto, in 1731, Florência do Bomsucesso “took coals to the crossroads and invoked the demon, tossing the coals along the path and by such a feat the man she desired early the next morning would knock at her door and . . . dishonor himself with her.”⁵² In Minas Gerais, many people were accused of knowing secrets and spells that would “procure women for men for the purpose of having copulation together,” like Timótea Nogueira, who lived by Brumado creek.⁵³ References were made to unspecific sortilege in Grão-Pará as well. Isabel Maria de Oliveira used superstitious sayings to subdue her paramours. She had lived some time with a soldier, but she said she was single “so she could, with greater liberality, live like a bawd.”⁵⁴

Unmarried women or those who worked for a living were almost always thought of as prostitutes. In the classic conception of the Renaissance procuress and perfumer, witches in turn were harlots, women of ill-repute. In colonial Brazil, of all those who worked with magic, perhaps women who sold love philters, taught prayers to bind men, and prescribed potions and herbal ablutions were stigmatized the most by a social perception that they were prostitutes. Sexual magic and prostitution always seemed to go together. The Minas mulato Antonio Julião, one of the only men accused of practicing amatory sortilege, lived in the midst of “mulata-ladies,” as if he were a kind of panderer and thus involved in the world of prostitution as well.55

The crossed eyes, the twisted mouth, the “burning butt” that recalled prostitution, the disheveled hair, the nightly sojourns on the beach or in the woods, the sexual interest on the part of many men, the lovely dark eyes, the life of a rover, moving from city to city and house to house, knowledge of strange words and medicinal herbs—all this contributed to the collective construction of the stereotype of a sorceress. Witches “are enemies of society and, as such, embody whatever in that society is considered to be antisocial.” Witches are indeed antisocial individuals, and ones that dwell in the midst of society.⁵⁶ Some social groups differentiated between “night-witches” (or flying witches) and “everyday witches.” The latter shared backyards with the people that showed them animosity, while divining lost objects, healing aches and illnesses, and furthering romantic adventures; often they were “the image of what one would not wish one’s neighbors to be, and many unpopular people have the qualities ascribed to witches.”⁵⁷ Night-witches, on the other hand, were about flights, metamorphoses, crossroads, and demons that took their blood or, in the case of private demons, took up residence in their bodies, in their homes, in their bottles and household utensils. Perhaps this label serves first and foremost to designate sorceresses in their relationship to the mysterious supernatural worlds.