Well, I’m excited. After the first day of the giveaway, almost 200 people requested the book. Fantastic!
Category Archives: witchcraft
Tarot and circuses
Why am I interested in tarot? These cards have been around since the mid 1500s. They were used as playing cards and like our deck, they had suits.
But aren’t they used for divination? That is certainly what I was most familiar with them as. Certainly, their use for that purpose is documented from about 1540. Manuscripts from shortly after document a system for laying out the cards. According to Wikipedia “Giacomo Cassanova wrote in his diary that in 1765 his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination
Antoine Court de Gébelin, a French-born Protestant pastor and Freemason, published a dissertation on the origins of the symbolism in the Tarot in volume VIII of his unfinished fifteen volumes of the Le Monde Primitif. De Gébelin, who never knew the Tarot as the thought the Tarot represented Egyptian theology including Isis and Osiris. For example, he thought the card he knew as the Papesse and known today as the high priestess represented Isis.
The 1700s saw a rebirth of the circus.
I say rebirth because the kind of performances one thinks of have a long long history. The Egyptians had a tradition of acrobatics and juggling and they passed that onto the Greeks and the Romans. And these itinerant performers, called funanbuli – literally rope dancers – traveled throughout the expansive empire. During the middle ages, all the fairs boasted performers: jugglers and the like.
But all of this ceased in Great Britain and then in the new country with the Puritans who thought performances of all kinds were works of the Devil. Theaters in New England were forbidden right up until the late 1700’s. But in Europe traveling performers continued. In 1768 Sergeant-Major Philip Astley began exhibiing his equestrian prowess outside of London. Other equestrian acts followed. He called it a ‘circus’, the Latin word for circle because the riders rode around a ring. He struck gold. In 1779 he built a riding school. His ampitheater became the model for circuses everywhere.
At first these circuses were primarily exhibitions of trick riding but gradually acrobats, jugglers, rope dancers – tightrope walkers – were added. Family dynasties of circus performers were born.
A pupil of his, John Bill Ricketts, brought the circus to America. He first began a riding school in Philadelphia in 1792. It was wildly successful; people were hungry for entertainment. By 1793 he had begun bringing over European performers – including acrobats, clowns and rope dancers.
Other entrepreneurs followed suit, including a farmer from Brewster, New York , who found an elephant somewhere and brought it on tour. The display of exotic animals had been popular as early as the Bronze Age but this was a first in the U.S. Animal acts, primarily using dogs and pigs, followed.
Since tarot had been popular in Europe for centuries and had been used almost as long for divination, I wonder if some of these early circus performers didn’t bring the cards with them. Tarot would have predated the stereotypical circus fortune teller with the glass ball.
Now, with our jaded sensibilities, it is hard to imagine how exotic and wonderful these early circuses appeared. Farmers knew horses but not ones who allowed riders to stand on their backs. Pigs and dogs, animals they saw every day, performed the most amazing tricks. And any fortune telling would have seemed truly magical.
Midwifery – and Witchcraft?
As Lydia, one of the principle characters (married to my detective Will Rees) prepares to deliver their first baby, my thoughts turned to births. In that time both maternal and infant mortality was high. It was not uncommon for a man to be buried in a church yard with several wives.
Most women, especially those in the country, had their babies delivered by a midwife. For one thing, it was considered indecent for a man to witness the birth. Male physicians were just beginning to make inroads in delivering babies in the cities. Thousands of women who were burned in Europe as witches were midwives and healers . Why? Well. everyone knew women, who were ill-educated to begin with, were too stupid to learn something like this so the knowledge had to have a supernatural origin, i.e. the Devil. This in spite of the fact that midwives have been part of human history for millennia and there were less deaths when midwives delivered the babies. They washed their hands. Male doctors, according to the history I’ve read, did not and they passed bacteria from one woman to another, with maternal death following.
What did midwives do? Think about this: there were no pain killers other than alcohol and opium and anyway it was thought women should suffer. After all, they were guilty of listening to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and persuading Adam to eat the forbidden apple. Queen Victoria popularized pain killers during birth. (Smart woman).
There were no stethoscopes. They were not invented until 1816 and then looked like a long tube. Forceps were invented centuries earlier but were risky. Obstetric tools discovered in 1813 included forceps used by a male physician so they were known and used by then.
But midwives helped with the breathing, cut the cord, and some experienced midwives could turn a baby who was in a breech position. After the birth, they cleaned the baby, removing the mucous from nose and mouth, and made sure the cry was robust. Usually the midwife had an apprentice or two.
Now, with an interest in ‘natural birth’, we have come full circle back to midwives.
Witch Hunts after Salem
Although the witch craze in Salem ended, with many consequences as I have mentioned in an earlier post, the belief in witches did not end. With an increasing interest and belief in science, a belief in witches faded but did not disappear, either in Europe or in the Colonies – new United States. Legally, a witch trial and a judicial solution to perceived witch craft became unlikely (and I imagine that the uncritical acceptance of spectral evidence by Samuel Parris in Salem had a lot to do with increasing skepticism) hanging by lynch mobs could still happen.
In Europe women were still attacked and in some cases executed for witchcraft. In Denmanrk (1800), in Poland in 1836 and even in Britain in 1863. Violence continued in France through the 1830’s. And in the United States, as previously mentioned, Ann Lee of the Shakers was arrested and charged for blasphemy in 1783. But she was released.
In the 1830s a prosecution was begun against a man (yes) in Tennessee. Even as recently as 1997 two Russian farmers killed a woman and injured members of her family for the use of folk magic against them.
Why am I blogging about witchcraft? Well, one of the comments about one of my earlier posts talked about the influence of one person in swaying a community to hunting a witch. No matter how you look at it, most of the motivations behind witch hunts show the worst of human nature. Readings I’ve done point to class warfare and gender conflict. And while it is true that in some European countries men have been accused, in most of Europe and the United States the ones hunted have been women. There are a variety of opinions: control of a woman’s sexuality for one. The control of women’s reproductive life (and the eradication of midwives) for another. Considering what is still happening here I believe it. But some of the other motivations are equally as unflattering: greed, malice, revenge.
With all of this bouncing around in my head, I’ve decided that my next Will Rees (after Death in Salem) will look at some of these themes. You heard it here first.
Salem witches – Personal relationships
I wonder what happened when officials stepped in from outside put a halt to the goings on in Salem. Think what it must have been like living there at this time. Actions have consequences. Salem ( a misnomer since the action really took place in a small town named Danvers and, later, Salem Village) was a small community. Those accused were friends, family and neighbors of their accusers. How could you forgive the ones who hanged one of your family members as a witch and terrorized the others? What kind of amends would be enough? Speaking for myself, I am not sure this is something I could ever forgive. I would guess that, despite the end of the witch hunts, this village remained troubled for years.
Some believe that the curses laid upon the accusers, the judges, and the ones who executed the alleged witches are in effect to this day. Giles Corey was pressed to death, the only one not hanged. He cursed all the Sheriffs to die before their time forever. Oddly enough, quite a few have died from various chest related illnesses.
Financial reparations were paid beginning in the early 1700s. Would this be enough to ease the grief? Many of those whose family members had been accused or hanged moved away to a new Village called Salem’s End. We can’t know what they are feeling but I would guess PTSD would be the least of it. How could one every trust anyone ever again? People on both sides: the accused and the accusers, changed their names. One of the hanging judges was a Hathorne; Nathaniel Hawthorne added the w. And the Nurse family, right in the thick of the storm, moved away and became Nourses.
And what about those who remained firm in their belief that the accusations had merit? That the hangings were valid?
Reverend Parris was one who continued to defend his actions, refusing to believe – or behave as though he believed – that he had been in the wrong. Right from the beginning he was a believer in the girls’ tales. He accepted the testimony of ‘spectral evidence’. He remained in his post in the village. (Can you imagine what Sunday morning in church must have been like? All the hard looks and muttered comments and the minister who had really supported the crisis sermonizing from the pulpit.) It must have been a nightmare.
Anyway, those who opposed Parris (and I would guess there would be many) tried to force him to leave. The battle went on for several years. Finally ministers and other important personages from Boston were called in to render an opinion. But it was not until 1696, four years later, that Parris finally stepped down.
Parrish had a very hard time finding another post. (Consequences, remember?) He finally ended up in a tiny town in western Mass, the frontier at that time and the target of regular Indian attacks. Salem had trouble finding a replacement. (Anyone surprised?) The village finally accepted a young man just out of school.
In the wider political world, the storm in Salem adversely affected the futures of both Cotton and Increase Mather, destroying their influence. Admittedly, I am not as conversant with the politics of that time as perhaps I could be but in my view there was some duplicity in Cotton Mather’s behavior during the witch trials. In any event, the witch trials and all the consequences stemming from them destroyed the hold of Puritanism on New England and the developing country.
More about the Salem witches
A lot has been written about the Witch Terror in Salem in 1692. To a modern eyes, the easy belief in the veracity of a group of girls is incredible. (Obviously, mean girls have been around for a long time). In another post I talked about the possibility of ergot poisoning (i.e. LSD) which I am sure would be terrifying, especially to a person who couldn’t explain to himself what was happening. But was this the whole story?
I think we all want to know what happened. It seems as though the town lost its collective mind.
We know it was a superstitious age. But I can’t believe EVERYONE believed in the supernatural. In fact, one of the essayists of the time, Robert Calef, believed that the trials had been engineered by Cotton Mather for personal gain. (I doubt that. Evidently fighting out different opinions in print is not a new phenomenon). And anyway, other motivations for accusing someone of witchcraft have been documented. It wasn’t only ergot poisoning or fear of the devil. Sometimes it was for gain:The old biddy hasn’t died and I want her little farm, for example. Sometimes it was to settle scores. Apparently at least part of the reason behind the accusations directed at the Nurse family had resentment and the desire for payback at the bottom.
I wonder about the girls. Clearly, once the excitement began, they kept upping the ante. I suspect they didn’t want to lose the attention. And, considering that girls were supposed to be docile and subservient then, one can understand why they would want to break out. Be the center of attention for once. Accusing half the town of consorting with the devil seems a tad extreme though. And if you look at their futures – what happens after the big crisis and the turn of the century – they pretty much disappear. Some are documented as getting married, several moved out of Salem. (No surprise there, right?) Was there a leader among the girls with followers too frightened to say anything? I wouldn’t be surprised.
What happened to Tituba, the black slave whose stories of her past are widely credited with starting the whole witch craze. Since the stories she told about her life and her religion, voodoo, found fertile ground among the girls and seems to have served as part of the bedrock, it is surprising to me that Tituba wasn’t hanged. But although she went to jail she was not hanged.
Silly superstitions and more
Here are some of the superstitions I find silly. If a cow moos after midnight, someone in the immediate family will soon die. Since cows moo all the time I think we can all be glad this one isn’t true. Or maybe it is. Since a cow moos all the time, it’s bound to coincide with a death, right?
If someone places three chairs in a row, someone will die. (really?)
Opening an umbrella in the house means someone will die in six months.
If a young girl sleeps with an apple under her pillow, she will dream about the man she will marry.
If a cat sharpens his claws on a wooden fence there will be a heavy downpour later that day. In fact, there are quite a few involving cats. Perhaps this is so because cats were so often seen as witches’s familiars.
Many superstitions relate to unmarried girls seeing the face of their future husbands or superstitions guaranteeing a happy future marriage. The tradition of “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” is one of these. Not following this prescription is supposed to result in an Unhappy marriage.
Silly or not, there are quite a few old beliefs that we still sorta kinda follow today, as with the above. Another one: it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride right before the wedding.
Poor man’s fertilizer: A snowfall in April or May means a good harvest. This one is actually true: a late snowfall puts nitrogen into the soil which is good for plants.
Speaking ill of the dead will mean someone close to you dies within the year.
The one who gets the bigger piece of a wishbone will achieve their wish.
A black cat means bad luck.
13 is an unlucky number. Some hotels still do not have a thirteenth floor.
Here’s a big one: Halloween. It may have degenerated into a candy collecting orgy but the costumes and the connection with food have a long history back to times before the Romans.
The groundhog and his shadow. With all the furor around Puxatawney Phil one would think the rodent some form of royalty.
What I find so interesting about these old beliefs is their staying power. My mother used to quote:
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight
red sky in the morning, sailors take warning”
as a predictor of the next day’s weather. I still think of it when I see a particularly fiery sunset.
True, many of them have become celebrations for children or ones that adults enjoy with tongues firmly planted in cheeks. But I know that there are many conversations about the groundhog and his shadow so there still is some belief.
Superstition and Disease
The current furor over the Ebola outbreak prompted me to consider the role of disease in the past. During the Middle ages there was no conception of the role bacteria and viruses play in the transmission of disease so everything was ascribed to God, the Devil, or witchcraft. The birth of a deformed calf, destruction of crops, soured milk or ale or an outbreak of some disease could mean a witch had set a curse. As I mentioned in a previous post, witch hunts continued in the United States until the middle of the 1800s. (And belief in the supernatural did not end then. There was tremendous interest in spiritualism, attracting no lesser a personage than Arthur Conan Doyle, and belief in fairies encouraged by faked photographs. But I digress.) Paradoxically, it is believed that some of the worst incidents of witch hunts and trials were magnified by poor harvest (so people were hungry and scared) and by the growth of ergot on the grains (so people were also tripping). Talk about a perfect storm.
I suspect Granny medicine – the old wise women who knew treatments from trial and error – like that certain kinds of mold could cure infection also played a part in tarring these women with the taint of witchcraft. A host of measures to counter spells were in use. Some of the measures employed to keep a witch out of a house: storing apples (really!), a bag of salt under the master bed, a horseshoe or a clove of garlic hung over each entrance. Of course, if a spell was cast upon you, you had to employ certain methods to counteract that spell. To counteract a spell one would put seven drops of vegetable oil in a dish of water with some iron and rub the outside of the dish clockwise for three minutes. Doing so seven days would completely break the spell.
Of course such treatments had no effect on diseases. Diptheria, cholera, smallpox, the list of diseases is long. Smallpox, although us moderns have never seen a case, has been around so long scientists are not sure when it began. The theory is, though, that this disease also came out of Africa (like Ebola) and spread via trade routes.. Mummies with smallpox scars have been found in Egyptian tombs so it has been around for millennia. By my character, Will Rees’s time, advances in treating disease were beginning. At the beginning of the 1700s, vaccination as a treatment for smallpox was spreading. ( Live smallpox virus from an infected person was used – Yipes!!) The death rate for vaccination was 2%, unvaccinated and infected naturally = 14%. Edward Jenner, an orphan, was vaccinated as a boy. He had heard tales that dairymaids infected with cowpox never got smallpox. A few experiments later and in 1796 vaccination with cowpox as a treatment for smallpox was born. Rees would have seen many people with the characteristic round scars left by smallpox. Except for some vials that are in storage, smallpox has been eradicated. I suspect Ebola will be also, eventually.
Salem, witchcraft and religious freedom
A visit to Salem offers numerous opportunities to see dramatizations of the witch hysteria.
Numerous theories have been put forth to explain this frenzy, including one I mentioned in an earlier post – ergot.
However, I think it important to remember that the Puritans who came here for religious freedom, came out of a history of witch trials. In Europe there were recurring trials and burnings. Some of these outbursts seemed to have roots in ordinary human nature – heirs who accused a wealthy widow to obtain property for example. But the strong religious fervor clearly played a large part. One only has to look at the Spanish Inquisition to see to what lengths men will sink, convincing themselves all the way that they are operating for some higher purpose.
And magic was already a part of the culture. Witch balls, glass balls with elaborate designs inside to capture the witch’s essence, had been in use in Britain for years. I mentioned the witch cake in a previous post. But there was also other beliefs. an egg dropped in a glass of water could help determine one’s future husband. Dried apple faces were used to keep away evil spirits. An ear of corn on a woman’s belly as she gave birth would protect her and the baby. The effect of spells could be lessened by dry apple seeds. Of, if one was in the woods, witches could be frightened away by the clacking to two sticks together. And so on.
So the residents of Salem were already primed to believe in the existence of witches. When Tituba recounted stories and spells from her religion to the girls, they took root and helped inspire the hysteria.
Witch hunts and trials continued in the United States until well into the 1800s.
One last comment: I don’t think we can sneer at these poor superstitious fools from this earlier time – not when shows such as Ghost Hunter on the SYFY channel are so popular.
Witches of Salem
October is an appropriate time to discuss this part of our nation’s past. In fact, when people think of Salem, they think of the witch trials in 1692. Salem has a much longer and interesting history. My character, Will Rees, visits Salem slightly more than one hundred years later. But the memory of those trials and the witches are present in physical reminders even today.
First, I want to note that reparations were made to the families in the early 1700’s. This does not mean that belief in witches and witchcraft ended. It did not. Accusations and trials continued to the early 1800’s. Mother Ann Lee, the spiritual force behind the Shakers, was arrested on a charge of blasphemy in the 1780’s and could have been hung as a witch. However, it was upstate New York, and almost exactly one hundred years later and she was eventually released.
What happened in Salem?
Well, it is believed the witch hysteria began in the household of Reverend Samuel Parris. A slave called Tituba told stories of her religion which featured voodoo and folk magic to the girls in the household. One of the practices was the baking of a Witch Cake (one of the ingredients being the urine of the girls – yuck) that was then fed to a dog. Another ingredient was rye.
Since a fungus grows on rye during wet conditions and that fungus produces a toxin that is similar to LSD, rye has been implicated in not only the witch hysteria here but in Europe as well. Perhaps I am looking at it from the perspective of a twenty-first century woman but my first question when I was going on the tours was why these so called responsible adults were listening to a bunch to teenage girls. I’d be instantly suspicious I can tell you.
In any event, before it was over, 150 people were imprisoned and 19 people – and two dogs- were hanged. One man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. He cursed all future Sheriffs of Salem to die of some chest (respiratory) illness. Apparently most have, but in an era without antibiotics (forget about good hygiene or healthy food) I don’t think that is surprising.
Salem offers a number of dioramas and costumed reenactments of this period.