ANST - FW: Musing on September 22nd -- Never Again!

[j'lynn yeates]

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From: Ellsworth Weaver [mailto:astroweaver at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 17:06
To: 2thpix at surfari.net
Subject: Musing on September 22nd -- Never Again!


Dear Folk,

Upon this day September 22, 1692, Martha Corey, Margaret Scott, Mary
Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and
Mary Parker were hanged for the crime of being witches. These nine
were
the last to be officially executed in America for witchcraft. It is
part of the reason why tomorrow you may see folks wearing white,
black
and red ribbons.

On January 20, 1692, two girls became ill; doctor William Griggs was
called in but could find no earthly explanation; he diagnosed it as
bewitchment. These were the daughter and niece of Rev. Samuel Parris
of
Salem, Massachusetts Colony. Salem was a divided place; part of it
was
a very rural village and part was a bustling seaport town. It was
second only to Boston in trade.  There had been a smallpox epidemic
and
the threat of Indian attack. Surely the Devil was behind some of
this.

In 1689 the more rural villagers won the right to establish their own
church and chose the Reverend Samuel Parris, a former merchant, as
their minister. Not everyone approved of his rigidly Puritanical
ways.
Some questioned his continual call for donations and compensation.
The
more urban folk aimed at getting rid of Parris; they stopped donating
to his salary in October 1691.

It seems that Betty Parris (age 9) and her cousin Abigail Williams
(age
11) had been listening to stories told by a woman slave named Tituba.
She was an Arawak or Caribe from Barbados and had many wonder-filled
tales. The two girls soon had recruited several of their friends to
increase Tituba’s rapt audience. Now Betty, Abigail and, a new case,
Ann Putnum were contorting, cowering under chairs, babbling. Rev.
Cotton Mather, probably the best respected preacher of the Colony,
swore that he believed the girls were for real.

In late February, Rev. Parris held prayer services, community fasts,
even counter-magic. John Indian baked a "witch cake" made with rye
and
the urine of the afflicted girls. Somehow this was meant to help
identify those witches responsible for this madness.

Small aside, one theory of what was going on and what continued to
happen for the next months involved rye. It had been an especially
wet
year and there may have been an outbreak of ergot, which
parasitically
grows on rye grain. Ergot is a natural source of lysergic acid (LSD).
Combine social tensions, small pox, strong fundamentalist belief in
demonic attacks with a little LSD. Hmmm. Not a pretty picture.

The girls were finally pressured to name who was bewitching them.
These
children accused three women: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne.
Warrants were issued for their arrest on February 29, 1692. Osborne
was
an old crotchety lady who may have yelled at the girls. She protested
her innocence. Sarah Good was a disheveled beggar . Good likewise
said
she was innocent but fingered Osburn. Tituba, stimulated to tell all
by
her master’s whip, confessed.

"The devil came to me and bid me serve him," she told her inquisitors
in March 1692. Villagers sat spellbound as Tituba spoke of black
dogs,
red cats, yellow birds, and a white-haired man who bade her sign the
Devil’s book. There were several undiscovered witches, she said, and
they were hot to destroy the Puritans. Puritans bothered their lord
Satan with their righteousness. Ah ha, Parris was on the right track!

Over the next weeks, other townspeople came forward and testified
that
they, too, had been harmed by or had seen strange apparitions of some
of the community members. As the witch hunt continued, accusations
were
made against many different people.

Frequently denounced were women whose behavior or economic
circumstances were somehow disturbing to the social order and
conventions of the time. Some of the accused had previous records of
criminal activity, including witchcraft, but others were faithful
churchgoers and people of high standing in the community.

Soon prisons were filled with more than 150 men and women from towns
surrounding Salem. Their names had been "cried out" by tormented
young
girls as the cause of their pain. All would await trial for a crime
punishable by death in 17th-century New England, the practice of
witchcraft.

Finding witches became a crusade—not only for Salem but all
Massachusetts. Before long the crusade turned into a convulsion, and
the witch-hunters ultimately proved far more deadly than their prey.

In March Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth Proctor were
denounced as witches.

In April Sarah Cloyce (Rebecca Nurse’s sister), John Proctor, Abigail
Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Giles Corey, Mary Warren, Nehemiah Abbott,
William and Deliverance Hobbs, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Mary Easty
(released in May but rejailed because her accusers insisted), Mary
Black, Sarah Wildes, and Mary English were examined before the judges
Hathorne and Corwin. Only Nehemiah Abbott was cleared of charges.
Only
Abigail Hobbs confessed.

In May accused and examined were Sarah Morey, Lydia Dustin, Susannah
Martin, Dorcas Hoar, George Burroughs, Sarah Churchill (one of the
afflicted girls), George Jacobs, Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret
(Margaret , under threat of dying in a dark prison confessed and
testified that her grandfather and George Burroughs were both
witches)
Martha Carrier, John Alden, Wilmott Redd, Elizabeth Howe, and Phillip
English. Sarah Osborne died in jail in May.

June saw the beginning of the trials and executions:.

On June 10th  Bridget Bishop was hanged in Salem, the first official
execution of the Salem witch trials.

On  July 19th Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah
Good, and Sarah Wildes were hanged.

On August 19th George Jacobs, Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs,
John Proctor, and John Willard were hanged on Gallows Hill.

On September 19th Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing a
trial.

September 22 Martha Corey, Margaret Scott, Mary Easty, Alice Parker,
Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker were
hanged.

Of course they could not be buried on church grounds so their
families
quietly stole their bodies from the gallows and made do the best they
could.

Twenty people who were no worse and no better than those around them
were accused, threatened, tortured, tried, hanged or, in Giles
Corey’s
case, pressed to death. Others died in jail. May their names remain
to
remind us.

Their examiners and judges included Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth,
Captain Samuel Sewall, Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton,
Nathaniel
Saltonstall, Bartholomew Gedney, Peter Sergeant, Wait Still Winthrop,
John Richards, John Hathorne, and Jonathan Corwin. May their names be
remembered always also.

This account is only of Salem. It does not include the madness of
witch
finding that went on in Andover and other places both in New England
and Europe. Thousands upon thousands of folks killed there. Guess we
were lucky. Right. Today, in Africa it is not unusual for people to
be
accused of and routinely killed for supposedly being a witch. Even
today, if you are involved in a rather pantheistic, nature revering,
respector of the male and female principals in a group or solitary,
and
happen to call yourself the "W word," how many times have you had to
tell folks you are not a Satanist?

A couple of years ago, I went to Salem, Mass. The street signs and
newspaper use a rather caricaturized silhouette of a broom-riding
witch. There are museums and gift stores happy to tell the story of
this era. I stood in the monument (built in 1992,) an open courtyard
with low stone walls whose benches are inscribed with the names of
the
twenty, and shivered. I had intended on staying longer but some
actors
do a reconstruction of sorts of the witch trials. They grab tourists
to
act as part of the jury. You want to know something? Most of the
trials
end in conviction. I found I could not stay, I was getting way too
angry.

So what have we learned? The madness of crowds can kill? Those who
hunt
dragons become worse than dragons? Don’t eat moldy bread? Holy wars
and
inquisitions are like children killing each other to prove who has
the
better imaginary friend?  How about from the folks in modern Salem:
not
much?

So if your sending this missive out to others, please leave my name
and
sig. attached. Happy Mabon, to all my pagan friends! It is Autumn
Equinox.

Wearing my white, black and red ribbons for Pagan Pride Day,
J. Ellsworth Weaver

SCA – Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis
AOL IM – GabbyBadger




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