Post #4100834
2026-07-26 00:30 UTC
Replies (6)
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@Di7life@mastodon.social 2026-07-26 05:54
@amydiehl@mstdn.social Interestingly, there are hardly any articles on witch doctors in other cultures. Most of them are male, feared, and respected by their communities. We rarely hear of witch doctors, wizards, or warlords being hunted and killed by people.
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@Ultraverified@mastodon.sdf.org 2026-07-26 01:05
@amydiehl@mstdn.social And so it goes
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@z3r0fox@mastodon.social 2026-07-26 01:18
@amydiehl@mstdn.social Thanks for sharing this! Saw that online academic occultist Dr. Sledge saying it was in large part poorer, vulnerable, mentally ill women but why not both.
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@christinkallama@hcommons.social 2026-07-26 01:30
@amydiehl@mstdn.social Yep. To be financially independent, women had to be single or widowed - if married, the household property belonged to the husband. That put them, as the article notes, outside of societal expectations and made them vulnerable. Status could certainly excite jealousy and create the frictions that led to witchcraft suspicions and accusations, but poverty was more often associated with accused and condemned witches - women who had to fend for themselves by providing magical spells and healing, who needed to beg, or who otherwise lacked a secure station were always seen as potential threats. Thomas Robisheaux’s The Last Witch of Langenburg is a terrific study of all these various factors, including how women’s domestic roles were perceived to connect them to witchcraft.
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@MsMerope@sfba.social 2026-07-26 02:20
@amydiehl@mstdn.social it has been a long time since I read it but this brought to mind: "Riding the Nightmare: Women and Witchcraft from the Old World to Colonial Salem" Selma Williams Pamela Williams Adelman
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@Karma_J@mastodon.social 2026-07-26 05:26
@amydiehl@mstdn.social