Thanks for this, Jacqueline. I do agree with your elucidation below. The woman who claimed to be a witch told me, in response to a question about the kind of magic she did, "I do what I have to do." Since she is known in the community as an unwitcher, I took this to mean that she has no qualms about helping a client by doing harm to another villager. But she is also quite active in a local cultural association that plays music and arranges dances for religious festivals in honor of the saints; in fact her husband is a guitarist in the local folk music ensemble. I also found a close connection between healing and activity in saint's cults in my earlier work in Sardinia.
Parallel to this, there are certainly a number of local legends and ballads about witches and the devil. But the witch did not define herself in relation to them, and most certainly not in relation to any pagan deities (although again, their names are present in local geography).
About fairies and saints: some of the healers with whom I spoke also mentioned a connection to saints and spirits of the dead. And in the Campania, witches themselves (janare) function as quasi-fairies in some legends: for example, one healer claimed that as a child, her mother suspected the janare of taking her with them on their night flights because she was so thin.
In the Apennine, insects and spiders are associated with spirits of the dead and/or of nature; they are believed to cause certain types of illness, and some therapies involve the use of insect parts.
Curioser and curioser....
Sabina
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:02:30 +0000
>From: jacqueline simpson <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Cunning Folk
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Bill Ellis's book.
>Definitely a good one.
>
>I think that it could be possible to be a witch and a
>Christian simultaneously, provided your definition of
>'witch' does not involve worship of either Satan or
>pagan gods. If the witch simply defines herself as
>someone who is casting a spell to kill somebody (to
>take the most extreme case), then she's a wicked
>Christian breaking the moral rules of Christianity,
>just as a murderer is, no more and no less. This may
>have often been the case in an English context -- less
>so in Europe, where Devil-worship was so prominent in
>the accusations.
>
>Jacqueline
>
>
>
>--- Sabina Magliocco <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>> Certainly this is also true for the Italian healers
>> and cunning folk whom I interviewed over the summer
>> in Campania and the Emilian/ Tuscan Apennine. I did
>> speak to one woman who claimed to be a witch, and to
>> have apprenticed as a girl with another local witch,
>> now long dead; but this individual is problematic
>> within her community for a variety of reasons. I am
>> not certain she is trustworthy, so it will take a
>> great many more conversations before I can know
>> whether what she told me is a product of an
>> idiosyncratic worldview, or inserted into a
>> Christian framework.
>>
>> In _Lucifer Ascending_ (University press of
>> Kentucky, 2003), American folklorist Bill Ellis has
>> an excellent discussion of cunning folk who admitted
>> to being witches and the reasons why they may have
>> embraced this identity.
>>
>> Sabina
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>> >Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 19:15:27 +0000
>> >From: jacqueline simpson
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> >Subject: Cunning Folk
>> >To: [log in to unmask]
>> >
>> >Dale wrote a few days ago asking whether he was
>> right
>> >in thinking some of the Cunning Folk were
>> Christian.
>> >I'd say that for our British documented period
>> (say,
>> >16th century to first part of 20th) they probably
>> all
>> >were. Certainly a high proportion of the healing
>> >charms here and in the rest of Europe used explicit
>> >Christian imagery -- e.g.Christ's baptism in
>> >blood-stopping charms, St Peter in toothache
>> charms,
>> >etc. A book on English Verbal Charms by Jonathan
>> Roper
>> >is about to come out (if it hasdn't already), which
>> >will amply support this point. And accounts of
>> Cunning
>> >Folk doing anti-witchcraft magic such as sticking
>> pins
>> >in a sheep's heart sometimes mention that a psalm
>> was
>> >recited. And magic protective sigils are
>> notoriously
>> >full of "Names of God" and bits of mutilated Latin
>> and
>> >Hebrew. After all, one major function of the
>> Cunning
>> >Folk was to protect the community against
>> malevolent
>> >witchcraft; when doing so, they would have seen
>> >themselves as working FOR God and against demonic
>> >forces.
>> >
>> >I admit other functions (e.g. fortune telling)
>> maight
>> >have been regarded as dubious by strict Christians.
>> >
>> >Jacqueline
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>___________________________________________________________
>>
>> >How much free photo storage do you get? Store your
>> holiday
>> >snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos
>> http://uk.photos.yahoo.com
>> Sabina Magliocco
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of Anthropology
>> California State University
>> 18111 Nordhoff St.
>> Northridge, CA 91330-8244
>>
>
>
>
>
>___________________________________________________________
>To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com
Sabina Magliocco
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
California State University
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA 91330-8244
|
