Witchcraft in Early North America - Alison Games [69]
241. Frank Newport, “Americans More Likely to Believe in God Than the Devil, Heaven More Than Hell,” Gallup, http://www.gallup.com/poll/27877/Americans-More-Likely-Believe-God-Than-Devil-Heaven-More-Than-Hell.aspx.
242. “The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans,” Harris Poll 119, November 29, 2007, http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/Harris-Interactive-Poll-Research-Religious-Beliefs-2007-11.pdf.
243. Heather Mason Kieffer, “Divine Subjects: Canadians Believe, Britons Skeptical,” Gallup, http://www.gallup.com/poll/14083/Divine-Subjects-Canadians-Believe-Britons-Skeptical.aspx.
244. Jane Lampman, “Targeting Cities with ‘Spiritual Mapping’ Prayer,” Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0923/p15s1.html.
245. See Robin DeRosa, The Making of Salem: The Witch Trials in History, Fiction and Tourism (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2009).
Figure 8. A mass hanging during an outbreak in Newcastle, England, 1650. The figure labeled “D” on the far right is a Scottish witch-hunter, hired to come to Newcastle to detect witches. Compare this depiction with that of Matthew Hopkins, the witch-hunter illustrated in figure 1. Figure 8 also offers some interesting comparisons with the portrayal of witches in figures 1–3. What might account for these different interpretations of witches and witch-hunters?
Source: Ralph Gardiner, Englands Grievance Discovered (London, 1655). By Permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Figure 9. Exterior view, San José de Gracia Church, Las Trampas, Taos County, New Mexico. Built between 1760 and 1776, at the same time as the Abiquiu outbreak, this structure is the best preserved colonial church in New Mexico. Las Trampas is about fifty miles from Abiquiu.
Source: Jack E. Boucher, 1961. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, HABS NM,28-TRAMP,1-1.
Figure 10. A portrait of the Shawnee Prophet and witch-hunter, Tenskwatawa (Philadelphia: F. W. Greenough, c. 1838).
Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-3419.
Figure 11. This image is based on a painting by John White, an English artist who traveled to the English colony of Roanoke in 1585 and produced seventy watercolors during his thirteen-month stay in the settlement. The watercolor was then turned into an engraving and first published in 1590. The accompanying text describes this man as a conjurer or “juggler,” a spiritual leader or shaman. The bag around his waist likely contained medicines essential to his cures.
Source: The Conjurer, from Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia [Frankfort-am-Main, 1590], plate XI. Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Figure 12. Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century alchemist, carrying out an experiment. Compare this depiction of magical practices with figures 2 or 7.
Source: Michael Maier, Symbola avraea mensae duodecim nationum (Frankfort, 1617). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-110316.
Figure 13. Edward Curtis’s photograph of Piegan medicine bags, circa 1910, rendered here not as sacred ritual objects but as posed art, is emblematic of the transformation of witchcraft objects, rituals, and beliefs into folkloric curiosities.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Edward S. Curtis Collection, LC-USZ62-111288.
SECTION II
O
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
First Impressions
Generated in the first years of contact between Europeans and Native Americans, the documents in this section reveal how both parties saw the other through the lens of witchcraft. All of the sources were written by religious European men. How clearly do Indian ideas about witchcraft and about Christianity come through in these selections? How might the authors’ Christian beliefs about the Devil have shaped their understanding of Indian notions of witches?
1. Fray Benavides Sees Wizards, Sorcerers,
and the Demon in New Mexico, 1625–1627
Born in the Azores near the end of the sixteenth century, Alonso de Benavides was a Franciscan