The Iron in the Posthole: Witchcraft, Women's Labor, and Spanish Folk Ritual at the Berry Site

Abstract

Apotropaic devices—folk ritual objects and deposits intended to ward away witchcraft or ensorcellment—were often deliberately concealed near the vulnerable parts of a structure (doors, windows, hearths, and chimneys). Because such devices typically consisted of otherwise mundane materials, they can be difficult to identify in archaeological deposits. It is the unusual context of the deposit that alerts us to the potential of its apotropaic meaning and intent. Here, I discuss the social and spatial contexts of an iron jack plate fragment concealed near the doorway of a Spanish colonial kitchen at the Berry site. Berry, located in present-day western North Carolina, was the site of Fort San Juan de Joara (1566–1568), the first European settlement in the interior of what is now the United States. Recognizing the iron jack plate fragment as a potential apotropaic device opens a window onto Spanish male anxieties about women's labor, especially the domestic labor associated with food. Spaniards and other Europeans believed that “wild” women regularly used ensorcelled food to entrap or punish male victims. Nowhere were fears of ensorcelled food more pronounced than along the frontiers of colonial America, where indigenous women usually prepared meals for Spanish men as wives, servants, and concubines. [colonialism, witchcraft, gender, food, folk ritual, the Berry site, colonial America].