Halloween Candles and Witch Craft

Halloween Candles and Witch Craft
It was Halloween, but the Youth groups at church had their party on the weekend. Brent and Lynae decided (or rather Gina, had announced) that they were a bit too grown up to go trick-or-treating. "I wish I could be baby-sitting, or that Gina's grandkids were visiting. Then we'd have an excuse to go trick-or-treating, at least within the apartment buildings," Lynae whined.
"Oh, good grief, Lynae. Stop your whining! Dad and Gina wouldn't let us go anyway. You know Las Vegas is 'way too dangerous' for people to go outside. I wish we were back in our old neighborhood where we could run around on our own on nights like this -- anyway we can have our own little party in the apartment. You get a candle for the jack-o-lantern. I have some matches hidden away. Gina and Dad are gone for the evening to a meeting, so we‘ll just have our own private party. You remember the transcript of George Jacobs' witchcraft trial in Salem. I think it’s in the wooden chest Mom left with us. I'll get it out while you get the candle."
"OK, but open the window a crack. It smells like your old shoes in here. I'll be right back." As Lynae opened Brent's bedroom door, the vacuum action between the open window and the opening door caused the candle to flare, then flicker. Something about the change in light startled Lynae. She stood frozen in her tracks. In the flicker of light Brent and Lynae could see that their surroundings change. They were back in New Mexico, and with them were many of the ancestors knew, along with some newcomers.
Right in front of them stood Diego de Trujillo, born 1612, with his wife, Catalina Vaszquez.
Alonso Baca had been a small baby when Brent and Lynae first visited Antonio’ s dinner table. Now, he was dressed in a captain's uniform just as he had when he lead a small exploratory expedition three hundred leagues into the eastern plains.
“Boy, this serial polygamy gets pretty complicated. Do you realize that this handful of ancestors intermarried so much that on a pedigree chart they would actually spread out to be over a thousand different people? I'm surprised we don't have six toes. Isn't that supposed to happen with interbreeding?"
"Don't be stupid, Lynae! There were laws that kept them from marrying first cousins or sobrinos.[1] In fact, some of the court cases were about that very thing, and the people had to prove that they were not blood relatives, but step children or adopted in order for their marriages to be legalized. But the really interesting cases were the witchcraft trials -- even in Santa Fé.”

"When the lights flickered and the room spun, I thought we were headed for Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, but we’re back in New Mexico, before the Indian Rebellion, but after Diego's confession. So, my brilliant guide and Order of the Arrow Boy Scout, when are we?"
"Sixteen hundred and twenty-six, the year of our Lord," the judge stated as if in answer to Lynae's query. "Isabel Holguin, wife of Juan de Vitoria Carvajal, and daughter of Juan López Holguin y Catalina de Villanueva, you are accused of trafficking in magic roots. What is your plea?"
Isabel went pale. She knew clearly what the charges were, but how could she explain to this magistrate that the magic roots were no more than special plants that the Pueblos had used for centuries to cure infection and fever?
She stood speechless with downcast eyes. The gauzma shift she wore hung straight from her shoulders, the fringes drooping limply at her side.
"Hey, Judge, uh, your honor, we still like use those herbs in the twenty-first century. Slippery Elm and licorice root. . ."
"Shush, Lynae, we'll end up in prison with Isabel. If she can't explain magic roots, how are you going to explain being from four hundred years in the future? Just listen."
“But she was an ancestor. That means we have witchcraft on both sides of Mom’s family! Does it run in the family?”
“I guess you are proof enough of that.” Before Brent could become more sarcastic, the scene faded into another courtroom scene: "Hernando Marquez was serving the Crown as an Alferez soldier, but now he is dead this day in October, 1628." Hernando's brother Pedro was standing in court accusing a Mexican Indian woman, Beatriz, of causing Hernando’s death through witchcraft.
"Please tell the court about Hernando’s marital status, Pedro." Brent challenged. He was standing in the place of the attorney determined to serve as defense attorney for Beatriz.
"Hernando had been living in concubinage with Juana de la Cruz, but he moved out and spurned Juana," the witness answered nervously.
"Does this give you any indication of the moral standing of your brother Hernando, Pedro?" Brent asked confidently. "You seem to be very willing to accuse innocent women of practicing witchcraft when you and your brother are guilty of immorality -- this is factual, the witchcraft is illusionary -- you have tried to cover up your immorality by accusing these two poor women, Juana and Beatriz of practicing witchcraft. Just because Hernando is dead does not mean he was killed by witchcraft. What proof do you offer?" Brent was really getting into this lawyer thing. "Just how do you prove that Juana 'hexed' Hernando? I think without proof -- at least in the America I know -- Beatriz and Juana are innocent until proven guilty."
"Brent!" motioned Lynae. "This isn't the America you know. You better not say too much more, or they’ll be asking you questions.”
“Oops, I guess I got carried away with the moment. They’re not ancestors, as far as I know, but the case was so interesting, I was reading about it the other night.”
"Don't let this courtroom stuff go to your head, Brent. Just because Dad is a lawyer in the twentieth century doesn't make you one in the sixteenth. You better watch what you say. Here's another trial . . . just listen." Lynae hushed him, mimicking his usual command.
"But look at this one," Brent stated indignantly, "That governor thinks he has the right to boss everybody around. Don't they know about The Bill of Rights?"
"Brent, The Bill of Rights hasn't been written yet, and besides, it is Spain, not England, that is the Crown here."
"Francisco García Holgado was twenty-two in 1632 when he was in Santa Fé as a soldier; residence in Río Abajo near Isleta. He is the brother in law of José Nieto and Pedro de Leyva, and a weaver by trade but he was forbidden by Governor Lopez Mendízabal to make cloth for the Franciscans' habits. Boy a guy can't even weave cloth if he wants to help the monks dress."
Lynae looked across into what appeared to be the next courtroom. "It's Cousin Alonso! He got back safely from the expedition. He saved the colonies by uncovering a serious Indian plot, but now he is accused of conspiracy along with fourteen others and Governor Pacheco is demanding that all fourteen men be executed for it by beheading them.
"Yes, "Brent concurred sadly. "That’s how our friend and cousin Antonio died, 1643. But Alonso and three others escaped and gave up their encomedios. They left the area never to be heard from again." Our own don Fernando Durán y Chaves was one of the others that escaped. In 1646 he and his son don Agustin de Chaves, were in the soldier escort that brought a new governor don Luís de Guzman from Mexico City to Santa Fé. Don Fernando got into Governor Pacheco's good graces by attending the execution of eight of the conspirators in Santa Fe, July 21, 1643, and was appointed Alcalde by him. Then when Pacheco turned against the friars, don Fernando took the friars' side in the matter. Pacheco then condemned him and thirteen others to be executed for sedition."
"But unlike Alonso, he was able to come back," Lynae argued, reading the from Chaves book. "The next major issue, in starting in 1660, took place under the tenures of Governors Lopez Mendízabal and Peñalosa for the same reasons. At this time don Fernando Durán y Chaves was a Sargento Mayor. The crowing incident took place in August, 1663, when Peñalosa violated the right of
sanctuary by removing Fernando's brother, Pedro, from the Mission at Santo Domingo Pueblo and then imprisoned him in the Palace of the Governors with Fernando and Pedro's son, Cristóbal.”
"The courts were certainly brutal, but listen to this. At least women were recognized as important people under the Spanish Crown. They are able to testify in court, and inherit land from their husbands and pass it on to their children.“ That's something that didn't happen in the United States until the twentieth century,“ Brent read on:
“Juan Gonzalez Lobon eldest of the family, forty years old in 1660; henchman of Governor Lopez Mendizabal, a baiter of the friars who was described by them as a buffoon. Brother of Diego and Domingo Gonzalez Lobon; with sisters all living in Santa Fe. Antonia Gonzalez de Vitoria, sister of Diego Gonzalez Lobon and an aunt of a Pedro de Montoya; her full name shows her to be a part of the Carvajal family on her mothers side; native of Santa Fe, important witness concerning gubernatorial scandals in 1664, age forty-eight and a widow. In 1705 she was too old to recall her years -- that's a good excuse for not telling your age, funny that someone that age would even care!"
"Here's another lady: Luisa Ana Robledo, native of San Gabriel del Yunque, 1664, age 60 years old native of San Gabriel extraction. Daughter of Batolome Romero and Luisa Robledo: A woman of spirit, she stood up for her husband and family. The precious dresses of La Conquistadora were in her care. “Remember La Conquistadora at St. Francis in Santa Fe? We saw it on our visit there with Mom. We even got this post card of it!”
“I don't think she is on our pedigree chart, but, ¡way to go Luisa! I think she must have been a lot like our grandmothers, strong, assertive, courageous and outspoken. And they lived a long time too, those who lived, anyway. Do you know that Grandma Lucy turned eighty in January, and her sister Great-Auntie Lola is over ninety-two!"
“You sure inherited those traits, Lynae.” Brent reflected in one of his rare moments of admiration and emotion. “You know, every time we go on an adventure, you show more strength and courage than I ever imagined you could. I'm proud of you hermanita. You're a great sister. I bet you live to be at least one hundred and three."
"If I plan to live at all, we better get back to the nineties before Gina and Dad get back. If they find us burning a candle we'll have to listen to the stories about Cheryse nearly burning up in her bedroom with her candles.”
“Yeah, if Mom were here she'd tell us about when Doug about burned down the old farm house, but then went bravely in with the hose to put it out -- funny how he knew exactly where it was.
“That's one scene I'd like to visit, but poor Mom, she says she got hysterical and all she could do was cry that the house was burning down."
"Well, she'd been through a lot by then. After all, YOU were already born, and we'd moved back to the farm. But that was in another life. Come on, blow out the candle. I'll open the window a little more to get rid of the smell."

[1] nephews/neices