Superstition

The witches live upstairs.

On the first day, the Witches carried theirboxes and bags, a steamer trunk, a refrigerator,three stereos and a computer up five flights ofstairs and subsequently collapsed on the barepreviously stained mattresses of their new room.On the second day the Witches swept the floor andwashed the woodwork and windows. On the third day,the Witches registered for classes and orderedyard upon yard of heavy plastic sheeting. On thefourth day, sheeting and twelve bags of premiumsoil was delivered to the Witches by sweating,cursing delivery people whom they tipped heavily.On the fifth day, the Witches moved all of thefurniture out of the living room and lay the linerdown, pressing it flush against the walls, lettingit extend nearly a foot up the sides. On the sixthday, the Witches spread the soil over the linerand grass seed over the soil, watered it, lettingthe damp earth spread over their bare feet. On theseventh day they rested. On the thirtieth day theylay naked on the floor in th roomful of thick,verdant grass...

...From "Daimon-Gyne" by Farai Chideya '90

The belief in witchcraft has existed foran immeasurable time period, perhaps beginningwith ancient shamman's concept of "sympatheticmagic" and holding with modern day concepts ofoccultism and New Age religion. History is rifewith stories and reports of witch-hunts, initiatedand perpetuated by hysterical masses desperated todefeat the all-powerful supernatural. A centralissue to address, then, is the need for people tocontrol these supernatural forces of witchcraft.Did the people they targeted as witches haveunnatural control over their surroundings? In mostcases in colonial America, the accused witches didnot have excessive personal or social power.However, their victims, as well as the hystericalcommunity, perceived them as having some level ofcontrol that both the victims and the communitylacked. The late 17th century witch-hunt at Salem,Massachusetts, provides an example of thishalf-real, half-illusary struggle for controlbetween the "witches" and the community. The verybelief in witchcraft itself became a tool withwhich the victims attempted to gain personalcontrol and the society attempted to maintainsocial order and control of its environment.

Society did not, however, randomly selectpeople to target as witches; most of the accusedshared several distinguishing characteristics.Most of the accused confessed to being witches,"...or, ...at any rate, pretended to [have]extraordinary powers..."1, used to scare theirenemies and harm livestock. This characteristic isquestionable in that many of the witches whoconfessed did so under torturous conditions. Inthe late 1500's and early 1600's in Europe, theaccused were tried, tortured until they confessedand immediately put to death for practicing blackmagic.2 In Salem, the accused were not tortured;thus initial and convincing confessions ofactually practicing witchcraft were rare.

A composite sketch of the Salem witch can bedrawn; most of the accused were women, usuallyaging from their late forties to their earlyfifties. Of the thirty-one "witches" tried and putto death, seven of the accused were men andtwenty-four of them were women. These seven menwere also associated with "known" witches, and"...in most cases...the ["known" witch] was theprimary subject, with the man becoming implicatedthrough a literal process of guilt byassociation."3 The accused were usually wives andmothers of "...solidly English stock and mostly`Puritan' religion" (Demos, p. 71). In thesecharacteristics, the accused did not deviate fromthe cultural norm. They did deviate in severalnoteable ways, however: most of the accused werethought to be poorly conditioned socially. Theydid not hold positions of high respect orauthority in the church or the other areas wherepower for women was deemed appropriate. This factprobably targetted them further, for they werethen perhaps perceived as wanting power, and notabove using any means to attain it (Demos, p.68).When society evaluated the accused witches, theissue of power was central; their particularsituation of lacking power was magnified by thefact that "respectable women of middle age had agreat deal of power in the Salem society. These"respectable" women often held high socialpositions in the church, organized own socialevents, and cared for their many children. Thesewomen were often the accusers: they were perhapsable to best perceive the lack of power of the saidwitches.

1. George Lyman Kittredge, Notes on Witchcraft(Worchester, Massachusetts: The Davis Press,1907), p.46.

2. Hans Sebald, Witchcraft: The Heritage of aHeresy (New York: Elsevier North Holland, Inc.1978) p. 46-47.

3. John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1932), p.60.

From "Witchcraft and the Human Need forControl," by Abigail A. Kohn '90, IndependentStudy for the department of Folklore andMythology, Spring 1988.

Trinity

The cross glittered and she took it in her handalmost as an afterthought. it had been lying onher dresser, next to the perfume she had receivedlast week for her sixteenth birthday. The crosshad been a gift from her grandmother. She had hergrandmother's eyes, grey and soft and expressive.They were sensual eyes, unwavering in thedirectness of their appeal.

She was not actively religious but the securityof the idea of God held an appeal for her. If Godexisted at the very least she would repent and beforgiven; and the most she would be absolutelyabsolved from blame. The time she ahd spent inchurch ahd been restful and contemplative,however. She had enjoyed the way the light hadseemed to crash vigorously into the stained glasswindows only to be diffused into blues and yellowswhich filtered easily into the church. The lightsat in the people's hair as they lined up in thepews. It was the ritual that had driven her fromthe church, the Mass and a sermon every Sunday atten o'clock.

When her grandmother had given her the crossshe had said," When I die you will have this toremember me by. Jesus died for our sins, afterall." She had tried to smile.

The edges of the cross cut into her palm. Atthe time her grandmother had given her the crossshe had tried to be thankful but sincerity hadfaltered; she could only call up an imge of acrucified Jesus, blood streaming from hisforehead, the severed tendons in his hands andfeet. She had shivered and tried to thrust hisimage away from her; but it remained lodged in herthoughts.

Quite suddenly she threaded the cross onto achain and pulled it over her head. She felt calmeras she drifted towards sleep. As her grey eyesclosed she shot ahead in time and thought: shefirst saw her grandmother's drawn face in acoffin, not looking peaceful but rather devoid ofconcern. Then the thump of the earth against thecoffin as the grave was filled; finally the crossas it hung about her neck thumping against herchest with every step. The joy of a treasuredmemory filled her; she slept.

By John Goldstone '91B-3Scooter '91