Witchcraft

==== Latin America ====
{{main|Witchcraft in Latin America}}
When Franciscan friars from New Spain arrived in the Americas in 1524, they introduced Diabolism—belief in [[Devil in Christianity|the Christian Devil]]—to the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas]].<ref name="credoreference2005">{{Cite web |date=2005 |title=Diabolism in the New World |url=http://www.credoreference.com/entry/abcibamrle/diabolism_in_the_new_world |access-date=February 10, 2013 |publisher=ABCCLIO |archive-date=July 18, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718192639/https://search.credoreference.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref name="credoreference2005" /> Mexican Indians gladly took in the belief of Diabolism and still managed to keep their belief in creator-destroyer deities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Young |first1=Eric Van |last2=Cervantes |first2=Fernando |last3=Mills |first3=Kenneth |date=November 1996 |title=The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. |journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=76 |issue=4 |page=789 |doi=10.2307/2517981 |jstor=2517981}}</ref>

Witchcraft was an important part of the social and cultural history of late-Colonial Mexico, during the [[Mexican Inquisition]]. Spanish Inquisitors viewed witchcraft as a problem that could be cured simply through confession. 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."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Behar |first=Ruth |date=1987 |title=Sex and Sin, Witchcraft and the Devil in Late-Colonial Mexico |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=34–54 |doi=10.1525/ae.1987.14.1.02a00030 |jstor=645632 |hdl-access=free |hdl=2027.42/136539}}</ref> Furthermore, witchcraft in Mexico generally required an interethnic and interclass network of witches.<ref>Lavrin, Asunción. ''Sexuality & Marriage in Colonial Latin America.'' Reprint ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992, p. 192.{{ISBN?}}</ref> Yet, 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.<ref>Lewis, Laura A. ''Hall of mirrors: power, witchcraft, and caste in colonial Mexico.'' Durham, N.C.:Duke University Press, 2003, p. 13.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

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).<ref>{{in lang|pt}} João Ribeiro Júnior, ''O Que é Magia'', pp. 48–49, Ed. Abril Cultural.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

''[[Brujería]]'', often called a Latin American form of witchcraft, is a [[syncretic]] Afro-Caribbean tradition that combines Indigenous religious and magical practices from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao in the Dutch Caribbean, Catholicism, and European witchcraft.<ref name="Herrera-Sobek">{{cite book|author=María Herrera-Sobek|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDIwZ8BieWcC&pg=PA174|title=Celebrating Latino Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Cultural Traditions|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2012|isbn=978-0313343391}}</ref>{{rp|174}} The tradition and terminology is considered to encompass both helpful and harmful practices.{{r|Herrera-Sobek|p=175}} A male practitioner is called a {{lang|es|brujo}}, a female practitioner, a {{lang|es|bruja}}.{{r|Herrera-Sobek|p=175}} Healers may be further distinguished by the terms {{lang|es|kurioso}} or {{lang|es|kuradó}}, a man or woman who performs {{lang|es|trabou chikí}} ("little works") and {{lang|es|trabou grandi}} ("large treatments") to promote or restore health, bring fortune or misfortune, deal with unrequited love, and more serious concerns. Sorcery usually involves reference to an entity referred to as the {{lang|es|almasola}} or {{lang|es|homber chiki}}.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Blom |first1=Jan Dirk |last2=Poulina |first2=Igmar T. |last3=van Gellecum |first3=Trevor L. |last4=Hoek |first4=Hans W. |date=December 2015 |title=Traditional healing practices originating in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: A review of the literature on psychiatry and Brua |journal=Transcultural Psychiatry |volume=52 |issue=6 |pages=840–860 |doi=10.1177/1363461515589709 |pmid=26062555 |s2cid=27804741|url=https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/f32d1bf6-8b1e-4b0b-ab2b-467700fe5ca6 }}</ref>