Death by Effigy: A Case from the Mexican Inquisition by Luis R. Corteguera (review)

Abstract

Death by Effigy: A Case from the Mexican Inquisition. By Luis R. Corteguera. [The Early Modern Americas.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2012. Pp, xviii, 222. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-8122-4439-7.)In January 1569, King Philip II decreed the establishment of a tribunal of the Inquisition in New Spain to eradicate from non-Indian society all heresy, heterodoxy, and offenses against the Christian God. Still on unsure footing in the viceroyalty, the Mexican Inquisition soon became involved in quarrels with both ecclesiastical and royal authorities over matters of jurisdiction and privileges over both temporal and spiritual spheres. Inquisitors were sensitive to matters of etiquette, and the breach of protocol by both ecclesiastic and secular authorities in Masses, meetings, and rituals of public punishment often triggered heated disagreements that easily escalated into serious confrontations. Eager to establish its authority, the newly established institution became particularly sensitive about the unauthorized use of the Holy Office's name and symbols to promote personal interests.In Death by Effigy, Luis R. Corteguera offers a probing discussion of the challenges faced by the Holy Office to establish its authority in New Spain, through a careful and nuanced analysis of a scandalous case of misappropriation of the Inquisition's symbols in a colonial setting. Corteguera's book revolves around an apparently insignificant incident that took place on July 21, 1578, in the small town of Temachalco that is located in the present-day state of Puebla. On that day, a Franciscan friar found a two-faced effigy hanging from the town church's door over a pile of wood. Adorned with black feathers and a sambenito (the Inquisition's penitential garment), the doll had a tongue sewn into each one of its mouths (one with a forked end, the other with a gag); two additional sambenitos were affixed to the building's facade, and three signs in gothic letters slandered a prominent town dweller by labeling him a Jew and warned others against removing these signs of infamy.Hernando Rubio Naranjo, the victim of the anonymous slander, was a thirtyfive-year-old unmarried man who made a fortune by trading between Teca- machalco and Oaxaca. Although he had no ancestry, the merchant was widely known as a Jewish scoundrel because of his widespread reputation as a usurer. The antisemitic accusation was compounded by Rubio's deeds as a deslenguado (loose-tongued); a hated man who had no problem defaming neighbors who considered him a friend, spreading false rumors on several reputable women, and cuckolding a fellow trader. …