Martin Austin Nesvig’s book offers a well-documented contribution to the study of cultural exchange in early colonial Mexico. The book’s central argument focuses on acculturation, but rather than emphasizing how Spanish culture reshaped Indigenous practices, it explores the reverse dynamic: how Nahua and other Indigenous frameworks were adopted – or adapted – by non-Indigenous people, particularly women. Two main objectives guide the work: to show how Nahua culture influenced settler practices from the start of colonization, and to highlight the agency of Spanish, African, and mixed-race women who used hybrid ritual, healing, and magical knowledge in New Spain.

The title encapsulates this argument. It refers to tlaolchayahualiztli, a Nahua ritual involving divination through casting corn cobs. Records show that this practice, initially performed by Indigenous specialists, was eventually taken up by non-Indigenous women. This shared ritual world, mediated by Nahua knowledge, becomes a fitting metaphor for the book’s broader thesis: cultural exchange in New Spain was deeply entangled.

Nesvig’s sources are mainly judicial records from the Archivo General de la Nación, complemented by regional archives, focused on 1521–1571. The book immediately challenges misconceptions: early colonial Mexico did not witness large-scale witch hunts, and executions by burning were extremely rare. None of the cases studied here resulted in such a sentence. Most early trials were civil, with the Inquisition proper established only in 1571.

Part I, “Witches and Their Enemies in the Early Modern World,” explores the Spanish legal and theological frameworks for prosecuting witchcraft. Nesvig explains how courts distinguished superstition from heresy and how ecclesiastical authorities were often skeptical of sorcery charges and of the usefulness of torture. Legal and theological texts help frame this intellectual context, but judicial archives reveal a different reality. The richness of this chapter lies not only in the quantitative data but also in the questions Nesvig poses directly to his sources: “What can we learn from these investigations? What do they reveal about the priorities of those conducting the trials? What kinds of practices emerge? How and when did Iberians begin to incorporate Mesoamerican customs, language, medicine, and cosmology?” (77). These questions give readers direct access to the historian’s methodology and interpretive process.

Part II turns to case studies from the 1520s and 1530s. Here, Spanish, African, Morisca, and Mulata women appear as healers, midwives, ritual intermediaries and sometimes as clients of magic, shaping a nuanced account of cultural exchange. Nesvig reconstructs their social standing and networks through notarial records, wills, and trial testimony. The case of María de Bárcena is especially telling. Accused of using magic against her husband, her actions may be better understood as responses to domestic violence. Nesvig suggests that women sometimes turned to magic as a form of protection or resistance against male aggression, a theme that recurs throughout the book.

These chapters also show how race and class shaped judicial outcomes. White Spanish women sometimes received leniency, while Moriscas, Mulatas, and Canarian women faced harsher punishment, especially for accusations involving love magic or sexual misconduct. “Morisca,” no longer strictly religious by the mid-sixteenth century, had become a racialized label for women seen as socially ambiguous or morally suspect. Canarian women, due to the archipelago’s ties to slavery and frontier status, were often perceived as both sexually unrestrained and unruly. These prejudices strongly influenced court outcomes, particularly in cases of erotic or manipulative practices. Yet complexity remained: Bárbola de Zamora, for instance, achieved respect and security before being prosecuted. Nesvig occasionally advances speculative interpretations but marks them clearly as hypotheses to address silences in the sources.

Language also reveals acculturation. Nahuatl terms such as tiçitl, tianguis, peyote, and patle appear in records, showing that Indigenous cultural frameworks – not just material practices – reshaped settler worldviews. Spanish women’s use of Nahua divination or reliance on Indigenous ritual specialists demonstrates that hybrid practices became everyday realities.

Part III, “The Cultural Hybrid Healer-Witch,” extends the analysis into the 1560s–70s. This section highlights the culmination of acculturative processes, notably through women’s documented use of peyote and patle. Catalina de Peraza – the first Spaniard recorded consuming peyote – exemplifies this blending of Iberian, Canarian, and Indigenous traditions. Authorities were less concerned with peyote itself than with the broader range of practices she employed, underscoring how social status, ethnicity, and gender shaped judicial outcomes.

In conclusion, Nesvig returns to themes of gender, power, and fear. “Women who practice magic are dangerous because society cannot control them” (278) encapsulates a central tension. He also stresses that access shaped acculturation: poorer women were more exposed to local knowledge, while elites could afford to remain within European frameworks.

One of the book’s key contributions is its attention to linguistic evidence in tracing cultural hybridization, inviting comparisons with other colonial knowledge systems. In this sense, works such as La colonisation du savoir (S. Boumediene) may complement Nesvig’s analysis, particularly for readers interested in the intersection of knowledge and colonial power.

Overall, this book is both methodologically rigorous and accessible. The author is refreshingly open about the challenges of working with fragmentary sources and it vividly illustrates the curiosity and method required to reconstruct lives from the margins of the historical record.