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3 ‘‘In the Name of the Father and the Mother of All Dogs’’ Canine Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals in Bourbon Mexico ZEB TORTORICI In 1770 an odd festive occurrence involving two dogs caught the attention of the Mexican Inquisition due to its heretical nature and accompanying sacramental desecration.∞ According to the voluntary denunciation of twenty-eight-year-old don Juan Antonio López de la Paliza, and those of other witnesses gathered by the Inquisition, in a party given in a house on San Ramón Street in Mexico City owned by a woman known as La Panchita and her husband, don Francisco, the following prank occurred: ‘‘Many people of both sexes and all classes [frequented] this profane, sacrilegious, scandalous, and superstitious function of dance and diversion in which a marriage between [two] dogs was performed with the utmost formality. . . . Disorder was precipitated through the abominable excess of solemnizing the said matrimony with such seriousness and formality as if it were contracted between Christians and able persons.’’≤ Oddly enough, the priest responsible for this profane marriage was genuine. His name was Thoribio Basterrechea, a twenty-six-year-old priest who had studied theology in Mexico City at the colleges of San Pablo and San Pedro, and he functioned as a regular priest and confessor in a church in the town of Guachinango. According to witnesses, in the midst of this drunken party, the priest was presented with a little dog (una perrita) dressed as the bride and another dog (un perrito) dressed as the bridegroom. They were then ‘‘mutually asked about their consent to wed [by Basterrechea], and consent was given by those present through the responses of those that held the dogs in their hands [a man and a woman who were named the dogs’ godparents]. This 94 • ZEB TORTORICI defendant [Basterrechea] then solemnized and formalized the said wedding between the two little animals [animalejos].’’≥ According to everyone questioned by inquisitors, this canine wedding took place in the midst of jokes, drinking, and music. Numerous witnesses made reference to the lively dances and fandangos in which partygoers participated both before and after the dogs were wed.∂ One witness, Mariano Correa, related that he saw the dogs dressed up and placed in a miniature matrimonial bed before the fandango began.∑ However, inquisitors were suspicious that the jocose nature of the marriage disguised more profound levels of heresy and sacrilege, and were in particular interested in uncovering whether or not the sacrament of marriage had been formally profaned. To this end, the inquisitors interrogated numerous witnesses about the priest and the motives of those who had attended the mock wedding , yet they always received similar responses. According to one Spaniard, don Joseph González, the wedding was performed as a ‘‘joke and as entertainment ’’ (bulla y diversión) because they had done nothing fun on his son’s birthday a few days earlier. However, González unequivocally asserted that nothing was done to desecrate the religious sacraments and, in a statement corroborated by the other testimonies, that the wedding was seen by all ‘‘merely as a joke and pastime’’ (sólo por chiste y pasatiempo).∏ Despite assertions that the canine marriage was altogether a joke, the Inquisition proceeded with the case as though it were a grave matter and transferred Father Basterrechea to the secret prisons of the Inquisition for further interrogation.π There he remained for the duration of his trial, during which time he was threatened with instruments of torture—though never actually tortured—in order to make him confess his crimes. In the initial denunciation that brought this potentially heretical case to the attention of the Mexican Inquisition, López de la Paliza specifically noted that in the dog marriage ceremony the priest observed many of the formalities that marked a marriage between two humans. Two canine padrinos, or godparents , were named—a woman named doña Juana and Tranquilo, the eighteen-year-old son of the household servant—and they held the dogs and, speaking for them, gave the dogs’ consent to be wed. What most perturbed ecclesiastical authorities about Basterrechea, however, was the denouncer’s claim that the priest had married the dogs in the name of the Father, the Mother, and the Son, a phrase disconcertingly similar to the phrase ‘‘in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’’ regularly professed by priests at Mass and during the consecration of marriage.∫ This did smack of heresy, or at least of blasphemy. [3...

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