Magic, popular medicine and gender in seventeenth‐century Mexico: The case of Isabel de Montoya<sup>1</sup>

Megged, Amos

doi:10.1080/03071029408567903

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Trichocereus pachanoi), ayahuasca (a psychedelic drink usually mixing Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis), yopo (a psychedelic snuff made from Anadenanthera peregrine), and other substances (Guerra-Doce, 2015;Miller et al, 2019). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Catholic Church regarded such practices as a form of devil worship and responded with a ferocious prohibition campaign that has been well documented by historians (Chuchiak, 2012;Dawson, 2018;Dierksmeier, 2020;Greenleaf, 1978Greenleaf, , 1994Leonard, 1942;Megged, 1994;Slotkin, 1955).…”

Section: Inquisitorial Struggles In the Early Modern Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial and religious motives for drug criminalization

Johnstad

2023

Drug Science, Policy and Law

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The world has a long-standing system of drug control intended to suppress the use of a range of psychoactive drugs on the basis that such use is very harmful both to the users themselves and to their social surroundings. This perception of harmfulness has a long medical history, but recent research indicates that many forms of illicit drug use are not more harmful than the use of alcohol and tobacco. This article analyzes the historical and normative background for the apparently exaggerated assessments of drug harms on which the regime of drug control is founded. Starting from the observation that the drugs that have been exempted from this criminalization regime are those that were integrated in European cultures during the early modern era whereas the drugs criminalized under this regime lack such a history of European acceptance, the article discusses racial and cultural (especially religious) prejudice as a foundation for the exaggerated perceptions of drug harms. It finds that such prejudice is well-attested in the historical literature and seems to have contributed substantially to the formation of the international drug control regime. In sum, this article argues that drug prohibition was first introduced in the early modern era on racial and religious grounds and that the influence of these prohibition motives can be traced, directly and indirectly, all the way to the present day. This influence may explain why the health risks associated with illicit drug use are still often exaggerated in contemporary drug harms research.

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Section: Inquisitorial Struggles In the Early Modern Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial and religious motives for drug criminalization

Johnstad

2023

Drug Science, Policy and Law

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“…The relationship between market systems and health care extends beyond dental practices, as documented in ethnographic (Logan 1973; Napolitano and Mora Flores 2003; Nicholson and Arzeni 1993; Ticktin and Dalle 2005) and ethnohistoric (Megged 1994:195) sources across Mesoamerica, though this association has not yet become a salient topic in studies of ancient Maya markets. For example, Sahagún (2012) lists physicians plying their trade alongside vendors selling their wares.…”

Section: Illness and Medical Practice In The Maya Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Care in the Marketplace: Exploring Maya Medicinal Plants and Practices at Piedras Negras, Guatemala

et al. 2022

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Botanical residues recovered from excavations in the Southeast Marketplace of Piedras Negras provide information about the healing and medical activities of the site's Classic period (a.d. 350–900) inhabitants, and point towards the intersection between commerce and medicine for the ancient Maya. The plants were likely exchanged at the market then used on-site for the purposes of healing. The botanical remains are complemented by both architectural and bioarchaeological evidence for healing at this locus, including a high concentration of sweatbaths and evidence for palliative tooth extraction. With the aid of ethnohistory, we identify health care practices potentially associated with the plant remains. However, we expand on basic understandings of “healing” with a critical look at how some medicinal plants may have been ritually invoked, even when never directly ingested or applied topically.

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Remedios for Relationships: Social Precarity and Amatory Therapeutics in the Early Circum-Caribbean

Block

2023

Hispanic American Historical Review

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This study argues that practices sometimes referred to as “love magic” operated instead as relational therapeutics in colonial Latin America. Focusing on women's roles in Spanish Caribbean port cities from the late sixteenth through the early eighteenth century, I analyze a range of relationship remedios (or cures) ranging from divination and prayers to spells and potions by interrogating early modern Spanish Inquisition records from Mexico and Cartagena de Indias. Far from simple reflections of religious deviance, these trials show women searching within their relational networks for practical remedies to cure structural and personal problems in their sexual partnerships. Some remedies were clearly offered on a basis more transactional than therapeutic, a reflection of the inequality, violence, and trauma of life in the colonial Caribbean. People in the region drew on a range of amatory therapeutics to relieve emotional pain, soothe everyday tensions over power, and cope with economic precarity.

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Magic, popular medicine and gender in seventeenth‐century Mexico: The case of Isabel de Montoya¹

Cited by 3 publications

References 6 publications

Racial and religious motives for drug criminalization

Racial and religious motives for drug criminalization

Health Care in the Marketplace: Exploring Maya Medicinal Plants and Practices at Piedras Negras, Guatemala

Remedios for Relationships: Social Precarity and Amatory Therapeutics in the Early Circum-Caribbean

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Magic, popular medicine and gender in seventeenth‐century Mexico: The case of Isabel de Montoya1

Cited by 3 publications

References 6 publications

Racial and religious motives for drug criminalization

Racial and religious motives for drug criminalization

Health Care in the Marketplace: Exploring Maya Medicinal Plants and Practices at Piedras Negras, Guatemala

Remedios for Relationships: Social Precarity and Amatory Therapeutics in the Early Circum-Caribbean

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Magic, popular medicine and gender in seventeenth‐century Mexico: The case of Isabel de Montoya¹