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upon myself & this land the guilt of innocent blood Though what was said or done by me against any person I can truly and uprightly say before God & man I did it not out of any anger, malice, or ill will to any person for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly being deluded by Satan. And particularly as I was a chief instrument of accuseing of Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters I desire to lye in the dust & to be humbled for it in that I was a cause with others of so sad a calamity to them & their families, for which cause I desire to lye in the dust & earnestly begg fforgiveness of God & from all those unto whom I have given just cause of sorrow & offence, whose relations were taken away or accused.

[Signed]

Anne Putnam

Source: Danvers Church Records, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal 12 (July 1858), 246.

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27. The Code of Handsome Lake

Handsome Lake (1735–1815) was a Seneca prophet and religious leader. In the 1790s, during a serious illness, he had a series of revelations which crystallized as a new and enduring religious movement. He produced a massive code of laws for his followers. It contains 130 sections, covering all facets of conduct. The two excerpts here focus on his concerns about witches. What did witches do and why were they such a threat? Who were the witches? How do the depictions of witches that emerge in documents 27 and 28 compare with the descriptions of seventeenth-century witch beliefs among the Iroquois and their neighbors in the Jesuit Relations (documents 2 and 3)?

The Great Message

Section 2

Now spoke the beings and said, “We now speak of the second word. This makes the Creator angry. The word is Got’gon?. [witch]

Witches are people without their right minds. They make disease and spread sickness to make the living die. They cut short the numbered days, for the Creator has given each person a certain number of days in which to live in this world.

Now this must you do: When you have told this message and the witches hear it they will confess before all the people and will say, “I am doing this evil thing but now I cease it forever, as long as I live.” Some witches are more evil and can not speak in public so these must come privately and confess to you, Handsome Lake, or a preacher of this Gai’wiio`. Now some are most evil and they must go far out upon an abandoned trail and there they must confess before the Creator alone. This course may be taken by witches of whom no one knows.

Now when they go they must say:

“Our Creator, O listen to me!

I am a miserable creature.

I think that way

So now I cease.

Now this is appointed

For all of my days,

As long as I live here

In this earth-world.

I have spoken.”

In this manner all must say and say truly, then the prayer will be sufficient.

So they said and he said. Eniaiehuk [It was that way].

Section 72

Now another message.

Now we think that a time will come when a woman will be seen performing her witch spells in the daylight. Then will you know that the end is near. She will run through the neighborhood boasting how many she has slain by her sorcery. Then will you see how she who refused to believe in Gai’wiio` will suffer punishment.

So they said and he said. Eniaiehuk.

Source: Arthur C. Parker, The Code of Handsome Lake, the Seneca Prophet, New York State Museum Bulletin 163 (1912), 27–29, 58.

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28. The Code of the Shawnee Prophet, circa 1812

This account of the code of Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee prophet, comes from a letter written by an Indian agent named Thomas Forsyth to General William Clark, dated December 23, 1812. The Prophet’s code comes to us at best third hand. What kind of social critique did this code contain? How would you compare the Prophet’s vision with those articulated by Indian leaders in documents 4 and 5? How did witchcraft fit within the Prophet’s vision for a new social order?

1st Spiritous liquors was not to be tasted by any Indians on any account whatever.

2nd No Indian was to take more than one wife in future,