Another Salem Witch Trials
...are one of the historical events almost everyone has heard of. They began when three
young girls, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam began to have hysterical fits, after being
discovered engaging in forbidden fortune-telling (not dancing naked in the woods) to learn what sorts
of men they would marry. Betty's father, the Reverend Samuel Parris, called in more senior
authorities to determine if the girls' affliction was caused by witchcraft. Although Betty was sent away
fairly soon, and did not participate in the trials, the other girls were joined by other young and mature
women in staging public demonstrations of their affliction when in the presence of accused "witches."
The events in Salem have been used as a theme in many literary works, including the play by Arthur
Miller which we are going to read during this unit. They are interesting to anthropologists because
they display some of the characteristics of "village" witchcraft and some of the features of the
European witch craze. Many commentators have seen the Salem witch craze as the last outbreak of
the European witch craze, transported to North America. As in African and New Guinea villages, the
original accusations in Salem were made against people who, in one way or another, the accusers
had reason to fear or resent. Moreover, the first few of the accused fit the definition of "marginal"
persons, likely to arouse suspicion. However, as in Europe, the accusations spread, and came to
encompass people not involved in any of Salem's local grudges. As in Europe there was a belief that
the accused were in league with the Devil and "experts" employed "scientific" ways of diagnosing
witchcraft.
Interestingly, during the colonial period in Africa, shortly after World War II, there were a number of
witch finding movements in Africa, which resembled the Salem episode in some...
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