María de Zozaya

María de Zozaya y Arramendi (sometimes spelled Zozoya) was prosecuted for being a witch in 1609, during the Basque witch trials that were part of the Spanish Inquisition.[1]

María de Zozaya was a spinster from Oyeregui, in the kingdom of Navarra, Spain.[2] She was a resident of the town Renteria, in the province of Guipuzcoa, and witch of the same town’s aquelarre.[2] In 1609, then 79 year old María de Zozaya was handed over to the Spanish Inquisition for being a witch.[1] She was tried along with a group of women that she was said to have led.[3] Her confession included praise for sexual pleasure.[4] She also declared that an apparition replaced her in her bed when she went to the Sabbath.[5] It is said that a young priest in the same town went out hunting all day without catching any hares.[1] He blamed María de Zozaya, who reportedly confessed to the inquisitors that after the priest had passed her house she turned herself into a hare and ran ahead of him and his hounds the whole day long, thus making them exhausted.[1] She said this happened 8 times during 1609.[1] She died in prison nine months after she was turned in, when she was 80 years old.[1] After hear death, her bones were burned as part of a public auto de fe.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Greer, Germaine (1992). The change : women, aging, and the menopause (Reprinted. ed.). New York: Knopf. p. 355. ISBN 0394582691.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Henningsen, edited by Gustav (2004). The Salazar documents Insquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías and others on the Basque witch persecution. Leiden: Brill. p. 136. ISBN 9781429426879.
  3. ↑ Corben, Herbert C. (1991). The struggle to understand : a history of human wonder & discovery. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. p. 218. ISBN 0879756837.
  4. ↑ Godly zeal and furious rage : The Witch in Early Modern Europe. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780203819029.
  5. ↑ Edited; introd., with an; Kors, by Alan C.; Peters, Edward (1972). Witchcraft in Europe, 1100-1700; a documentary history. Edited by Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. p. 409. ISBN 9780812276459.