Witch Camps in Modern Ghana Essay

This article is about witchcraft and its different varieties of practices in different cultures. This article explains how witchcraft exists and plays an essential part in structural and functional aspects of a society. It also sheds the light on the journey of witchcraft from being profane and wicked to acceptable part of a culture.

There are countless reports throughout history of occurrences where society feared one another, but rarely were there occurrences where society felt feared and confident of one another. There was once a society that feared accusation, but trusted their struggles would disappear with the help of another. Witchcraft was the incredible yet terrifying thing that was responsible for this great uproar in some societies. According to the text Identity, Race and Power, witchcraft is a belief system that serves as a method of social control by directing anger towards others (Miller et al. 2013:214).. Throughout history the individuals with political power would use witchcraft as an excuse to maintain order throughout a given society. Looking at particular societies in Malta and South Africa this paper seeks to provide evidence as to how witchcraft operates to maintain a sense of “order”.

In such a field, the lesser agents of misfortune, the witches could flourish” (Ashforth, p. 102). Furthermore, with high unemployment rates and pervasive poverty, jealousy was seen as the principle motivator for the practice of witchcraft. In the same interview, Madumo continues, “It’s also about jobs. It’s the lack of jobs that’s contributed to the high volume of witchcraft. Because if someone is having a job, then his neighbors become jealous and will witch him so as to make him lose that job” (Ashforth, p. 102). Madumo cites these societal circumstances as a sociological causation for the rise of purported witchcraft.

In this study she addresses the accused and the accusers, the young, the old, the poor, and the cute. In chapter seven she constructs an interesting analysis and a statistically significant interpretation of those females who were possessed, and why these particular females responded to their possession in Puntan society. In order to prove her case she used evidence associated with those who were the accusers and the accused during the witchcraft trials. On the whole, she proved that women who were out of the social norms of colonial society were more likely to be suspect of witchcraft. In Puntan New England this was mainly non-married women, widows, and non-conformist females. These distinctive behaviors and demographics were seen as potential threat to New England Society, especially during a period of great change or social upheaval.

Imagine living in a household in Salem, Massachusetts. It is the year 1692 and you are a young female, around the age of 20. Now while a mass of events involving witch hunts are happening, everyone around you is panicking, accusing your friends, family and finally you of witchcraft, whether it was true or not that you had been practicing such sorcery. You confess anyways, being terrified, what happens to you next? The Salem Witch Trials should have been taken care of in a different way. The Salem Witch Trials a way to suppress people from exposing the truth behind the Government. The Trials were unfair, the Government and the townspeople were corrupt, and they had stress from outer threats surrounding the village.

During the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, thousands of individuals were persecuted as witches. It was thought that these individuals practiced black magic and performed evil deeds, the deeds of the devil. This all happened during a time of great change in Europe, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the consolidation of national governments. They were persecuted for a variety of reasons, but three major ones were religious reasons, social prejudices, and the economic greed of the people. Religious leaders such as Martin Luther and John Calvin influenced the ideas of their followers. Religion dominated the time period and it’s easy to see how many opinions

The only way the condemned witches could live was to pass the blame on someone else. If a person was accused of being a witch, he or she has to prove that they’re innocent. It is hard to prove you’re innocent when the whole town has found you guilty. For example Martha Giles was accused being a witch because of her reading habits. Later she was hanged to death. During the Holocaust, if you wore the Star of David there is only a little chance of surviving.

Moreover, the chosen victims that were condemned during the Salem Witch Trials also served to convert the public’s good faith in witches. Of the girls that had fallen ill in Salem, one of them named at least sixty-two names of possible witches (Kreiser). Although, a list of people was given the majority were unknown to the citizens of Salem which eludes to the concept that these were simply a delusion of a girl under the influence of hallucinations. Furthermore, even with this list being only sixty-two names long accusations continued to gather about the people in and around Salem, “Accusers and accusations multiplied. Of some 130 to 150 who were fingered as witches, 114 were charged; 50 confessed; and 19 hanged” (Conlin 2014: 68). The church used the few who were hanged (depicted in figure three) as an example to the people of Salem on what would happen to them should they decide to stray from God’s path and partake in witchcraft. This convinced the people that witches were heavily punished for their supernatural powers and for them to be punished so heavily then magic would have to be a sin. To continue, the previous reputation of the supposed ‘witches’ not only made them easy targets but it became associated with the persona of witches, “The acsusers’ targets could not have been better chosen for vulnerability by a department of sociology. Most of the putative witches were women… some of the victims were

Nineteen were hung, one was pressed and tortured to death, hundreds were imprisoned, and five had died while waiting to be trialed in prison. They were just a victim of being someone’s personal vendetta. The witch trials were revolved around a group of women that were said to of witnessed witchcraft. These young women were thirsting after their enemies to get the type of justice they thought to believe was reasonable for things certain people had done in the past that enraged them. Witch hunts like these root back far, all the way back to New England. During the 17th century europe was swarmed with accusations of

People often fear things they do not understand. In Nigeria, churches are accusing defenseless children of witchcraft; a boy’s “family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism ” (The Boston Globe para. 2); permanently impairing the boy. The boy’s father did not understand why or how what his son was and tried to kill him out of fear of the consequences. Pastors were accusing either orphaned or children from poor families as witches because they could not fight back, as way to establish their credentials. Hysteria made the townspeople actually believe and fear witchcraft in both Nigeria and Salem. In the case of “The Dying Girl that No One Helped” one person did not get involved because the police” might have picked [him] up as suspect” he feared the outcome and did not understand the importance of the situation.

The witchcraft phenomenon of the Renaissance period was shaped by a wide range of cultural factors; witchcraft was not necessarily subject to a single cohesive idea or concept, and it was often instead a conglomeration of many different societal concerns, concerns which spanned through all spheres of society. Textual evidence from this period provides insight into the way in which witches were conceived, and how witches were dealt with, while visual images present a companion visualisation of the tensions, which influenced created the witch, and the imagery, which came to be associated with witchcraft.

The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be

In the time this was taking place, many people, especially the lower class women, were on edge. They were afraid they were going to be accused of preforming witchcraft because then they’d have to go on trial. If a woman went on trial not only would this destroy their reputation but if they were found guilty then they would have to be held in jail until they were hung. This affected more than just the accusers and the accused but it also affected their families. They too would hold a bad reputation of possibly being witches too and they would be weighed down with grief. After their family member has just been accused of being a witch then hung they would be left emotionally damaged. Afterwards when they stopped believing the girls when they would accuse someone and let everyone go, they were left with both debt and very little to do. With their reputation, nobody would have wanted to have anything to do with them. This also left a major impact on American history in many ways. During the Salem Witch Trials many families were split apart from each other when one of them was accused or if they had different opinions on the situation. It happened to families that were both apart of the accusers and the accused. It also changed the way people are now seen in court. Back then, they didn’t have a lawyer to defend them but now we can have one to help us. They didn’t have a fair trial because the

Prior to the fifteenth century, rural European women were highly revered and respected pillars of rural community life; not only considered mothers and wives, but seen as community leaders, physicians, and sources of strength and wisdom. Women had a special and imperative role in rural life, and even those that lived on the fringes of society were well respected as the village healers and wise women. These old women would possess the wisdom of the ages and pass it on to others. This respect for women quickly deteriorated, however, during the witch hunts. The belief spread that women were morally weaker than men and driven by carnal lust, therefore making them more susceptible to being tempted by the Devil, and thus practicing witchcraft. (Levack p. 126) As people took this belief to heart, it is apparent that society would be affected indefinitely by such intolerance.

Witch trials began as early as the fifteenth century in Europe (Adam). Most people feared coming into contact with a witch because during that era it was common to think that witches were demons and associated with the devil. People were also frightened of witches because they saw them as a threat to their beliefs and values. It was for that reason why most of the people accused of being a witch would be executed. Common victims included much older women, who tended to be introverted. Many women were executed for absurd reasons and this is what is seen in the video, Witch Village. There are numerous fallacies that unfold within the video, three of them being ad hominem, to an extent hasty generalization, fallacy, and non-sequitur.