Zugarramurdi, an ancient place well-known in all Spain, with a history that has transcended
the limits of the Mediterranean country for being the birthplace of witches who didn’t
know were witches.
Perched in the Pyrenees, set in postcard-worthy scenery, it had an impressive
cave with high curved ceilings and galleries in several levels that made it look like a
temple, and which center suffered the rage of the Inquisition in the 16th Century.
The stories about this place have gone around
the whole country, for there is no better location
to learn about witches and covens than this town in the community of Navarra.
Hell broke loose upon the arrival of a mysterious French girl to the village.
It was 1608 and this girl, named Maria de Ximeldegui, had
decided to leave her country in a rush.
Some claim she was escaping a French jury dedicated
to haunt down people from Labort.
Once settled in Zugarramurdi, the French girl didn’t
hesitate to accuse others of being witches.
It all reached a critical point when, in that
same year, a meeting that perfectly fits with the
modern conception of a coven was held.
The girl didn’t take long to do her accusations, which led to mass hysteria.
The news of this meeting reached the ears of the Tribunal of the
Holy Office of the Inquisition, along with rumors of satanic masses taking place in the
cave of Zugarramurdi.
The party was more a Bacchanalia than a satanic rite, a celebration that in
honor of the Roman god Bacchus.
The authorities, in their ignorance and superstitious spirit, judged the event at their convenience.
After a rushed investigation, more than 50 people were accused of witchcraft and worshiping
Satan.
In November of 1910, the inquisition judged the apparent witches in
the meadow of the goat alongside the cave.
It was the most famous witchcraft-related act
of faith in all Spain, and the place went down in
history.
Subjected to torture, the incriminated admitted having done everything they were
accused of.
Six of them were burned alive, and 5 others, who died during interrogation, had
their corpses scorched.
The prosecuted were nothing more than women and children who
had an understanding on how natural resources could be used for healing purposes through
infusions, plasters or flower remedies; an idea taken from the belief of the existence
of ancient pre-christian cults, where women had
a hegemonic relevance.
It is worth mentioning that this incident also provoked
thousands of accusations in the towns and villages adjacent to Zugarramurdi, north of
Navarra, and an act of faith that got a few others
burned on the stake.
Ironically, this is considered one of the most benevolent acts of the Inquisition, since
in most of them, almost none of the accused survived,
while in this particular one, only five of the accused were burned on the stake.
That alone is bad enough, but it must be taken into
consideration that, the previous year, the French had burned 100 people and that, by
the end of the 17th Century, over a thousand witched
had been burned in Europe.
Popular opinion dictates that an “aquelarre”, Spanish for “coven”, is a meeting of witches
and warlocks who worship the devil.
It’s one of the few words Spanish got from Basque,
the native tongue from the Basque country that has no relation to any other language.
It comes from the Basque terms “aker” meaning
“male goat” and “larre” meaning “meadow”, a place that has already been mentioned, which
designated an area in pastoralist communities where a male black goat unrelated
to the flock was, taken by the herder to mix the breeding and keep it healthy.
The association of this male goat to the devil started when
christianism arrived to the rural areas of Spain.
Even more, once the Office of the Holy Inquisition announced it would prosecute everyone
who practiced witchcraft, it branded the image in their believers’ imagination.
After putting so much effort in working their fields,
after saying every possible prayer, after behaving as a good neighbor, an exemplary
citizen and an even better Christian, a storm or a
pandemic came and razed everything…who were they to blame?
Obviously, a mysterious, toxic force unleashed at night with malice
aforethought by an evil doer.
This is what started all the mass hysteria.
Nowadays, Zugarramurdi is still known as the “town of witches” and the caves where
all this diabolic ceremonies took place can be
visited.
There is also a didactic museum of witchcraft, opened in 2007, that aims to exhibit
the magical practices based on the research done by Florencio Idoate, José Miguel Barandiarán,
Julio Caro Baroja and Koro Irazoki.
In addition, there is, of course, the famous
goat meadow that popularized this small location and a community closely linked to witchcraft
and occultism that provided a meaning and connotation to the word “aquelarre”.
This is the famous story of Zugarramurdi, a town victim of the horrific Europe during
the Inquisition.
What people lived and saw back then was so serious, absurd and horrendous,
that the Inquisition itself, ashamed, decided to stop and draw a veil over the last witch
hunt in Spain.
Finally, 4 years after the burnings in Zugarramurdi, a heroic Spanish inquisitor,
Alonso de Salazar, took a necessary step for the Inquisition to forbid witch hunting, for
in its writings a message clearly stated that
witches and witchcraft were not as vast, until they
started writing about them, and that such social behaviors lead to the awakening of
human perversion and injustice, which totally oppose
the message of love so deep-rooted in Christianity.