Vulgar History - International, part 9： Catalina de Erauso, The Lieutenant Nun (pt 1⧸3)

00:00:00.440 Hello there! My name is Amanda from the Art of History podcast, where each episode we look at a

00:00:06.800 work of art that can tell us a story about the past. Sometimes this involves images of historic

00:00:12.740 royals, some of whom Anne has covered here. Sometimes our work of art tells us something

00:00:17.740 about a certain period of time or a cultural movement. And sometimes an artwork is just

00:00:23.560 really confusing and we have to get to the bottom of it. Nothing is off-limits and even I don't know

00:00:29.760 where we're going next on this podcast journey. So if that sounds good to you,

00:00:34.540 join us on The Art of History wherever you get your podcasts. 1.00

00:00:53.900 Welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne Foster,

00:00:58.960 and i'm joined today by allison epstein welcome allison hello i'm so excited to be here today

00:01:06.000 so um regular listeners of this podcast will remember um allison you were on talking about

00:01:12.200 your book a tip for the hangman when it came out when was that like a year ago yeah a year 0.96

00:01:16.840 and a couple months yeah and then also patreon members will know allison she does the vulgar

00:01:22.020 Peace Theater episodes there as well. And Allison, you're here today because we're talking about a 1.00

00:01:30.760 person named Catalina de Arousso and like the Venn diagram of like your interests and this story

00:01:37.540 like somehow is a portrait of Catalina de Arousso. I'm not sure how that happens. Venn diagrams don't

00:01:43.180 usually do that, but the overlap is entire. Entire, 100%, 100%. Anne has been researching

00:01:51.500 this person for several weeks and periodically once or twice a day has been texting me saying

00:01:56.660 oh my goodness you need to know about this you need to know about this and so she has brought

00:02:02.280 me on almost entirely to react because she knows I'm going to love this story yeah yeah well it's

00:02:08.600 the thing where it's just like after a certain point where I'm just like should I just send

00:02:12.140 Allison like literally all my notes because every fact I'm just like here's a quote here's a fact

00:02:15.940 I'm just like, Allison needs to be here. 0.99

00:02:19.020 This is so your shit. 1.00

00:02:21.240 I can't. 1.00

00:02:22.140 I'm so excited.

00:02:24.220 Well, at one point I was like, wow, this should be like Allison's next book should be about

00:02:28.780 this.

00:02:28.960 And I'm like, Allison doesn't need to write a book about this because Catalina de Aroso 0.80

00:02:32.000 wrote her own memoir.

00:02:34.360 The book has been written.

00:02:35.840 Did it for me.

00:02:37.120 It's already there.

00:02:37.820 So you can just enjoy the saga.

00:02:40.960 So before we get into it, I'm going to talk about all my sources.

00:02:44.200 so um i listened to there's a podcast called the lesbian historic motif podcast which talks about

00:02:54.300 um lesbians in literature and so uh the host of that really examined the story like the memoir

00:03:00.520 itself as a piece of work but also coming from a lesbian point of view very helpful and it's also

00:03:06.520 just a really good podcast with a great name um the deviant women podcast also talked about her 0.97

00:03:14.040 um I got information from encyclopedia.com wikipedia.com uh Allison do you know about

00:03:19.420 the rejected princesses website I would like to okay so rejected princesses was like a tumblr

00:03:26.220 I think is how it started by a person his name is like Jason Porvath I think anyway who just

00:03:31.840 started talking about the kind of women we talk about on this podcast just like so rejected

00:03:36.100 princesses quote-unquote and so there's sort of like a fun illustration oh I sent you that

00:03:40.320 illustration so he has like a fun illustration of the person and then sort of like a brief biography

00:03:45.180 of them there's two books they're both really good the first one is just called rejected princesses

00:03:48.720 and the second one is called bad mothers anyway that is where shout out to rejected princesses

00:03:54.080 dot com because when i was looking for people to talk about for this season i was just like

00:03:58.580 i i was scrolling through rejected princesses being like who's here what countries are they

00:04:03.360 from because it's all like nicely sorted and i'm just like wait who's this and that is where i

00:04:07.020 found Catalina de Arraso um the New York Times had an article called cross-dressing for success

00:04:12.500 and then my major book sources though is the memoir itself so Catalina de Arraso's memoir

00:04:20.700 exists um called memoir of a Basque lieutenant nun which can we pause and say that's the most

00:04:28.800 incredible name for a memoir ever yeah it's like it yeah it says it all right there in the title

00:04:35.880 you're just like i'm intrigued thank you one yeah so the memoir was originally published in spanish

00:04:41.580 so the english translation i like that which i think is the only um english translation translation

00:04:46.840 around at the moment it's from the 1990s and it was translated by michelle steptoe

00:04:51.200 and gabriel steptoe and um i'll talk about their translation of it in a bit um because like anything

00:04:59.660 with a translation you know thank you thank you for translating it my god like what a active

00:05:03.980 service that is, but you're always coming into it with some sort of point of view, right? Because

00:05:07.580 it's not just like Google translate literal word for word. Like you're coming into it sort of

00:05:11.160 going from Spanish to English, especially for instance, in Spanish, the use of gendered

00:05:18.500 nouns, right? Like in Spanish, it's like the table, the door, like the book, everything has

00:05:26.200 a gender. So I think it would be really interesting. My Spanish is like, my reading comprehension

00:05:31.960 and Spanish is I would say I give myself like 10% ability to read Spanish. But I think it would be

00:05:38.840 interesting to read this memoir, which has got all kinds of gender stuff we're going to talk about

00:05:42.660 in a book where like literally everything is gendered all the time. I think that would add

00:05:46.660 an element that you just don't get in English. And then there is a biography that I also read,

00:05:53.840 The Life of Catalina de Arauzo, The Lieutenant Nun by Sonia Perez Villanueva. And then there's

00:05:59.520 also a book called The Lieutenant Nun by Sherry Velasco. Wait, do I have it near me? It was,

00:06:06.240 wait, I didn't write down the subtitle, but I need to give you the subtitle.

00:06:12.100 I mean, if it's going to beat The Lieutenant Nun as a title, this must be a heck of a subtitle.

00:06:18.320 Let's see. So yeah, so The Lieutenant Nun, Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina

00:06:23.720 de arousso yes is is the book um so yeah so um yeah as you can tell from everything i've said

00:06:34.860 about what all those book titles are so this is a story with gender stuff in it so and this um

00:06:42.580 i don't know i'm so removed from like what to like normal people know about history and what

00:06:49.980 to just, I know about history, but I feel like Catalina, the fact that you hadn't heard of her

00:06:54.820 is like, okay, this is like, like you who like research, like dirtbags of history who like

00:06:59.780 write historical fiction about like me who is so specifically interested in people like her that

00:07:05.780 I didn't know. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So she's like super, like clearly not well-known in a large

00:07:10.840 context um so i'm using she her pronouns for catalina so this is um the second at like last

00:07:20.260 time i don't know if you've caught up with in jinga yet but i was just like there's discussion

00:07:24.340 about in jinga about like is this like what pronouns do we use like in jing is a woman

00:07:28.340 who presented as a man anyway so it's kind of like a day around so again there's these discussions

00:07:33.400 about like what pronouns should we use which is also a whole other thing we don't need to get

00:07:36.720 into right now but like looking at the person in history how did they refer to themselves

00:07:42.360 is the first rule of thumb right like to be like applying it's like well to me in the 22nd

00:07:48.460 like the 22nd century um it's like to me i think this is a them situation where it's like right

00:07:55.200 but like she called herself a she so like let's trust her um all right so but this is like a lot

00:08:02.100 of the the literature about this like both the not not her memoir but like the biographies about

00:08:08.700 her I read there's been a lot of discussion in like queer history circles where it's like is

00:08:14.360 this the story of a cisgender lesbian or is this the story of a trans man like what is this a

00:08:22.100 gender fluid person and it's like maybe but she calls herself a woman so let's go with what she

00:08:29.340 said um but the thing is she presented as a man for most all of her life from age 15 on except

00:08:38.780 for a couple little bits we'll get to so it's just kind of like the opening sentence of the book

00:08:44.840 she genders herself as female so like let's go with that but then also it's like well and this

00:08:51.760 is where some of the writing like it gets so like academic-y and like about it where it's like right

00:08:57.680 but she was writing this book for general audience and what a general audience they 0.99

00:09:01.420 wanted to read about the woman who dressed like a man like so of course she's going to be like i 1.00

00:09:05.860 anyway but then she her pronouns um executive decision based on what she used yeah that sounds 1.00

00:09:13.860 fair to me except for in the book sometimes she does use male pronouns um but in sort of a

00:09:20.120 inconsistent manner but then it's like did she write the book or did she did someone just write

00:09:24.900 down the book and she spoke it and did the person writing it you know it's just kind of like okay 0.67

00:09:29.640 yeah executive decision um but then also um yeah i don't want the whole queer aspect of it to be

00:09:38.940 like it's super that is an interesting part of the story but also carina catalina de aroso was like 0.84

00:09:45.000 such a messy person who lived for drama chaos personified where it's like a lot of the literature

00:09:53.660 is just like what what was the sexuality of this person it's like that's worth discussing but like

00:09:58.460 that's maybe item like four on a list of 500 things I want to talk about for this person

00:10:03.960 no exactly exactly it's to me it's the equivalent of being like okay so here's Fred again it's like

00:10:08.700 but what was she like as a mother breastfeeding where it's like I'm sure she did that but like 0.71

00:10:15.420 what about when she put killed all those people you know anyway yeah like for me I enjoy reading 0.64

00:10:21.420 about historical queer people just because they're so hard to find so many historical records can

00:10:27.620 just kind of like brush off that with a classic you know they were just very close friends who

00:10:32.200 spent their whole lives together and so it's nice to have a historical figure you know this is a 0.99

00:10:37.220 queer person who we are talking about but I also want to read about messy queer people who did 0.99

00:10:42.540 ridiculous things and I want to know about the ridiculous things more than anything exactly so 1.00

00:10:47.460 that was just a perfect segue for the podcast I think I played the ad for them a couple weeks ago

00:10:51.320 um the historically very good friends podcast which is the best title yeah exactly exactly

00:10:57.080 because that's such a thing that you come across it's like well i guess they're just very good

00:11:00.140 friends and it's like maybe they were and maybe they also were in love with each other um anyway

00:11:05.140 but sorry i just want to also just say because um i use this term in the engine episode as well

00:11:08.940 just like queer history seems to be to me a straight woman um the term that like academic

00:11:16.560 scholars podcasters people like this is just the term we're using for stuff in the past that's like

00:11:23.400 not um people and events it was like well this is clearly not like a cisgender straight person

00:11:31.400 who were they we don't know so let's just see it's like an umbrella term right instead of just being

00:11:36.740 like because you don't know like the cultural what term would they have used it isn't it something

00:11:44.160 like wasn't like homosexuality was just invented like as a term in like the 19th century or

00:11:48.540 something like yeah it was gender identity and sexual orientation as we know it now is like

00:11:54.880 really really recent like past 150 200 years like to be up front most of my knowledge of this is i

00:12:02.660 was researching like elizabethan queer history that's where my my area is and it's all very

00:12:08.600 hand wavy no one really talks about like oh this is a gay person it's just these are things that

00:12:14.500 you did and feelings that you had but no one really crystallizes down to an orientation until

00:12:19.500 like the 1850s 1860s and your classic victorian need to categorize things so yeah yeah so exactly

00:12:27.820 and so there's like lots of cultural contexts where like within jinga for instance where it's

00:12:31.860 just like yeah she had these like third gender mystics who like followed her around or it's like

00:12:38.840 and she like people who like she it's like well to be powerful i need to go by the word king

00:12:42.740 so i'll just call myself king but it's like but does that mean she was trans or whatever it's

00:12:46.360 like i don't know but it's like in that cultural context that wasn't the question so to apply sort

00:12:50.880 of our lens to be like this person was this so in the absence of a specific label that the person

00:12:56.000 would have given themselves i'm just gonna for from this podcast um spoiler the next like two

00:13:03.100 people i'm going to be talking about we're just going with queer as like a catch-all term to just

00:13:08.600 be like person in oldie times who like clearly was not living what we would consider now to be

00:13:15.940 a cisgender heterosexual life but like what flavor we don't know like just it's a yeah

00:13:23.420 hard to define past events using current terms so exactly but yeah but also like i am really

00:13:31.540 also super interested and i've been listening to so like the historically really good friends

00:13:35.520 podcast there's one called um history is gay um and anyway so just like learning for me oh there's

00:13:41.540 the bad gays podcast recommend that for you my favorite exactly so it's like this history is

00:13:48.580 important and it should be discussed and i don't want the fact that like i there's not a specific

00:13:52.580 label to apply to a person to stop anyone from studying it because yeah like you said like this

00:13:58.680 these are interesting these are interesting people because of the queer elements but also

00:14:04.480 5 000 other reasons that we're going to get into um okay so we're going to begin this story

00:14:15.440 the way that she begins her autobiography which is i donia catalina de arraso was born in the

00:14:22.280 town of san sebastian in guipusqua province in the year 1585 and i'm gonna stop her right there

00:14:29.500 because she maybe was born in 1592 so this really illustrates the story itself has a lot of place

00:14:39.520 names and a lot of people names and a lot of dates but also a lot of just like inconsistencies

00:14:49.000 so it's it's really just kind of like vibes it's about vibes with her it's kind of like i was

00:14:54.000 the biography i think she was like this person it's like i met the governor and it was this

00:14:57.980 person and a lot of that is like verifiable and it's like true and i think she put that in so

00:15:01.600 people is sort of like fact checking herself um but there's also a lot of stuff that is like

00:15:08.660 did that happen like that okay but that's the issue with any person writing their autobiography

00:15:13.780 you know it's like really did you remember exactly what everyone said in that room and

00:15:17.880 then she sighed despondently like really is that you know but you don't remember the despondent

00:15:22.920 sigh you gave 15 years ago yeah okay okay yeah um yeah so right away it's like what is truth

00:15:30.660 let's start an awful light with this one yeah exactly but again so and then so reading because

00:15:39.320 there's like one source document and everyone's just all talking about this one biography it's

00:15:44.120 kind of like can we trust what she says about herself and it's like well we can trust what

00:15:47.300 she says about herself as much as we trust what like anyone said about anyone in anything right

00:15:53.900 it's like i trust her about herself as much as i trust like whoever was writing what about like

00:15:58.420 queen elizabeth the first like everyone has an agenda and for her we're gonna score you know

00:16:05.100 a thousand hours from now but like in terms of scandal it's like we know she did a lot of stuff

00:16:09.660 and then some of the stuff where it's like did she do that it's like i don't know but she wrote

00:16:12.580 in a book and she wanted people to think she did which also speaks to her character right and i know

00:16:18.860 on past episodes of this podcast you've heard potential things that are maybe not true and

00:16:23.420 always decided to believe the most scandalous thing which is also how i approach history

00:16:27.540 if it's out there i want to believe it because it's bananas yeah exactly so i'm just gonna have

00:16:33.880 like a side note um because i don't know about you but i did not until a couple weeks ago know

00:16:38.480 much about the basque people so a little sojourn so because she was a basque woman um but also

00:16:46.080 spanish so even in her identity it's like which is more so the basque country is an autonomous

00:16:51.560 community in northern spain and southern france near the pyrenees the basques have a unique culture

00:16:56.820 language and many traditions that differ greatly from their spanish and french neighbors and they

00:17:01.540 are in fact one of the oldest ethnic groups in europe and this is because of where they're

00:17:06.160 located kind of surrounded by mountains no one could really wanted to bother going there to like

00:17:12.100 attack them or like take them over so they just kind of like developed on their own

00:17:16.600 they survived invasions from the romans the visigoths um the french the spanish in 1516

00:17:24.520 the basques on the spanish side of the pyrenees agreed to be part of spain as long as they could

00:17:29.840 partially govern themselves. And that's where she is from. Their language, the Basque language,

00:17:36.340 also called Euskera, is one of the oldest languages that is still spoken today, because

00:17:40.480 therefore we're still Basque people today. Basque is not related to any other Latin language and is

00:17:45.980 completely unique. And still today, the region is known as the Basque Autonomous Community.

00:17:50.980 And it's kind of like arm's length from Spain itself. And I remember when I took Spanish in

00:17:56.400 university my teacher her father was from spain so i was learning spanish in like a spain based way

00:18:02.860 and she described it this may not connect with you but to my canadians out there the basque region

00:18:08.360 she described it as like the newfoundland of spain and we were all like got it yeah um i don't think

00:18:15.580 there's a place like that in the u.s that's like so fully itself like wait i don't want to get my

00:18:25.120 facts wrong but newfoundland only joined canada in like the 1940s like they doing before that

00:18:32.840 i mean to see the anyway newfoundland was like they're their own thing they have their very

00:18:39.760 distinct culture and they see themselves very separately anyway so the basque this is important

00:18:44.000 allison because she's going to run into some basque people in her adventures not in spain

00:18:50.560 and every time they're just like oh my god you're a basque person and they're just like

00:18:53.760 basks united and they like always support each other so that part of her personality is really

00:18:59.100 key um yeah they're always really excited to see each other it's like oh my god you're basked too

00:19:05.460 it's yeah so um let me see so her biography as well so she wrote and or dictated it like while

00:19:16.140 she was alive but it was not actually published until 1829 which is 180 years after her death

00:19:21.600 which but it also leads to sort of the questions about the authorship of the autobiography

00:19:25.740 um because it didn't come out while she was still alive so no one could like ask her about it

00:19:30.640 while she was still there to ask questions about but like we know she existed we know a lot of the

00:19:34.740 stuff is true uh the memoir itself i was asking you about this i was like you took an english

00:19:39.820 degree you know about the picaresque novel i was like i've never heard that word before

00:19:43.400 the other podcasts i don't know they talk about it where i was just like i did not do an english

00:19:48.840 degree. I did a history degree. And I'm like, wow, all these podcasts are talking about the

00:19:51.380 picaresque novel. I'm like, I guess all the English people know about this, but no. So

00:19:55.880 the memoir itself is written very much in the style of popular books of the era, which is again,

00:20:02.200 like the late or like the 1600s. So if you think about a book like Don Quixote is a very famous

00:20:09.900 picaresque book. So in Spain, these are books, what's kind of like about a person who's like

00:20:15.440 not a noble person someone who's kind of like on the outskirts of society in some way

00:20:23.020 and having adventures and every chapter it's like and then i met this person and this happened and

00:20:27.960 the next chapter is like and then i met this person and this thing happened so it's kind of

00:20:31.980 like a innocence abroad sort of thing just like a person who's like a very like um not an extremely

00:20:40.220 well-educated person but like an interesting person having adventures so her book it very

00:20:44.520 much ties into the picaresque tradition which is where people are like it was all made up where

00:20:48.860 it's like no because a lot of this stuff did happen and there's facts but it also is in some

00:20:53.940 ways similar to there was adventure novels like people or memoirs of spanish people who went to

00:21:00.160 the new world and wrote about their adventures so it's also in that style a little bit because

00:21:04.960 spoiler she goes to the new world um and then it's also at this time another third kind of

00:21:10.940 popular book was like memoirs written by nuns and so it also is in that tradition so the book itself

00:21:17.300 is just kind of like what genre is the book you know it's like everything yeah exactly everything

00:21:23.320 about her life is like it's never just one thing so had this come out it would have been a sensation

00:21:28.880 because it was really leaning into the popular tropes of the time so with all that place setting

00:21:35.120 Catalina de Arauzo was born to parents her father was Miguel de Arauzo the first of numerous

00:21:41.820 Miguel's in this story and her mother was Maria Perez de Arce Gallerrega both of whom have been

00:21:49.680 born and lived in San Sebastian which is a city in Basque country so it's on the Bay of Biscay

00:21:55.360 which I mentioned just because there's a lot of ship-based things that happen so it's like a port

00:22:01.600 area it's not landlocked it's so ships were happening there miguel was a captain and

00:22:08.120 military commander of the basque province under the orders of the spanish king so as much as

00:22:13.300 possible i'll try to like connect this to other people who've done the podcast we can be like i

00:22:16.500 was like oh who's the spanish king is it one who we know um at this point the spanish king was

00:22:21.540 felipe the third who was the son of the one you know philip the second who is the one married to

00:22:28.180 mary tudor and who fought against elizabeth with the armada etc armada philip yes yeah so it's like

00:22:33.760 armada philip's son also called philip um all descendants of inez de castro so timeline wise

00:22:41.900 so she was born in either 1585 or 1592 so she says in her memoir she's born in 1585 but then

00:22:48.500 like her baptismal certificate exists and it says 1592 but like maybe she was baptized when she was

00:22:53.480 older. I don't know. But just know in the same rate date range, both Njenga and Francis Howard

00:23:00.420 were both born at the same time. So just imagine the world of that time, like Njenga, Francis

00:23:07.360 Howard and Catalina de Arousa just all living, you know, breathing the same oxygen. There's so

00:23:12.140 much, so much kids out energy in the air right now. I know. I know. I know. I don't know if you

00:23:16.080 look like astrologically, like the horoscopes of that time where it's just like, Ooh, something's

00:23:20.460 happening under the planet of kids out yeah very much so so it's that same era um so the spain in

00:23:28.740 which she was born so men's and women's roles were defined by religion which was catholic

00:23:33.180 and the rules of that time which were thought women should be enclosed and confined either in 0.98

00:23:39.200 the house or in the case of married women oh sorry in the house if you're married if you're not 1.00

00:23:44.300 married in the convent so like young girls were in the convent widows will go to the convent like 0.79

00:23:48.720 women were just kind of kept away. So this is like her gender transgressions are playing out 0.83

00:23:53.680 in a very highly like binary gendered society. So the thing about Catalina's father is when he 0.68

00:24:01.600 was a soldier, gravely wounded in battle, he made a vow to the Virgin of Atocha. The Virgin of Atocha

00:24:10.340 is a statue in Madrid dating back to prior to the 12th century. Today's statue

00:24:18.320 is still there it's like a little madonna type statue with an enigmatic enigmatic smile on its

00:24:23.320 face nobody knows where it came from um but everybody from the this is a quote from the

00:24:29.700 gold-braided officer to the ragged street urchins pay her the most polite respect and give her most

00:24:34.180 unqualified love so he is clearly in a battle somewhere near madrid he made a vow to this

00:24:38.940 little statue and his vow said um if you allow me to survive these wounds then all of his sons

00:24:44.960 will serve in the army and all of his daughters would become nuns and he survived and he's like

00:24:49.160 well that's what's going to happen although i think it's wild to make a vow that's not about

00:24:55.800 your own actions but about what other people with free will will do anyway so his four sons were

00:25:01.160 trained to be military men and his four daughters including catalina the youngest were sent off to

00:25:07.020 a convent of dominican nuns so she was four years old when she was sent off to the convent yeah

00:25:12.740 um her aunt was the prioress there doña ursula unza y sarasti the names in this are really great

00:25:23.860 and i watched a lot of videos about how to pronounce things and please now i'm doing my best

00:25:29.120 so yeah so h4 sent off to the convent and she stayed there until she was 15 and it did not go

00:25:36.840 well so it was a real like um how do you solve a problem like maria slash whoopie goldberg and

00:25:42.780 sister act type scenario in that she did not want to become a nun her personality was not

00:25:48.820 um complementary to a nun like life the nuns did not like having her there

00:25:53.180 i got this five-year-old child like absolutely not not yeah this is not oh god no um but so

00:26:01.380 asterix the dominican order that she was staying with like in terms of like

00:26:05.600 convents to be in was not as severe as some other ones and it allowed certain liberties

00:26:10.820 especially to privileged girls of noble backgrounds like her so they were permitted

00:26:16.140 limited contact with the outside world through visits and an allowance for maids and the

00:26:21.200 possession of money so this would be potentially because she was sometimes able to interact with

00:26:30.180 people from the outside world she's like oh the outside world that seems better than the convent

00:26:35.600 yes let's go with that so the book really gets started when she's 15 years old um and so she's

00:26:45.000 getting ready to take her vows to like officially become a nun she did not want to do that obviously

00:26:50.280 anyway so in quick succession she got in a fight with another nun also named

00:26:55.760 none fight yeah so this is like page one none fight um so she got in a fight with another nun

00:27:04.100 also named Catalina, who was a widow. So who would like come there after her husband died. 0.98

00:27:08.780 Other Catalina was larger and so had the advantage. Oh, this was St. Joseph's Eve, 0.69

00:27:13.100 March 18th, 1600. So crucially, everyone in the convent was going to midnight prayers.

00:27:19.640 So Catalina ran into her aunt, the prioress, who was like, Ooh, Catalina, can you just like go

00:27:24.680 into my room, grab this thing real quick, and then come bring it to me. Here's the keys to my room.

00:27:29.420 And Catalina is like, okay. So she went to the room, grabbed like whatever the thing,

00:27:33.820 it's like a Bible or whatever. And then while she was in the room, she was like, dangling there.

00:27:38.560 She sees the keys to the entire convent, just like hanging there. She's like, okay. So she

00:27:44.460 left the door open when she left, like didn't lock it behind her, brought the thing to her aunt

00:27:49.280 and hatched her escape plan. So midway through this like midnight hymn sing, she went to her

00:27:55.040 aunt and she was like, Ooh, I'm sick. Could I be excused? So then she went back to her aunt's room.

00:27:59.900 i'm sorry i'm preemptively thinking how delightful this is so she went back to the

00:28:07.020 answer and she not only took the keys to like escape the convent she also took a pair of

00:28:11.160 scissors and a needle and thread some pieces of eight which are silver coins um some fabric

00:28:17.100 and then ran away and i'm going to quote from her right now i went out into a street i had never

00:28:25.080 seen without any idea which way to turn or where i might be going i struck out in which direction

00:28:29.540 i cannot say and came upon a chestnut grove just beyond the walls on the outskirts of the convent

00:28:34.400 grounds and so then for the next three days she just did a pretty and pink inspired moment she

00:28:40.460 cut her hair off um refashioned her clothes into a doublet and house by using the needle and thread

00:28:45.740 and scissors um and then made her own little boy disguise so just three days sitting in a chestnut

00:28:54.980 robe just like sewing um her own little makeover montage but out in the trees after uh did she win 0.99

00:29:02.660 the nun fight by the way no i don't think she did i think the bigger catalina overpowered her 0.90

00:29:08.840 but yeah so that she's just out there just like for three days just like munching on like herbs

00:29:13.140 and berries um and then with this is all done and then she set off in boy disguise and this is where

00:29:19.380 like depending on who you read it's like to me it reads very much like boy disguise versus like

00:29:27.220 and now she set off her true self like this is very much treated by her like a disguise

00:29:32.260 um and so she went up in the town of vittoria having eaten nothing but herbs

00:29:37.320 and presented herself as francisco de loyola which was her pseudonym and fun fact this is

00:29:46.540 this is like her main pseudonym but she has other pseudonyms as well which include Francisco de

00:29:52.000 Arauzo, Alfonso Diaz Ramirez de Guzman, Antonio Arauzo, Juan de Arriola y Arauco, and Pedro de

00:30:01.160 Oribe. It's not like having a range of pseudonyms that you can put on like oh it's a Wednesday I

00:30:07.400 feel like today is a Pedro day. Yeah I know the best one of them to me is Alfonso Diaz Ramirez

00:30:12.900 de guzman so many last names i love it i know i know it's like if i was 15 and ran away i would

00:30:19.240 also choose a name with like 17 parts to it so and now so this is really setting the scene for

00:30:26.900 kind of like how a story is going to go which is very much in the picaresque tradition which

00:30:30.880 i know you know all about um just kind of like meeting a person having an adventure

00:30:35.400 like some of the chapters in the book are like a page and a half long and half of that is like

00:30:39.620 names so and there's just a lot of like happening upon people who want to help her so she clearly

00:30:46.260 was like a highly charismatic person so she met a doctor of theology who took her in and gave her

00:30:53.400 new clothes she also so just remember about like clothes were so expensive at this point right

00:31:00.720 like to have a suit of clothes like it was culturally so from what i understand in spain

00:31:09.080 at this time it's like um it was i don't know if it was illegal but certainly offensive if you were

00:31:13.900 like a poor person and you wore rich people clothes because like the clothes literally the

00:31:17.540 clothes make the man or whatever it's like if you dress like that then that's like impersonating a

00:31:21.760 higher class person yeah in some cultures that was definitely illegal like carrying carrying a

00:31:26.820 sword or wearing a certain color of fabric above your social stage and that was that was an actual 0.83

00:31:31.640 crime which is wild yeah exactly so like the fact so her and that's where she's like i'll put on 0.56

00:31:37.920 these clothes and that means everyone would treat her like a boy but then you know her her clothes

00:31:42.760 were not you know their clothes she sewed for three days in a chestnut patch i feel really bad

00:31:47.380 very good because she put so much effort into fixing those clothes and then this doctor of 0.52

00:31:50.960 theology is like you look ridiculous let me give you some better clothes yeah so he gave her some

00:31:54.680 new clothes um so the doctor of theology now was married to one of catalina's other aunts 0.98

00:32:03.340 there's the family this is like i would not at all challenge anyone to make a drinking game

00:32:09.500 every time catalina runs into a relative but if you did godspeed um so one of the things that

00:32:17.680 people criticize or question about her thing is like how could she possibly run into so many

00:32:21.100 relatives all the time and it's like well it was a big family um it was like a i'm sure everyone

00:32:29.100 is having 25 children and everyone's related to everyone anyway so the doctor of theology was

00:32:34.020 married to one of her other aunts the aunt did not recognize her in disguise but probably this

00:32:38.300 is a thing too where it's like yeah she was sent to the convent when she was four like a lot of

00:32:43.320 people hadn't seen her since she was four and now she's dressed like a boy even if she wasn't

00:32:47.860 just like a boy like if i haven't seen my aunts in 20 years i probably don't know what they look

00:32:51.780 like no exactly yeah this is like so side note do you know what all the story of the return of

00:32:57.320 martin guerre the french story that sounds so familiar but i don't remember it there is a

00:33:02.780 musical um anyway it's a story about a man who like left a village um went off to war he was

00:33:10.720 like really unpleasant and then someone came back to the village and was like it's me i'm martin

00:33:14.680 guerre and i was like oh my god and he was like really nice and kind and the wife is like yep

00:33:18.260 that's totally the guy who left me um and then eventually the real guy came back and he's like

00:33:22.760 it's a great story. There is a movie about it starring Jorah de Perdue. Of course there is.

00:33:30.640 Because it's a French historical story. Anyway, so I studied that story in university and I remember

00:33:35.480 just asking my professor, I was just like, but why, how could anyone not know it was him?

00:33:40.040 Like, why would everyone believe it? And she's like, well, like people didn't really,

00:33:44.720 there wasn't mirrors, there wasn't photography. Like if you hadn't seen somebody in 10 years and

00:33:50.220 they came back it's like hey it's me to be like okay like sure like yeah why not anyway so she

00:33:57.860 stayed with the doctor of theology and her aunt um he taught her latin he was like i want to teach

00:34:01.860 you latin he was very passionate about it and she stayed how she got through 11 years in a nunnery

00:34:08.040 without learning any latin but i imagine she probably wasn't paying super close attention

00:34:11.760 it's true yeah she did learn sewing though so that's true um so she stayed there for three

00:34:17.220 months until the doctor of theology laid hands on her. So I guess, I don't know, tried to get

00:34:24.800 in a fight with her. Now, here's the thing I'm going to say. Catalina de Arraso winds up in a

00:34:31.280 lot of fights to the point where you're like, is someone this unlucky or are you somehow instigating

00:34:39.400 all of these fights? So I'm not saying that was the situation here. She was a young ex-novitiate

00:34:46.860 disguised as a boy and this was an adult man anyway but this also shows like he i guess

00:34:52.200 hit her or whatever and she's just like that's it for me i'm gone and then she left so and of

00:34:57.780 course she stole some money before she left good for her which will become her signature move as

00:35:02.760 well um so then she headed next to vaido lead by hiring a driver so this is where the royal court

00:35:09.560 of spain was at the time and she got a new job as a page to the king's secretary a job that also

00:35:16.480 gave her new clothes she gets a lot of clothes um so she's going undercover at this point

00:35:24.700 francisco loyola which by the way loyola is a very common surname in basque country so she was

00:35:30.220 she was disguising her gender and her name but she was still a proud basquero so anyway so she's

00:35:37.760 hanging out there and then one day her father miguel arrived do you know what he was doing 0.92

00:35:41.940 really looking for his runaway daughter i thought he's gonna be making another vow to

00:35:48.320 a statue somewhere but no he was just kind of like going around the countryside i guess being

00:35:53.520 like hey so one of my daughters ran away um but he didn't recognize her because he probably also

00:36:00.520 hadn't seen her since she was four and why would you as like a nobleman pay much attention to the

00:36:05.020 like page of whatever anyway but she's like it's a tight tight escape let's just like time to move

00:36:11.440 gone so she made her way to an inn and then headed the next day to Bilbao once there some of the

00:36:17.560 town's youths menaced her oh no they menaced her I'm not sure if they threw rocks at her first but

00:36:22.540 she certainly threw rocks at them because she got arrested for throwing rocks at them uh she was in

00:36:28.060 jail for a month until the boy who she had hit with a rock recovered at which point I guess they're

00:36:32.880 like that's not a crime anymore because he's fine so then she headed to Estea where she again found

00:36:40.720 work as a page for two years so this is a story where it's like were this made into a movie which

00:36:46.360 it has been and we'll talk about that in part two this would be a movie comprising like 40 years of

00:36:51.260 time it's never just like i hung out there for two weeks it's always like so then two years pass

00:36:55.180 okay eventually she got bored and left and she went where to her hometown of san sebastian

00:37:01.160 that's a choice that sure is a choice where she lived in disguise as a young man and nobody

00:37:08.080 recognize her this is the thing where it's like how i don't know like you send your children off

00:37:12.120 to the convent when they're four to the point that like when they go missing you don't even

00:37:17.780 know what they look like anyway like she went to the same church where her family went to church

00:37:22.140 like she saw her mother at that church but nobody recognized her it had been three years since she

00:37:27.200 ran away so she's now 18 years old and then she went to the port um and she paid for passage to

00:37:35.120 sevilla where she met a captain who is heading out to sea escorting some galleons to the spanish

00:37:41.240 conquested lands in south america catalina got a job as a ship's boy yes proud of her

00:37:49.320 and you know who that captain was that captain was her uncle

00:37:52.880 captain esteban aguino her mother's first cousin i would like we should be keeping track of the

00:38:03.560 uncles like i want to keep a tally of this because we're already at three okay yeah yeah um

00:38:09.980 uncle tally ask me again yeah so she was you know she raised in a convent for 15 years and then she

00:38:16.700 like was with the doctor of theology then she was a page boy and now she's like well god have

00:38:21.540 figured how to be a ship's boy now not a skill set she had but her uncle took her under his wing

00:38:27.500 not knowing that she was his niece

00:38:29.580 and she learned quickly.

00:38:32.460 I don't know if this is moving up

00:38:33.920 in the ranks necessarily,

00:38:34.980 but she then became a cabin boy.

00:38:38.600 And so they headed out to sea,

00:38:41.280 which went poorly

00:38:42.780 because sea travel in this era.

00:38:47.640 Lots of men died during this journey.

00:38:50.220 She did not, her uncle did not.

00:38:51.960 So they came ashore at Nombre de Dios,

00:38:54.760 which is a city in Panama.

00:38:57.500 that is still there. There was a major sort of like import export hub for Spanish galleons

00:39:03.980 in the new world. So, and the plan that was there just was like, you know, restock and sail back to

00:39:09.860 Spain. But instead Catalina stole 500 pesos from her uncle and then was like, Hey, I just, I'm

00:39:14.700 getting off the ship. My uncle said, it's cool. You guys. And they're like, okay. And she just

00:39:17.980 stayed there. So the ship headed back to Spain and she stayed in Panama with 500 pesos where

00:39:24.240 she bounced from job to job i think mostly ship-based jobs one of the her ship jobs was

00:39:32.040 on a ship that got caught in a terrible storm at sea and everyone drowned except for catalina

00:39:36.560 the captain and a handful of other people one of them was probably her uncle yeah

00:39:41.120 the cap this captain was pleased with her work and gave her a job in one of his shops in a place

00:39:48.120 called sana in panama he also gave her new clothes people just love giving her clothes and he also

00:39:54.320 gave her two enslaved men to help her and a black woman to cook for her so now she was a business

00:40:00.520 person running a little business one day she went to enjoy a show at the theater and a man named

00:40:06.700 reyes sat right in front so she couldn't see i don't know if he had like a big hat on but people

00:40:10.860 in this time did wear big hats the hats were tremendous yeah i'm imagining one of those like

00:40:15.700 big conquistador hats with the feathers yeah with the feathers i would write that down in my memoirs

00:40:20.300 too i'd be really mad yeah so reyes sat in front of her so she couldn't see words were exchanged

00:40:25.600 culminating and reyes said that she should go unless she wanted to have her face cut but she

00:40:30.620 only had her small dagger with her not her sword so they couldn't like fight it out properly so

00:40:35.860 she just kind of like simmered about it but the next day reyes passed by her shop so catalina

00:40:41.260 grabbed a knife and chased after him and slashed his face like sorry whose face were you gonna cut 1.00

00:40:46.360 up reyes um such an asshole oh yeah oh my god and then his friend tried to back him up she stabbed 1.00

00:40:54.960 the friend and then ran off but then you don't wear that hat in public again man she was obviously 1.00

00:41:02.980 caught and thrown in jail obviously yeah she was not stealthy subtlety was not what she was going 0.75

00:41:11.780 for here she ran out of no but like she like ran out of the shop that she runs anyway but oh but

00:41:19.740 this is also important so in like the pre what's it called the like introduction to the recent ish

00:41:25.360 the 1990s translation of her memoir they're describing part of their translation was like

00:41:29.940 this region of South America, like with the Spanish had been there for like a hundred years

00:41:35.100 ish was very much similar to how we picture the wild west sort of situation. It's kind of like

00:41:40.880 all the people there were like the worst people, like the people who left Spain to go like make 0.94

00:41:47.080 their fortune. There were all just like assholes really just like, so the fact that she's just 0.99

00:41:53.860 like chasing everybody with swords all the time, it's when you picture it's like, well, what if 0.99

00:41:57.240 in the like a wild west context someone's chasing someone's guns all the time like it was that sort

00:42:01.160 of thing like she was behaving this way but also everyone else was behaving this way like this is 0.97

00:42:06.200 just like finally my colony full of assholes this is where i belong yeah very much which is why when 0.76

00:42:12.220 later she like really starts to stand out you're like okay so in this context she's even too much 0.97

00:42:16.860 for them like so bear that in mind so she's in jail her boss heard about all this like the guy

00:42:24.660 who gave her the shot, the captain or whoever. And he was able to arrange her to be freed,

00:42:29.140 but the condition of her being freed was that she had to marry a woman named Beatrice de Cardenas,

00:42:35.580 who was the aunt of Reyes's wife. Does it count if it's someone else's aunt?

00:42:41.180 I don't know. Probably not. So the aunt of Reyes's wife. So I don't know if it's kind of like a thing

00:42:49.140 of like, you know, we'll make a peaceful marriage based alliance. But more importantly, Beatrice

00:42:54.020 was also the mistress of catalina's boss so okay my notes here say just like what is happening

00:43:01.580 what oh important to note throughout this whole time catalina had been allegedly secretly visiting

00:43:08.760 with beatrice who apparently begged her to sleep with her but catalina would not so catalina was

00:43:15.300 like i'd prefer not to marry her so the boss is like i respect your decision not to want to marry

00:43:21.720 my mistress so the boss was like okay but it's probably best if you like get out of this town

00:43:27.320 so what if you like run my shop in Trujillo instead and she's like okay so there's a Trujillo

00:43:32.960 in Peru but there's also Trujillo in other places but I think it's the one in Peru because she

00:43:37.520 spends a lot of yeah yeah because later she's in Lima also I just want to shout out to any

00:43:41.940 listeners listening to this in Peru when I look at my analytics of like who is listening and where

00:43:48.120 peru consistently shows up so like i was excited to have a peru-based story now this is murder

00:43:54.980 corner part one she headed to trio to work in this new shop but two months later do you know

00:44:01.200 who showed up i think i do but tell me the friends of reyes

00:44:06.920 he had a big gang i picture him sort of like biff in back to the future that he

00:44:13.260 there's just like goons and the goons are just like how dare you our big hat wearing boss

00:44:19.740 can sit wherever he wants doing this as like a west side story street gang but instead of

00:44:24.220 snapping it's just large hats yes yes wait this is like peaky blinder it is i wonder if they have

00:44:31.760 razors in the giant hats yes yes yes a big hat based right and like at the end of season one

00:44:37.200 of peaky blinders i was so delighted there's a part where like they all had their like newsboy

00:44:40.720 hats on and there's another gang the gang all had like bowler hats on i was just like yes i will

00:44:46.180 reopen their hats hat-based gangs anyway so reyes's friends came there was obviously a fight

00:44:51.680 catalina stabbed one of the men and then the sheriff came by and arrested her again even

00:44:56.660 the fact that it's called a sheriff it's really like wild west vibes but guess what the sheriff

00:45:02.140 was from the basque country hey and he was like okay so he's like escorting her to jail and he's

00:45:09.640 like hey we're gonna go pass by a church and it would be a shame if you like ran into the church

00:45:13.860 proclaimed sanctuary sure hope you don't do that and she did just that quasimodo vibes so she went

00:45:22.640 and hid in the church and it's like well they're all like this is like the lawless situation like 0.87

00:45:27.860 all assholes living there but they're like but we all respect the rules of sanctuary they're like 0.97

00:45:32.400 well can't do anything she's inside the church so her boss again tried to smooth things over but 1.00

00:45:37.180 as i were boss just must be so tired like it's the worst employee i've ever hired people are

00:45:42.860 kind of like hey we're calling for reference for francisco de loyal oh oh you mean uh murders one

00:45:48.520 two and three well yeah so yeah the one who didn't marry my mistress anyway so catalina

00:45:57.200 had just killed a man so it's harder for him to like smooth things over but he did probably bribery

00:46:02.280 was involved. And in fact, she snuck off to Lima in Dark of Night with a letter of recommendation

00:46:08.280 from the boss. I love that boss so much. You know what? I took out a lot of names because this book

00:46:15.940 has like a lot of names. I do wish I had written down the boss's name. I didn't realize that the

00:46:19.880 same boss was so consistently there for her. We can probably safely assume it's Miguel.

00:46:24.900 yes so in lima she hooked up with new boss friend of the previous boss and was put in charge of a

00:46:33.180 shop but after nine months the new boss was like maybe you should leave and the reason was this

00:46:40.420 she had been living i guess in the same house as new boss and his wife and his wife's young

00:46:46.720 sisters and catalina had become i'm gonna use some quotes here because and this is also okay

00:46:52.580 now i'll just read this ahead and then we're gonna have a record scratch moment to be like

00:46:57.160 what was the translators and what was actually in the memoir okay catalina had become accustomed to

00:47:02.320 frolicking with these young women and one had taken a fancy to her and quote from the memoir

00:47:07.420 one day when she and i were in the front parlor and i had my head in the folds of her skirt and

00:47:12.980 she was combing my hair while i ran my hand up and down between her legs diego de solarte happened

00:47:18.320 to pass by the window and just as she was telling me i should go and seek my fortune so the two of 0.56

00:47:22.000 us could be married so this is like a pretty lesbian thing i'm i'm over here you can't see

00:47:29.500 me on the podcast i'm just like get it okay so this is like a pretty lesbian thing this is a

00:47:36.340 pretty like erotic passage but here okay so in the spanish language it just says like um 0.99

00:47:44.140 it translates to be like to touch her legs the english translators were like ran my hand up and 1.00

00:47:50.060 down between her legs. So we're going to get into a thing that is known as the re-lesbianization 1.00

00:47:57.280 era. Before that, it was the de-lesbianization era. So Catalina wrote this memoir that was 0.99

00:48:05.360 very action-based and she is disguised as a man. And so there's like women are involved in it.

00:48:11.900 She never, ever, ever, ever, ever has any sexual or romantic thoughts about any man ever. And I 0.71

00:48:18.340 would argue to say she may not have had sexual thoughts about women either. Like, that's not

00:48:23.720 the kind of book, like, that's not the kind of book she was writing in life. I don't know what

00:48:27.180 she did, but there's not a lot of interiority in her memoir. So when her story was first discovered,

00:48:34.840 like brought to light in the 1800s, it was very much just like, she's like a kind of Joan of Arc

00:48:40.540 ified, where it's like, look at this woman who like dressed as a man, but for all these noble

00:48:46.240 reasons and so they just kind of like excised all the because she was like on the side of

00:48:50.380 colonialization and she's like on the side of nationalism you and is responding to my face

00:48:55.720 being like what noble reasons were the noble reasons killing people because of their hats

00:49:00.160 yeah so they again i don't know in the like spanish version of this no i do know because

00:49:08.820 i've read about the spanish version of it so there's nothing in the spanish version that is

00:49:14.060 like specifically lesbian um a lot of the so the de-lesbianization was not hard to accomplish by 0.86

00:49:22.580 just being like here's this book and here's this person and like women threw themselves at her and

00:49:26.480 she was always like no no but then in the 20th century um in the late 20th century like the

00:49:33.020 1990s which is an insane way to talk about an era in which I was alive what is it god I always

00:49:38.480 forget the like waves of feminism but the like the one in the 1990s they're like spice girls

00:49:44.400 you're right yeah that wave so it's like let's study this from but it was from a very like let's

00:49:50.180 study this from an understanding of human sexuality that's very much like not binary necessarily but

00:49:56.500 it's like let's oh she's a lesbian so let's just like treat her as a lesbian rather than what we

00:50:01.300 might do today were someone to translate it again to be like is this like what where does she feel

00:50:06.220 like what's the gender binary of it all like what's the like bisexuality exists you know

00:50:11.040 whatever but then it was just a little bit of context like a little nuance and a little context

00:50:15.380 here so the re-lesbianization was occurring around the same time as this English language

00:50:20.980 translation which so I think they and this is the thing like any translator does and I think it's a

00:50:26.820 really challenging job to be a translator because you want to look at not just like word for word

00:50:30.800 you want to put some style into it and so they said knowing that the the this era reminded them

00:50:36.300 of like the american wild west so they sort of use that a bit in their translations like some

00:50:42.120 of the way that she talks like the way they translated it they're inspired a bit by mark

00:50:45.620 twain's writings like to try and anyway so to them the context of this scene it's like ran

00:50:51.360 they're like you know ran my hand up and down between her legs where it's like okay so you're

00:50:55.720 coming from like a let's make her this lesbian icon point of view whereas which is not to say 1.00

00:51:03.060 that that was not what was happening but we don't know we don't know and if that was happening 0.99

00:51:08.800 Catalina would not have written that in a memoir for public consumption in like the 1600s

00:51:14.340 I wouldn't think although she didn't seem to particularly care what people thought about her

00:51:19.800 in general true true yeah so it's it's a sort of story where it's like there's so much stuff

00:51:26.080 of this I mean like that's why this is going to be a two-part episode but there's also so much

00:51:29.940 like you can really fill in the blanks with what you want to see in it or like you could write

00:51:36.280 a series of like academic type papers being like here's my angle of this and here's my angle of

00:51:40.940 this where it's just like there's a lot of room for interpretation which so we're at a point

00:51:46.560 as we record this the only English language translation that exists is this one from the

00:51:52.320 1990s and their interpretation was like lesbian which is not to say that was not what was happening 0.69

00:51:57.960 but something was certainly happening she was she liked to frolic with these women and she said

00:52:04.920 her boss happened to pass by just as the woman was being like please go off make your fortune

00:52:09.160 so he can be married um and then she was fired so something went on um and this is also like

00:52:17.260 again i'm not this is where you listen to like the lesbian historic motif podcast to get more

00:52:21.280 about this sort of stuff but like two women together was not seen as like deviant or bad

00:52:27.600 right like she got in trouble here because they thought it was a man doing this with a woman 1.00

00:52:32.180 right two women together could do mostly because if there's not like penetrative penis-based sex 0.98

00:52:42.040 looming then it's fine yeah like lesbianism was almost like not even considered as an option 0.95

00:52:50.420 to be illegal like they're like oh i can't imagine how two women would have sex so i will

00:52:55.860 not care about that at all that went on for ages yeah no exactly exactly so it's like it wasn't

00:53:02.180 a threat if it was to women right and then actually in one of the well the first play

00:53:08.900 the first stage version of her story which came out while she was still alive that's actually 1.00

00:53:13.280 how which is interesting too because that does have a lesbian sort of thing where she was like 0.90

00:53:17.700 in love with this woman um and then they were caught together but she was disguised as a man 1.00

00:53:21.880 and then at the end she had to be like no i'm a woman and that like saved the virtue of the other

00:53:25.780 person so she could marry the like man character so like there's a lot of layers here and it's

00:53:32.560 so I just need to sort of like unravel my like 21st century understanding of what this would

00:53:39.840 have meant or what this would have looked like but two women together where everyone's like okay

00:53:44.440 like that's there's no man so like I don't care what you do like go ahead but they thought it was

00:53:50.040 a man. And so she was fired. But also whatever was happening between her and this woman, she

00:53:56.460 we're going to see over and over again, had no interest in like a wife or like settling down

00:54:03.860 with anyone or anywhere ever. She is a lone wolf, Catalina. So at this time, the Spanish army was

00:54:12.660 kind of like constantly recruiting people to go fight the indigenous people because there's just 1.00

00:54:18.120 always just this country full of just like spanish assholes and who would get up to no good and every 1.00

00:54:25.640 now and then it's like let's just like round them up and like send them off on like a little army 1.00

00:54:28.780 project to just like give them something to do so they'll stop like brawling all the time you know

00:54:34.040 what will stop our law and order problem colonialism exactly exactly so she joined the

00:54:40.500 spanish army to go off and fight the indigenous people in chile and now i did try to find the

00:54:47.480 names of the groups because she gets she fights several different indigenous groups during this

00:54:55.660 story but like her memoir lists a lot of city names that don't exist anymore and that I can't

00:55:02.460 find out where they were in the first place so I'm just similar to how I'm using like queer like

00:55:08.500 we're just gonna say like indigenous people and I'm sorry I don't know the specific tribes oh yeah

00:55:14.420 while we're taking a pause what did she look like so a travel writer who met her when she was in her

00:55:21.120 30s described her as she is tall and well built for a woman although for her she does not look

00:55:26.620 unlike a man she does okay okay okay she does not have breasts she told me that since she was young

00:55:34.000 she had followed some remedy with which i am not familiar to dry them and leave them flat as they

00:55:39.480 were, which was a homemade poultice that some Italian gave her. When she used it, she experienced

00:55:44.440 great pain. But after that, without pain or any other treatment, it worked. Now. I have so many

00:55:50.840 questions. I do as well. And my first question was, is this a thing? What? Yeah, that was also

00:55:56.940 my question. And so I do have my friend who is a gynecologist who I refer to with some of the weird 0.99

00:56:02.700 stuff that comes up with these. I was going to almost write her and I was just like, no, no.

00:56:06.260 if there was a poultice that could shrink breasts like the trans community would have 0.96

00:56:14.620 would be using that now that would be available that would people wouldn't even if it was like

00:56:21.200 oh this like italian poultice like someone would have found that by now right yeah i i mean

00:56:29.700 what is she talking about what is she talking about and if there was a poultice that would like 0.56

00:56:34.240 shrink or like make your breasts not grow that same poultice could be used I don't know now 0.72

00:56:38.620 is an alternative to like plexus surgery is there liposuction whatever it's like apply this poultice 1.00

00:56:42.960 and it'll like shrink it like is it like a hormone thing or like I don't know or is she just wearing 1.00

00:56:50.520 a binder and pretending I don't know or is she just like a very flat-chested person also possible 0.94

00:56:55.740 yeah I will say she is sent to prison countless times and there's never in the book she never is 0.80

00:57:04.020 like oh no they're gonna like in Gwyneth Paltrow and Shakespeare in Love they're like oh no they're

00:57:08.300 gonna like find my like bubbies that is never so she doesn't write about her breasts in the memoir

00:57:14.020 but this writer was just like I also would not write about my breasts in my memoir I feel like

00:57:17.800 it wouldn't come up no well also what's interesting about her memoir that it doesn't come up not just

00:57:23.000 that specifically but like she's never being like she's never never never in the memoir is like I

00:57:27.200 was afraid I would be caught out no she's just like I put on clothes became a man and here are 0.94

00:57:31.280 my adventures she's never like will i be caught it's not like a disney's mulan situation like oh 0.90

00:57:36.020 no like how am i gonna bathe like she's just like she's fine not concerned my theory is just she was 0.68

00:57:44.420 physiologic she might have you know what maybe she like did get a poultice and she did apply it but 1.00

00:57:48.600 she just was like a small chested woman and she's like this poultice made my breast not grow it's

00:57:53.520 like or genetics i don't know what's to say i also sent you a picture of her it's probably like

00:57:59.480 back in your chats but if you'll recall so the portrait that was made of her was from the same

00:58:03.820 time and it's an actual portrait made from life like that's what she looked like um and she looks

00:58:07.800 like um she's got the like lord farquad from shrek haircut which is like the bangs and like

00:58:15.760 the blunt bob and her her face is like it's a very realistic portrait um it's it's facial she's

00:58:23.280 scowling, which is like, I imagine that's right. Yeah. So people who met her when they knew like

00:58:30.640 later on in her life, when they're like, this is a woman who dressed as like a man, they're all

00:58:33.240 like, it's so interesting. She like, doesn't look like a woman. Like, yeah, that's how she got away 0.75

00:58:38.620 with it because she looks like a man. That's the point of what she was doing. I forget if this is 0.98

00:58:44.740 in the de-lesbianization era or the re-lesbianization era, but some, I read something

00:58:50.540 and one of these things about some men were like well women would not have wanted to to sleep with

00:58:56.540 her like look at her like she's not attractive and it's like sirs like she's not attractive 0.99

00:59:01.200 your own portraits like yeah you don't want to fuck her as a woman but like how do you know like 1.00

00:59:10.000 yeah exactly exactly women have been fucking ugly men for centuries like look at yourself look at 1.00

00:59:17.600 your choices exactly exactly so it's like what they were saying is like i don't want to fuck her 0.99

00:59:24.200 so therefore no one ever would is a pretty standard thing that people still say a lot today 0.92

00:59:32.720 so she's in the army the army lands in conception where they were they disembarked and they were

00:59:39.760 greeted by the secretary to the governor who do you want to guess who was the secretary to the

00:59:45.800 governor i have two guesses and one is her old amazing boss who is getting what's coming to him

00:59:52.220 and the second guess is one of her uncles would you accept one of her brothers i would accept that

01:00:00.440 that counts can you guess her brother's name is it miguel yes yes so so it is captain miguel de

01:00:09.220 arraso her older brother who now they this isn't just like i haven't seen her since she was four

01:00:14.120 like they had never met well okay he left san sebastian to go be a soldier when she was two

01:00:20.020 so he's like her her much older brother um when he met catalina she said where she was from

01:00:26.100 true and who her parents were false and he threw his arms around her and he was like oh my god

01:00:31.560 another bascuero more than you know but so he's just like great like i'm so excited to have

01:00:40.340 another Basque person here. We can talk about like the Basque country, that language that only

01:00:45.560 we speak, you know, all the things. Um, so he invited her to separate his house and then he

01:00:50.940 helped her get a better job working for him because Basque looks out for Basque. Um, so the 0.61

01:00:56.820 rest of the army marched out to go fight, but she stayed behind, um, and worked for him as his page

01:01:02.420 for three years and he never suspected her identity but the thing is Miguel had a mistress

01:01:10.820 who he liked to visit I I guess that's like he I'm gonna say he was married and then had a

01:01:16.460 mistress because like why would he just like visit a mistress anyway Catalina started visiting that 1.00

01:01:22.080 same mistress for sexy reasons or other reasons we don't know who's to say who's to say but she 1.00

01:01:29.900 started visiting the same mistress and then the brother found out about it got mad whipped 1.00

01:01:33.880 catalina with his belt she fought back um because here's the thing like she does never not fight

01:01:39.900 back um but then she went but he was like the secretary to the governor he's like really

01:01:45.700 important she's like the page um so she was gonna get in trouble for this so she pulled her now

01:01:51.200 classic hiding in the church yes but i guess her brother was just like oh but you know what this

01:01:57.580 guy. He's Basque. I can't go against my Basque friend here. So the brother actually helped her

01:02:04.520 not have to be arrested for this, but she was banished to Paicabi. This was, and I don't think

01:02:13.840 it's still a place, but there was a lot of places then that's Spanish created and are now no longer

01:02:18.800 places. Anyway, so she's banished to Paicabi, which was a settlement of indigenous people in

01:02:23.900 chile and this is where i truly do not know what indigenous people these were because that is not

01:02:30.500 a city anymore so to quote catalina so there i was in paikabi for three years of misery and

01:02:36.480 after always having led the good life i love i i'm sorry to interrupt you but i love her writing

01:02:43.300 voice where she's just like so there i was sitting there on the side of the road having just almost

01:02:48.760 murdered my brother she's just she sounds like she's on tiktok and i love it so much you just

01:02:53.820 imagine her turning on her phone in this tiny Chilean village being like okay so story time

01:02:57.800 here's what we're gonna do I know exactly exactly it is like a really readable memoir for a piece

01:03:04.340 of literature that is as old as it is well I hope so because as soon as this recording's done I'm

01:03:08.400 gonna go get it so oh yeah anyway so she describes this after having always led the good life now I

01:03:14.000 don't know if she means like after always having like been a good person because like that is not

01:03:19.500 true. But if she means like the good life, if she means like, you know, gambling and like having

01:03:24.500 fun, sword fighting, she's just like, oh, here I am in Pycabi. Sucks here. But then because people 0.98

01:03:30.460 are always conscripting, the governor arrived with an army and Catalina joined up with them to fight

01:03:35.220 against the indigenous people. Not sure what group Catalina is not. Well, Catalina is just like the

01:03:39.700 Indians. Well, sorry. The English language translation is always like the Indians. I'm not 1.00

01:03:45.960 sure what Catalina say, said, but probably the Spanish version of that. Okay. So during one

01:03:51.160 battle, one of the indigenous people wrote off with Catalina's flag. And so she wrote after them 0.94

01:03:57.580 and stole the flag back, stabbing and being stabbed a lot on route quote, badly wounded with

01:04:04.100 three arrows in her and a gash from the lance in her left shoulder. She got back to wait,

01:04:09.900 she got back to like her side of the fight, but then she fell off her horse. Her brother came and

01:04:15.420 help wait her brother's there now okay why not her brother came helped her out and she recuperated

01:04:21.160 for the next nine months from these like fairly grievous injuries at the end her brother brought

01:04:26.140 her the flag she had rescued a present from the governor and because of this bravery she became

01:04:30.840 a lieutenant in the army i swear what's the flag what was well i was thinking the same thing like

01:04:38.600 what's the point of the flag why are we so excited about the flag why are they like oh no like the

01:04:43.800 the flag was stolen. And then she like almost died to get the flag back. Like who the fuck

01:04:47.960 cares about a flag? A lot of people did a lot of people. This is the like Lieutenant part of the 0.99

01:04:54.500 Lieutenant nun situation, right? You we've got the nun, like she grew up in the convent. Now 0.97

01:05:00.520 we've got, this is where the Lieutenant comes from. And the, yeah. So then she served as a

01:05:04.920 Lieutenant for five years, various battles. And you know what? We know that she's good with a

01:05:09.460 sword we know that she's like good with fighting it's sort of like i don't even know what i'm

01:05:14.900 thinking of but you know where there's i don't know movies with armies and there's always one

01:05:18.920 person's like mad dog go out there get them where there's like animal from the muppets like i feel 0.99

01:05:23.160 like she's just like catalina go and she's like she's just she's a berserker just don't want to 0.95

01:05:28.400 fuck them up yeah and this is like suits her personality very well from what we know 0.88

01:05:32.940 i've trained my whole life just to be let loose to go slash people's faces for having weird hats 1.00

01:05:39.300 exactly good for her for finding her place yeah let's see so during a battle her captain fell

01:05:45.520 leaving her in command for six months and then and this is where you're just like okay we know 1.00

01:05:51.040 everyone is shitty in this situation like it's like the shittiest people from spain came over 1.00

01:05:57.000 here and then the shittiest of those people went off to like fight the indigenous people 1.00

01:06:02.180 in like brutal and awful and genocidal ways of that she brutally murdered an indigenous person 1.00

01:06:09.620 to an extent that they were like that's too much for even us jesus christ

01:06:13.640 oh boy yikes yeah so she got put on half pay and didn't get a promotion she'd been expecting

01:06:22.580 which is like the classic punishment for someone like that that tracks but yeah so then she um

01:06:31.420 but she's still in the army she and the army went quote on the rampage for six months quote

01:06:37.420 slashing and burning indigenous croplands quote but chance toyed with me turning my every scrap

01:06:43.380 of luck into disaster I think we're going to pause for there this is end of part one 0.65

01:06:49.840 Allison I feel like everyone has a lot to think about I know I have a lot to think about that was

01:06:54.400 a very good cliffhanger line of her memoir to end on because now I'm hungry to know what the

01:06:59.160 disaster is yeah well and she's always saying stuff where it's just like you know just when

01:07:03.960 things like why does bad luck always happen to me it's like you cause it you're doing terrible

01:07:09.320 terrible things all the time this is your fault everything that happens to you is because of your

01:07:19.280 actions you chose oh why is this happening oh no it's the consequences of my actions coming to

01:07:24.920 haunt me again she is that meme yeah absolutely yeah so yeah and it's so much there's so much

01:07:31.540 to take in it and also a lot of this episode was like the necessary backstory of like what this

01:07:37.660 all is so anyway so everyone can just like take a week think about this just like if you want to

01:07:43.680 read ahead you can get a copy of Catalina's memoir it's available as a book it's an ebook

01:07:48.580 is an audiobook so i know we say in the episode you like literally just heard us say this is

01:07:54.920 going to be a two-part episode but we said that as we were recording and then it turns out um there

01:07:59.520 was a lot more to talk about so this is going to be a three-part episode so part two will be next

01:08:04.420 wednesday part three will be the subsequent wednesday because there's just a lot to talk

01:08:09.580 about and we can't skip any of the weird details so thank you so much to allison epstein for joining

01:08:15.400 me on this episode you can keep up with allison on social media at rapscallison which is like

01:08:21.140 rapscallion but with an extra letter in it i'll put all the links there as well if you want to

01:08:25.760 follow allison for the dirtbags through the ageist newsletter um and also of course allison's book is

01:08:31.960 a tip for the hangman available wherever you get your cool books and so you can follow this podcast

01:08:39.400 on instagram at vulgar history pod where my dms are open uh please send me your feedback your

01:08:45.460 thoughts and if you have suggestions of people that you'd like to hear talked about on the podcast

01:08:49.420 especially if it's someone from a country that has not yet been represented on the show i mean

01:08:53.860 i welcome all suggestions obviously but i really want to do as best as i can as much as is possible

01:09:00.440 to really um do episodes based on all the places where all of you are listening from

01:09:05.300 shout out to everybody in spain peru panama you know we hit a lot of a lot of places today bolivia

01:09:13.500 chile um and also if you go to vulgarhistory.com there's a little contact button thing there so

01:09:21.520 you can also send me messages that way if you have suggestions and you can buy vulgar history

01:09:25.960 merch at vulgarhistory.store use code tits out for free u.s shipping or tits out 10 for 10%

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01:09:38.060 um then when you buy your books from there then a little money will go towards me and not to amazon

01:09:44.360 and i guess that's everything oh no i just want to clarify because i did say in the episode i

01:09:50.440 didn't have time to google it at the time newfoundland joined um or it became a canadian

01:09:56.220 province in 1949 and just for perspective like canada became a country the dominion of canada

01:10:01.900 canada in 1867 so newfoundland very much doing its own thing for a quarter while

01:10:08.800 even though now part of canada like the basque country in spain i think it's uh still got such 0.98

01:10:15.280 a distinct character from from the larger country so until next week keep your mask on and your tits 0.96

01:10:21.700 out try not to stab anybody in the face um even if they're wearing a big hat in front of you 0.97

01:10:28.720 in the theater okay talk to you next week

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Vulgar History - April 27, 2022

International, part 9： Catalina de Erauso, The Lieutenant Nun (pt 1⧸3)

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