Heather Russell Wilder 2010-04-13 09:15:00

“Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“A major difference between witches and psychotherapists is that witches see the mental health of women as having important political consequences.” Naomi R. Goldenberg

What makes a witch a witch? Is it her warts, her sinister ways? Does she live by herself? Is she old or is she young? Has she buried many husbands to unknown illnesses? Why is the witch more often than not, a woman? From Western Europe to Salem, Massachusetts, our “civilized” culture has been mesmerized with the thoughts wrapping around such superstition and urban legend. Descriptions of traits and attributions do not seem to have played a great role in the pursuit of locating such evil sorcerers; nor do the articles we examined this week. Rather the only way to discover a witch was if someone accused someone else of practicing witchcraft. Does this feel like déjà vu to anyone else? Was this not the same position of the American government during the Joseph McCarthy era? How out the Stasi in Germany or the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) under Stalin.
How were these not the same tactics? According to Ruth Behar, there are numerous interconnected reasons for the different treatment of those accused of the practice of witchcraft. First, unlike it other witch hunts conducted in the United States and western Europe, these witches not only were entitled to, but also received the right for a legal defense. Second, if found guilty of witch craft, women in Latin America underwent “religious education”, rather than the gristly torture and subsequent death that their Europeans counterparts were claimed by. Behar also points out that unlike the Moors and Jews that were put to death by the Spanish for similar accusations, the indigenous peoples in Latin America were given great leeway because of their recent conversion and adaptation of Christianity. It should also be pointed out that the Moors and Jews were already considered either enemies or suspect of being enemies of the crown and therefore their behavior was of greater concern to the crown given their physical closeness. Additionally, witchcraft in Latin America was looked upon more as superstition by the paternal Spanish authorities; remember the indigenous people were lesser (childlike)peoples, therefore, “re-education” was the better way to promote a true understanding of their Christian conversion.
Behar further explains that accusations of witchcraft were related to sex; examples she used were of scorned lovers, abusive or unfaithful husbands against their wife after they had fallen ill from unknown sources, etc. Behar writes extensively about what these “sorcerers” had used in their concoctions. Herbs, spells, hair and bodily fluids; yes, I did say bodily fluids. To be more specific, menstrual blood was often placed by the women in either food or drink that the man then unknowingly consumed. Though this would have made Billy Bob Thorton right at home, the idea that this was used as part of a spell obviously had serious social ramifications. Behar’s examples are of women confessing to using this tactic to gain power over their cheating or abusive husband. Men thought the blood weaken them. I am personally grossed out by this fact in a total ethnocentric viewpoint and find myself pondering what this culture would have thought (or done with) the invention of the tampon or Always maxi (heavy flow with wings). Either way, Behar’s main point was not the method that the women used, rather, the point that these women felt let down in their litigious society with regards to their personal situation. She writes that in the cases she studied, the “use of witchcraft” was as a last result when either their petition for divorce was denied or no arrest and/or punishment followed their husbands’ actions. Witchcraft gave women a psychological edge over their mate, and appeared to do more to stop the evil infecting their husbands than the legal system provided. Behar is also quick to point out that these records mainly exist because the women felt guilty about some injury that befell their husbands and the result was a confession to gain forgiveness and cleanse them of the damages they had caused.
Overall, Behar used great illustrations to prove her points and gives one pause to think about what they would do (or be accused of) if restitution through the legal system fails them. Too bad for me, I have had a hysterectomy… though I have been called something that rhymes with “witch” by my other half. Maybe that is what those men were really calling their wives…