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Mira lo que hace el diablo: The Devil in Mexican Popular Culture, 1750-1856*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Sonya Lipsett-Rivera
Sonya Lipsett-Rivera*
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
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Extract

As she lay bleeding to death from an accidental knife wound, María Josefa Vargas said to her husband: “Look what the Devil has done (Mira lo que hace el diablo).” María Josefa and her husband, José Rosario, were both indigenous, natives of Almoloya and Tenancingo respectively, and at the time living in Malinalco in the Valley of Mexico. They had been fighting playfully over some meat that María Josefa had bought to make cecina Mock anger and a very sharp knife made for bad companions, and José Rosario accidentally cut María Josefa in the leg.

María Josefa's words are one of those elusive examples of the key place occupied by the Devil in Mexican popular culture in the late eighteenth century. By the late colonial period the Devil seems to have become more of a concern for rural Mexicans, particularly within indigenous communities, than he had been before. Once a European import, the Devil had become a more evident part of the symbols used by Indians in the countryside. He had become less of a concern to Church and State authorities and was rather used to explain accidents, such as the one cited above, but more frequently as an excuse or a reason for unacceptable conduct, such as violence or illicit sexuality.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , October 2002 , pp. 201 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2002 

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Footnotes

*

Research for this article was made possible by generous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Carleton University.

References

1 Cecina is a dish made with extremely thinly cut beef

2 Archivo General de la Nación, Ramo Criminal, volume 190, exp. 29, folios 506–516, Malinalco, 1794 (hereafter AGN Criminal, vol. 190, exp. 29, fol. 506–516, Malinalco, 1794).

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78 AJP, 1836, packet 2, no exp. number, San Salvador el Verde.

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