[Sca-cooks] Juana la Loca

[Terry Decker]

> Was written:
>
>>I wouldn't characterize homicidal rage at the paramours of a roving 
>>husband
>> as being insane, although any good modern defense attorney would likely
>> try
>> for temporary insanity.
>>
>> As for the items, they could be artifacts of a strange but perfectly sane
>> system of religion and beliefs.  They are not necessarily any stranger
>> than
>> some of the core beliefs in the world's major religions.
>>
> Well going after a paramour with a pair of scissors and shearing her like 
> a
> ewe does have style. What  impressed me was that strange reported incident
> during the moonlight trek.  After traveling all night they stopped at 
> house
> of religion to rest.  Juana flew into a rage when she discovered that it 
> was
> a nunnery and would not let any of the nuns near the coffin.  That seems 
> to
> me well out there and beyond even by what I understand to be the standards
> of the day.
>
> Daniel

I would suggest that every iconclast, including a few martyrs and prophets 
sanctified by sundry religions, was outside the standards of the day.  It's 
not a good measure of insanity.  Perfectly sane people can be irrationally 
influenced by astrology, card reading and other divinations.  Perhaps Juana 
believed that to make her husband faithful in heaven he needed to be kept 
from women until he was buried.  It's an irrational idea, but not 
necessarily indicative of insanity.

Now I will grant the possibility (even probability) that she was nuttier 
than a fruitcake, but to truly determine if she was mentally ill, one would 
need to study her history in detail looking for cyclic changes in behavior 
or signs of a progressive degeneration.  Since I haven't done the research 
or have read research done by a competent specialist, I really can't say one 
way or the other.  If anyone knows of such research, please give us the 
citations.

Bear