Abiquiú

In 1764, Fray Juan José Toledo, the priest of the mission church in Abiquiú, New Mexico, wrote a striking letter to the local magistrate. In it, he described an extraordinary spiritual crisis: a surge of demonic possessions affecting the women in his congregation. Viewed through the lenses of gender, colonialism, and religious conflict, this event emerges as a powerful moment of Indigenous resistance, expressed through bodies and language. This episode tells a story of ritual and rebellion: the story of the witches of Abiquiú.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

Episode sources

Chapters

• 0:00 Pre-roll
• 0:08 Intro
• 1:54 The Outbreak
• 7:59 A Bewitching
• 15:14 Possession and Power
• 21:06 Conclusion
• 24:19 Outro

Transcript

Pre-roll
You’re listening to Enchanted, a podcast on the history of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. I’m Corinne Wieben.

Intro
On January 22, 1764, Fray Juan José Toledo, the priest of the mission church in Abiquiú, New Mexico, penned a remarkable letter to the local magistrate. In it, he chronicled a spiritual crisis unlike any other: a wave of demonic possessions overtaking the women of his congregation. The crisis began with María Trujillo, who, he writes, “since the month of June… would faint at the moment of the prayer of exorcism.” What began as a fainting spell during pregnancy became, in Toledo’s eyes, a case of possession. While this case echoes a number of other accounts of demonic possession in Europe, the circumstances surrounding Trujillo’s possession were unique to colonial New Mexico. 

Though framed by the friar as an eruption of demonic chaos, this event, when read through the lens of gender, colonialism, and religious contestation, reveals itself instead as a moment of indigenous resistance, waged in bodies and language. In this episode, I bring you a story of ritual and rebellion: the story of the witches of Abiquiú.

The Outbreak
In his letter to the magistrate, Toledo described the possession of one of his congregants, writing, “On the seventeenth day of December of the past year, I started to exorcise María Trujillo in the Holy Church, who is the wife of José Valdez, resident of this jurisdiction, who for the love of God pleaded with me to exorcise María, who, since the month of June and for nine consecutive days after mass and inside the church, would faint at the moment of the prayer of exorcism... She appeared to be free of this illness until the eleventh day of November when, having arrived at the hour of childbirth close to daybreak, she experienced a great fainting spell and, coming to, she followed through in the delivery with great ease. When the sun arose, she had given birth to a child that was well and healthy.”

Toledo provides a vivid account of a physical and mental illness that overwhelmed María after childbirth. While the physical symptoms are striking, his description of Trujillo’s emotional distress may resemble, to a modern reader, symptoms of severe postpartum depression. Toledo writes, “We have witnessed that she would become covered with purple blemishes on the right shoulder, the elbow, the palm of the hand, and the knee... On the fourteenth day, she felt a great headache, and there appeared a weight in her stomach and a blockage in her intestines. After all this, apparently she was given to great sadness of an extreme nature. On the day of the allegiance to Our Lady, it happened that while in the church, she would get very sleepy during the mass and sermon and could not be amused by the diversions of the fiesta.” Toledo states that this “state of melancholy” then gave way to manic behavior, writing, “She fainted after the prayer in her house and, instead of awakening, she went into a fury and began to exhaust herself with unnatural strength.” Rather than recognizing Trujillo as a woman emotionally struggling after childbirth, Toledo interprets the condition as a spiritual illness, suggesting demonic possession, and writes, “For this reason and because of the continued evil which continued at all hours, I resorted to the spiritual remedy and as such I proceeded exorcising.”

This initial episode in what would become a weeks-long spiritual conflict paved the way for other women in the community to come forward with their own struggles. Shortly after Trujillo’s affliction, Toledo writes, “Francisca Barela, also a resident of this place, a young maiden, poor and cloistered, eighteen years old more or less, left her home about four in the afternoon with an earthen jar to supply the house with water. Upon reaching a small spring…, she felt a certain motion in her body. With great dread and fear and without knowing from where this originated, she returned to her home. She then heard the sound of a pig… She could not see what had scared her. Having got her water, she arrived at her house and, having placed corn on her mill to crush it for supper, she was suddenly stunned by a tingling sensation that she felt over her body. She returned a second time before it got too late to get some more water to finish the task. She filled the earthen jar at the small spring and once again heard the same noise as before. Having seen nothing, she felt a major shudder and fear until she arrived at her home, and her anxiety increased. She was further afflicted and the sensations caused her to fall into a seizure. Her brother noticed the movements she had in her body and, upon seeing her on the floor, attempted to lift her, and when she felt this movement, she began to give furious and frightful shouts which the people heard. When asked what was wrong, she responded that she did not see anything nor was she afflicted by any pain.”

Barela’s symptoms intensified when the crowd brought her to the mission church, where she began to act out violently. Toledo writes, “they brought the woman to this mission with difficulty, as she was resistant to my presence. As soon as she arrived and saw me, there were imponderable shouts which issued forth from her mouth and the clamor of the members of her body and the movement of her eyes… The fury that she was in at each instant fatigued the people who held her. They held her so that she would not get loose from those hands, which she tried to do…, throwing punches and trying to bite and grab the hair of those around her… At the words of the Holy Gospel, her body made wild movements, she shouted and shrieked, which ceased immediately once I grabbed the book of exorcisms. She began to make insolent remarks to me… When I began the exorcism, she cursed me and tried to interrupt and impede the exorcism with great shouts, disgraces, and extreme shaking. By the time she appeared to be secured, the four men who held her were exhausted.” Toledo underscores the seriousness of the disturbances—and his distaste for Indigenous traditions—by drawing attention to Barela’s Indigenous identity, noting, “As [Barela] rested, she was thrown onto the floor, howling in a very loud voice like the Indians of this land are accustomed to do.”

A Bewitching
Other Indigenous girls and women soon followed Barela’s example of open defiance in the church. The next day, a twelve-year-old girl named María de Chavez began showing similar symptoms. Once again, Toledo interpreted these physical manifestations as signs of spiritual illness, writing, “I performed the exorcism of the evil spirit which the devil felt a great deal, as he was inside the bodies of the sick women. This was not only a bewitching, but also the devil, who is behind such things.” Gathered in the church to both attend Mass and undergo exorcism, the women collectively and loudly disrupted the ceremony. Toledo writes, “The disturbance in the temple was so great that one was unable to hear the chorus of the singers, nor the minister at the altar. The other [possessed women], having quieted for a while, began the uproar once more. Francisca Barela continued in her insolence and loud shouts when she was seated. It became necessary to order her to be removed from the church, which caused the others who remained in the church to scream and move about as they had done at the start of the mass.”

As the exorcisms continued, the women began naming others, claiming they had been bewitched into rejecting the church and its rituals. Toledo writes, “María shouted in an intelligible voice that the Indian Jacinta and her mother, the old woman called Atole Caliente, were suffocating her… She also said that they commanded her the other day, which was a Holy Day of Obligation and festival, not to attend Mass. I said she should be taken by force. She responded that I did not govern her, that she was subject to the two Indians referred to, who controlled her.”

When the friar moved to begin the Mass, he writes, “All the sick women fell to the floor, the first being María de Chavez… The Indian Atole Caliente was above her head, holding the sick woman by the throat with one hand, and with the other, gesturing to suffocate her by inserting the point of a blanket into her mouth… I heard someone try to quiet her…, which was the reason it was necessary for me to turn around and, leaving the altar, put myself in the middle of the disturbance in order to remove the Indian Atole Caliente, whose insolence caused me great indisposition.” Caliente’s questioning offers a glimpse into the disconnect between Toledo’s Catholic interpretation of events and Indigenous perspectives. When the friar asked the woman to explain her actions in the church, “Atole Caliente did not respond beyond saying she did it charitably to remove the evil.” At this point, Toledo initiated proceedings against Caliente. However, what seemed to trouble him most was not the threat of witchcraft itself, but the public embarrassment these women caused him. In his account, he laments, “this sort of boldness in full view of so much of the congregation.”

Despite the priest’s irritation (or perhaps because of it), the women persisted in their disruptions. As Toledo writes, “All these women were in place below the altar steps for the Mass and exorcisms. They were calm until I began to sing the first phrases of the gospel, which is when they let loose, one after the other, with grimaces, shaking, trembling, fainting, violent acts and other controversies… with the recital of ‘how art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who did rise in the morning,’ one of the possessed women responded ‘by way of insolence and arrogance…’ This same day, another young maiden furiously let loose inside the church exhibiting a certain spirit of illness… In this bad state, her tongue let loose and… the [possessed women] all began to chatter… and on the words of the major mysteries, they laughed, giving shouts, and making idle conversation. When I said ‘in the name of the Father,’ etc., they made demonstrations with their heads that the doctrine of the Trinity was not true. When I said ‘the Word made flesh,’ they did the same.”

Emboldened by the priest’s inability to control them, the women began revealing the misconduct of others. Toledo recounts, “One after the other they began to reveal various people... The possessed affirmed that all the men and women named were evil sorcerers who murder with their arts. The women gave the reason that the principal foundation of the declaration was so the sorcery would be discovered, along with all of the wickedness, even beyond this particular situation, that was in the land. They also said that the Lord Governor wanted to make an example and leave this land clean. On the same day, they ended their fantastic demonstrations, howls, and extreme chants, opening their eyes.”

After this climactic moment and weeks of ongoing disturbances, the women’s outbursts gradually subsided. Toledo recalls, “On the twenty-second day of this illness with the women of the church, a spirit left Francisca Barela, who said through her mounth that it had been there in order to treat her badly and that it was there in order to enter José Valdez, so that he might murder his wife, induced by two of his sisters-in-law… On the twenty-eighth day of the exorcism, Lucifer left, bringing a sign during the fainting spell of María Trujillo inside the church.” But María wasn’t done yet; she returned to the church a few days later. Toledo writes, “On the third day, over what displeasure with her husband I did not know… she was found standing for the benefit of the exorcism. She invoked the devil for a long time while enraged and deranged… María Trujillo’s face and body started to make various grimaces and forceful gestures, as she wanted to break free from the hands of those who held her. She blasphemed and apostatized verbally, and her lips were black like coal… After I had succeeded in the execution of the exorcism, María proved to me the spirit was not inside her body by reciting the divine oath. As I was over her head, she advised me of the danger of certain people… She revealed things of a personal nature about many who were present… Finally, the spirit withdrew, leaving María’s sanity in good condition, and her coloring returned. However, she was very maimed.”

Possession and Power
Throughout his account, Toledo writes as an outsider attempting to control a situation he cannot fully comprehend. Again and again, he interprets the women’s actions through a Catholic framework that clashes with Indigenous understandings. When trying to describe their behavior, he repeatedly emphasizes the “Indianness” of their conduct, writing, “At the start of the Introit, the afflicted women fell to the floor at the same time, beginning to exasperate and exhaust themselves so that people went to their aid to hold them and, upon realizing they had been seized, they let out Indian war howls of the type which the Indians are accustomed to giving when they grind corn.” Toledo refers to one of his assistants simply as “the Indian Joaquín,” later calling him “the Indian discoverer,” whose role was to report suspected acts of sorcery to the governor. When the women chant together, Toledo notes, “They have chanted in the Tewa language, chants they do not know in the Taos language.”

As his account progresses, Toledo’s frustration becomes more pronounced. He writes, “There is not a mind that can comprehend this situation, for as in a battle where the leader cannot lose faith, I am assisting without getting caught up again… I have nevertheless struggled with the idea that these women are tormented by the devil… When the spirit withdrew, their good coloring came back, they declared that which was within their soul, and their major goal was to make sins public…when they are free and using their own judgment, they do not remember the things that they have said. Being violent when they were ordered to be silent, they did not obey many times… To all those present, including myself, they say ‘son of a whore,’ and other disgraceful words…” Finally, Toledo adds, “I am also remitting the list of those who have been accused of sorcery without being questioned… I do not ignore that the devil, the father of lies, has attempted to excuse all of this information. But I am not ashamed, nor afraid to use all the means necessary to remove all obstacles and give adoration to the Highest. This is advised for the alcalde mayor, the Indian discoverer, and myself.”

At the center of Toledo’s narrative are women—María Trujillo, Francisca Barela, María de Chavez, and others—identified as Indigenous or genízaras, detribalized women often forced into servitude. They stand in sharp contrast to those who exercised power: the male colonial authorities, their husbands and brothers, and Joaquín, the designated “Indian discoverer.” The conflict at hand was not simply a spiritual struggle between good and evil, but a political and cultural confrontation between colonial power and Indigenous and female autonomy. Toledo positions himself as a beleaguered commander, and his language is steeped in the metaphors of war, even though the weapons wielded against him were chants, gestures, and accusations of witchcraft.

His fixation on physical symptoms reflects a European religious worldview in which spiritual realities were believed to manifest visibly on the body. Trujillo’s “purple blemishes,” “great headache,” and “state of melancholy” blur the line between spiritual affliction and physical illness. In a society that denied the psychological complexity of Indigenous women, depression, anxiety, and trauma were often interpreted as diabolic possession. Trujillo’s convulsions, Barela’s seizures, and the collective trances of other women were diagnosed as “spiritual illness,” but they also represented acts of disruption, threatening the fragile authority of Catholic ritual. The liturgy, intended as a tool for colonial control, was drowned out by the chaotic and embodied responses of the women it sought to discipline.

What Toledo labeled as possession can also be understood as expressions of agency. These Indigenous and genízara women—culturally suppressed and spiritually overwritten by colonial domination—took center stage within the church, using their bodies as instruments of resistance. Through convulsions, howls, and chants in unfamiliar languages, they subverted patriarchal and ecclesiastical authority. When Barela “howled in a very loud voice like the Indians of this land are accustomed to do,” she reclaimed the sonic space of the church, reviving an Indigenous soundscape that colonialism had tried to erase. In a striking exchange, Toledo recounts reciting the line “How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer,” and hearing one woman reply, “By way of insolence and arrogance.” This unexpected call-and-response turns the priest’s own theological terrain against him. Through their embodied defiance, these women challenged colonial power with their own visceral, communal performance.

Conclusion
How, then, do we make sense of the fact that the women themselves named names, accusing others, many of them Indigenous, of sorcery? At first glance, this might appear to reflect internalized colonial logic, but it can also be interpreted as strategic. The women’s “confessions” and trance states became opportunities to denounce social injustices and personal grievances publicly. The exorcisms turned into spectacles where suppressed voices suddenly—even dangerously—demanded to be heard. As Toledo himself grudgingly admits, “their major goal… was to make sins public.”

Toledo believed he had prevailed in the end. “Lucifer left,” he writes, “during the fainting spell of María Trujillo.” But the language of exorcism conceals a deeper loss. For weeks, Indigenous and genízara women had transformed the church into a theater of resistance. They voiced truths the priest could not contain, exposed wrongs the Church refused to acknowledge, and repurposed sacred ritual into an act of subversion.

Some of the most revealing moments come when the women reject obedience outright. María de Chavez tells Toledo that he does not govern her, declaring her allegiance instead to other Indigenous women, like Atole Caliente. Other women, forced to attend Mass, physically react to the invocation of the Trinity, “making demonstrations with their heads that the doctrine… was not true.” These are acts of dissent.

The communal nature of the possession—multiple women convulsing, chanting, and shrieking together—makes the phenomenon feel less like isolated spiritual affliction and more like a coordinated uprising. When Toledo describes a “pathetic lament outside the church” that lasted through the Mass, we hear not only cries of suffering but the sound of a spiritual occupation.

This moment in Abiquiú was not simply about demonic possession. It was about contested authority over the body, belief, and community. Possession narratives often reflect deeper tensions around gender and power. On the margins of empire, the so-called possessed women of New Mexico found a voice the Church could not suppress, one that spoke in war cries, native languages, and the fierce freedom of the unconquered soul.

Outro
If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to Enchanted wherever you listen. This episode was produced by me with original music by Purple Planet. You can find them at purple dash planet dot com. If you want to learn more about the witches of Abiquiú, be sure to check out the sources link in the show notes. Special thanks to Enchanted’s Patreon patrons for supporting the production of this and every episode. If you want to support Enchanted, please visit patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. If you’re looking for a way to support the show that won’t cost you anything, you can always give Enchanted: The History of Magic & Witchcraft a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Audible, or wherever you listen and recommend it to your friends. You can get in touch with me via email at enchantedpodcast at gmail dot com or follow on Bluesky at enchantedpodcast. As always, for more information and special features, visit enchantedpodcast dot net. I’m Corinne Wieben. Thank you for listening, and stay enchanted.