Witchery in the Southwest has its roots in the Spanish and Native American cultures of the northern provinces of New Spain (which became the American Southwest). Spain's witch crazes differed from the witch crazes that occurred in Germany, France, England, Scotland, Switzerland, and other European countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In those countries, millions of persons accused of witchery were put to death. The burning of Joan of Arc in France in 1431 probably best symbolizes these crazes. In Spain, however, there was only a spate of trials and burnings during the Inquisition. Indeed, the Spanish Inquisition's attitude toward "witches" looms as a beacon of enlightened reason when compared to the hysterias that prevailed in the other European nations.
Nevertheless, the Spanish reflected the views of the European Middle Ages and divided the universe into opposing forces of good and evil. They believed in monsters, giants, wild men, and dragons, and tended to associate witchery with women. For the explorers of the sixteenth century, the Devil had an earthly domicile, and sightings were reported in many areas of the New World. Like the Spaniards, the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere held views of good and evil, but these forces were seen as part of life, found in every human and god. The Mayans believed in Ixchel, a death god equated by the Spaniards with the Devil, and the Aztecs held Tezcatlipoca as the lord of the night and the patron of the witches. In contrast to European views, witches among the Aztecs tended to be men. The Emperor Montezuma was himself a dabbler in witchery, and when he learned of the four-legged monsters with humans growing out of their backs (the Aztecs had never seen horses — nor men on horseback), he consulted his soothsayers.
