La Inquisición en Cangas...

The “meigas” of Cangas and the Spanish Inquisition

Between 1619 and 1628, numerous women from Cangas were judged by the “Tribunal del Santo Oficio” (Spanish Inquisition) accused on supposed witchcraft. Nowadays, we know that those women, who finally confessed atrocities due to frightening tortures, were in fact victims of an invention of the inquisitors. The hunt of witches was directly provoked by the general impoverishment after the Turkish invasion in 1617. The low nobility saw how its incomes decreased alarmingly, so they looked for, by all means, the necessary resources to maintain their standard of living. The Spanish Inquisition composed almost exclusively by members of this social group, was an efficient mean to reach its purpose.

The essential aim was to snatch away to certain people its “right of presentation” in chapels and parishes. This right consisted on the fact that the successor of the founder of a church could propose candidate when the vacancy was available and, at the same time, participate on the profits they provide. To hide its reprehensible purpose, they mixed people who had these rights with people who were very poor. Most of them were totally helpless, widows due to the terrible events of 1617.

This was the case of the most famous of the supposed “meigas” (witches) or at least the most leaked out to her time, immortalized in songs such as the one that says: “Ai que soliña quedaches María, María Soliña” (Oh! How alone you were left, María, María Alone – the surname “Soliña” means alone). This song seems to indicate that people remember her more than an evil and pernicious witch as a poor and unlucky woman, reflect of all the suffering of a village.

María Soliña, owner of rights of presentation in Aldán and Moaña, entered the secret jails of the Inquisition in 1621. All the process was aimed to demonstrate that this harmless woman had evil powers able to cause innumerable harms and that had given her soul to the devil. But they were the own confessions of María Soliña, caused by the torture, what almost reached the paroxysm. She assured to be witch since more than 20 years and had committed impure acts with the devil for a long time, who appeared to her in the shape of a man.

And while she was declaring this, María Soliña implored mercy to the Court and proclaimed her repentance, because she assured that she had renounced the “heart of our Lord” only in word. All this shows the mental desperation of this woman, caused by the terrible mental and physical torment. On 23rd January 1622 the sentence arrived. She was convicted to a wealth confiscation and to wear the penitential habit during half a year. We don’t know if she finally served all the punishment, because her life probably didn’t last much more time. The physical consequences of the torture should be evident in a seventy-year-old woman. Her death certificate hasn’t been found. Maybe some day we will discover where her mortal remains lie.

Other many witches were judged during those years. Women such as Catalina de la Iglesia, who confessed to have killed five children, or Elvira Martínez, Teresa Perez, María dos Santos, these poor unfortunate woman deserve the respect of the anonymous heroes of the village who suffered stoically the abuses and avarice of a reduced group of vile people. Maybe later investigations will give new light to their lives, but the collective memory will remember them not as meigas, but as what they really were, people of flesh and bones, with all the miseries and greatnesses.