Rubbishes to heal: introduction and transcription of the document: criminal against Joseph Acosta, Santiago, 1739

Authors

  • Eduardo Valenzuela A. Magíster en Historia, mención Etnohistoria, Universidad de Chile. Docteur© en Anthropologie Sociale et Ethnologie, EHESS

Abstract

The case of Joseph Thomas Acosta, indio, hechicero, is registered in a set of criminal prosecutions for heterodoxy, followed by the Justicia Real during S.XVIII in Chile, showing not only the legal practices that support these processes but also the set of signs and elements that form a common languague for witnesses, defendants and judges. This paper presents the transcription of a new process of hechicería, and throws some keys to understand the general context of phenomenology heterodox in colonial Chile.

Keywords:

sorcery, witchcraft, heterodoxy, XVIII Century