The Chilean “Calcu” and Colonial Witchcraft Proceedings of Chiloé

Record summary

Colonial and early republican accounts of Chiloé describe kalku or calcu, Mapuche-associated specialists often rendered in Spanish as witches, and later allegations concerning the supposed Recta Provincia organization. The material is important for comparing Indigenous categories of harmful magic, colonial demonology, and the emergence of a sensational secret-society narrative. Scholars dispute how much of the organized “witches’ republic” was an actual institution, a colonial legal construction, or a later folkloric elaboration. Documentary records and ethnographic memory should therefore be kept distinct.