Through an examination of caste in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Mexico, Hall of Mirrors explores the construction
of hierarchy and difference in a Spanish colonial setting. Laura A. Lewis describes how the meanings attached to
the categories of Spanish, Indian, black, mulatto, and mestizo were generated within that setting, as she shows
how the cultural politics of caste produced a system of fluid and relational designations that simultaneously facilitated
and undermined Spanish governance.
Using judicial records from a variety of colonial courts, Lewis highlights the ethnographic details of legal proceedings
as she demonstrates how Indians, in particular, came to be the masters of witchcraft, a domain of power that drew
on gendered and hegemonic caste distinctions to complicate the colonial hierarchy. She also reveals the ways in
which blacks, mulattoes, and mestizos mediated between Spaniards and Indians, alternatively reinforcing Spanish
authority and challenging it through alliances with Indians. Bringing to life colonial subjects as they testified
about their experiences, Hall of Mirrors discloses a series of contradictions that complicate easy distinctions
between subalterns and elites, resistance and power.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
Introduction
1 Forging a Colonial Landscape: Caste in Context
2 The Roads Are Harsh: Spaniards and Indians in the Sanctioned Domain
3 La Mala Yerba: Putting Difference to Work
4 From Animosities to Alliances: A Segue into the World of Witchcraft
5 Authority Reversed: Indians Ascending
6 Mapping Unsanctioned Power
7 Hall of Mirrors
