Xueta
The Xuetes are a social group on the Spanish island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, who are descendants of Majorcan Jews who were either Conversos or crypto-Jews, forced to keep their religion hidden. They practiced strict endogamy by marrying only within their own group. Many of their descendants observe a syncretist form of Christian worship known as Xueta Christianity.
The Xuetes were stigmatized until the first half of the 20th century. In the latter part of the century, the spread of freedom of religion and laïcité reduced both the social pressure and community ties. An estimated 18,000 people in the island carry Xueta surnames in the 21st century, but only a few people are aware of the complex history of this group.
Etymology
The Balearic word xueta derives, according to some experts, from juetó, diminutive of jueu which give xuetó, a term that also still survives. Other authors consider that it may derive from the word xulla and, according to popular belief, refers to Xuetes who were seen eating pork to show that they did not practice Judaism. But this etymology has also been linked with the tendency, present in various cultures, of using offensive names related to pork to designate Jews and Jewish converts. A third possibility links both putative etymologies; the word xuia may have provoked the substitution of the j of juetó by the x of xuetó, and xueta could have been imposed over xuetó by the greater phonetic resemblance with xuia.The Xueta have also been called "del Segell", after a street on which many lived, or del carrer as a shortened form of "del carrer del Segell"; possibly also by way of Castilian Spanish "de la calle", provoked from an approximate phonetic translation of "del call", perhaps made by functionaries of the Spanish Inquisition of Castilian origin, in reference to the old Jewish quarter of the city of Palma, Majorca. In modern times, it relates to the carrer de l'Argenteria or the street of the silversmiths, after a street that defines the neighborhood around the church of Santa Eulàlia where the majority of the Xueta lived, and takes its name from a popular occupation of that group. In some older official documents, the expressions "de gènere hebreorum" or "d'estirp hebrea" are used. The Xueta have been referred to simply as jueus or, more frequently, by the Castilianism “judios”.
The Xuetes, aware of the original offensive meaning of the term xuete, have preferred to identify as "del Segell", "del carrer" or, most commonly, with "noltros" or "es nostros", opposed to "ets altres" or "es de fora del carrer".
Surnames
The Xueta surnames are Aguiló, Bonnin, Cortès, Fortesa, Fuster, Martí, Miró, Picó, Pinya/Piña, Pomar, Segura, Tarongí, Valentí, Valleriola and Valls, as publicly displayed on the convent of Santo Domingo.Picó and Segura are not found among those condemned by the Inquisition, and Valentí, originally the nickname of a family who were then known as Fortesa, is also absent. Many of those surnames are also very common in the general population of Catalan-speaking territories.
The surnames Galiana, Moyà and Sureda figure among the penitents without having been considered Xuetes.
Numerous surnames in Majorca with clear Jewish origin are present on the island but are not considered to belong to the Xueta community. Examples include Abraham, Amar, Bofill, Bonet, Daviu, Duran, Homar, Jordà, Maimó, Salom, Vidal. Inquisition registers from the late 15th and early 16th centuries documented more than 330 surnames for those persons condemned in Majorca.
Therefore, Converso origin is not sufficient to be considered Xueta. Although Xuetas are descendants of Conversos, only a fraction of Converso descendants are considered Xuetas.
Genetics
A variety of genetic studies conducted, principally, by the Department of Human Genetics of the University of the Balearic Islands have indicated that the Xuetes constitute a genetically homogeneous group within the populations of Mizrahi Jews and are also related to Ashkenazi Jews and those of North Africa, based on analyzing both the Y chromosome, which traces patrilineal descent, and the mitochondrial DNA, which traces matrilineal descent.The population is subject to certain pathologies of genetic origin, such as Familial Mediterranean fever, shared with the Sephardi Jews, and a high frequency of iron overload particular to that community.
Historic antecedents
The (1391–1488)
The assault on the calls – the Majorcan Jewish ghettoes – in 1391, the preaching of Vincent Ferrer in 1413, and the conversion of the remainder of the Jewish community of Majorca, in 1435, are the three events that led to numerous conversions. The community agreed to mass, rather than individual, conversions to manage a collective peril.Many of the new Christians continued their traditional communal and religious practices. They established the "Confraria de Sant Miquel" or "dels Conversos". It largely replaced former Aljama in taking care of the group's social needs, for instance, assistance to the needy, an internal organ of justice, officiating at weddings, and supporting religious cohesion. At the end of the last quarter of the 15th century, the conversos carried on their activities, some of them clandestine, without suffering external pressures. The guilds did not discriminate based on Jewish origin. The conversos managed some social cohesion.
The beginnings of the Spanish Inquisition (1488–1544)
In 1488, while some of the last converts of 1435 were still alive, the first inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition – a tribunal newly created by the Catholic Monarchs as part of an effort to forge a nation state on the base of religious uniformity – arrived in Majorca. The introduction of such a tribunal was followed by public complaints and general opposition in Majorca, as throughout the rest of the Crown of Aragon, but to no avail. The Inquisition's central objective was the repression of crypto-Judaism, which it began by applying the Edicts of Grace, severely punishing heresy by Christians unless avoided through self-incrimination.Under the Edicts of Grace, 559 Majorcans confessed to Jewish practices, and the Inquisition obtained the names of the majority of the Judaizing Majorcans, who, together with their families and their closest associates, they punished harshly. Subsequently, until 1544, 239 Crypto-Jews were reconciled and 537 were "relaxed" – that is, turned over to the civil authorities to be executed; 82 were executed and burned. The majority of the remaining 455, who managed to flee, were burnt in effigy. This exile was distinct from the decree of expulsion of 1492 from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon; officially no Jews lived in Majorca by 1435.
The new clandestinity (1545–1673)
After this period, the Majorcan Inquisition ceased to act against the judaizers, even though there were signs of prohibited practices; the causes may have been: the participation of the inquisitorial structure in conflicts between local armed factions ; the appearance of new religious phenomena such as some conversions to Islam and Protestantism, or the control of the morality of the clergy. But, beyond a doubt, also the adoption of more efficacious strategies of protection on the part of the crypto-Jews: the later inquisitorial trials talk about how religious practices were transferred within families when a child reached the age of adolescence and, very often in the case of women, when it became clear whom she would marry and what were the husband's religious convictions.In any event, this period was characterized by the reduction of the group by means of the flight of the penitents of the earlier epoch, the unconditional adhesion to Catholicism of the majority of those who remained, and the generalization of the statutes of neteja de sang in the majority of the guild organizations and religious orders. But despite all this, a small group, essentially those who would later be known as the Xuetes, persevered with clandestine Judaism, and maintained social, familial, and economic strategies of internal cohesion.
From 1640, the descendants of the converts began a marked process of economic ascent and increasing commercial influence. Previously, and with some exceptions, they had been artisans, shopkeepers, and retail distributors, but starting from this time and for reasons not well explained, some began to focus strongly on economic activity: they created complex mercantile companies, participated in foreign trade, coming to control, at the time of the end of the inquisitorial trials, 36% of the total, dominating the market for insurance and retail commerce of imported products. Other companies were usually owned by conversos, and they gave part of their profits to works of charity in benefit of the "community", unlike the rest of the population, who made charitable donations to the Church.
Because of the intense exterior economic activity, the Xuetes resumed their contact with the international communities of Jews, especially of Livorno, of Rome, of Marseille, and of Amsterdam, through whom the converts had access to Jewish literature. It is known that Rafel Valls, known as "el Rabí" religious leader of the Majorcan converts, traveled to Alexandria and Smyrna in the era of Sabbatai Zevi, but it is not known whether he had any contact with him.
An internal system of social stratification probably began in that period, although it is also believed to be a remnant of the Jewish period. This system distinguished a kind of aristocracy, called "orella alta", from the rest of the group, "orella baixa". Along with other distinctions based on religion, professions, and parentage this configured a tapestry of alliances and avoidances among surnames, which had a great influence on endogamic practices of the period.