Something I have learned; Thanks Google

RESUME

The feminism works as a bridge witch take us to the past centuries and allow us to bring back the truly image of witches in our history, analyzing these women cruelly wronged in religious, social and political aspects. In some periods, some groups became monsters for political purposes. The witches didn’t arise spontaneously but were result of a horror campaign fulfilled by the dominance class. A few of these women really belonged to witchcraft, but was created a hysteria against that ones who used medicinal, astrological and psychologists’ knowledge made an “against-power” facing the patriarchy.

Key words: feminism, hysteria, witch

The motivation for the achievement of the present project is in honor of every woman silenced in history.

For more than three-hundred years, the way of balefire turned into the destiny of thousands of women. Naked, flying in brooms, scaring cities, hamlets and castles in the imaginary popular and religious of that time the witches were everywhere. This in the same time of the discovering of the New World, the big navigations, the ascension of the bourgeoisie, end of feudalism and the formation of the national states. The flames were an old enemy of women since the middle Ages, as the Joana D’Arc’s story tell us, but the boom didn’t happened specially in the Dark Ages as most thinks. Joana D’Arc was killed before reach twenty years. The reason why? She became a mystic personage of France after won the One-Hundred-Year War (1337 – 1453) against England. The French nobles, scared with her liderence abilities and her popular alliance sent her to the enemies (England) where she was burned for wizardry even though she enjoyed the war because she believed the Christian God had talked with her per dreams; in her whole life she had been a extremely religious lady.  The Joana’s case is very particular and clearly motivated by politics interests. Her death configures the clear intention of the dominance class of contain the power and female advance: by extermination. 

Between the XV and XVII century happened a thousand others judgments: particular denunciations or mass sentencing for witchcraft. The exactly number of victims is unknown because the official registries are confusing. Some historians suggest two-hundred-thousand while others say-nine-million dead, being 80% of them women.  Not only the accused for witchcraft were killed also their children because it was believed that the witches hand down the badness to them.

WHY THE WOMEN?

All this misogyny had theoretical foundation. First, is important to remember that the association of witchcraft with the devil started only in the fifteen century, before it the magic had already been used in the Greco-Roman civilization. They just forbidden the magic used for bad finalities, the good ones were considered licit and even necessary (according the historian Carlos Roberto F. Nogueira of USP). In 1486, just a few years before the discovering of the America, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger (two catholic inquisitors) wrote the Malleus maleficarum or Der Hexenhammer (The Witches Hammer) that conquered legal and religious value. This truly manual of hate, torture and death turned into an efficient instrument in the tribunes to identify and to eliminate the witches.“Picture of the inconstancy of evil angels and demons” was also used in the witches hunt (female genocide). Kramer believed that only  women could be witches because they are weaker beings, therefore, being more successive to the devil’s orders he identity of “original sin” in the Christian history was a heavy burden to women until the XVII century; women were seen as a trap to men’s spiritual life. Anyway, the Christian religion wasn’t the first one to accuse women for sin as proof; we could talk about “Pandora” in the Greek mythology. 

 

THE HEALERS

In that time, 95% of the European population lived in the camp, there also lived the healers -wise woman- miserable women but with big prestige, most of them single or widow. They, most of the times, were the only possibility of local medical attendance. They had knowledge of medicinal plants and understood the epidemics, worked as nurses, midwives and even though they had some weird or superstitious costumes the science proved and explained a few of them lately. For example: the use of parsley as a diurect.

In 1315 a.C some climatic catastrophes destroyed crops, killing around 20% of the population and giving start to cannibal habits. Decades later the Black Plague took away one-third of population, between some much disaster together with a religious crisis the church and the scared population decided to blame the healers. They were easy to blame once they had no man or children to protect them, also the population needed someone or something to blame.

The Hunt was official in 1484 when the pontiff Inôcencio VII publicized a clause that turned every popular wise into black magic. Rosângela Angelin (Dr. of Law by the university of  Osnabrueck, Germany) affirms that the hunt was a dominance class war; the male institutions of medicine in proud of the maintenance of their privileges. The healers did not get a title but had an extensive knowledge about health. Rosângela calls them “Doctors without a title”. So, the true is: most people accused of witchcraft didn’t have any connection with pagan religions. It was a hunt to every woman that deliberately or not subverted what was expected from one. Any woman who questioned the agreement in force was killed.

AFTER ALL, WHAT DID THEY DO?

Usually, this woman got together in small groups to discuss and exchange knowledge about herbs, talk about common problems and the news, acts very commonplace.

“The women attended the vigils, the meeting of communist by the end of the day where they preserved some traditional methods of cultural transmission. Vigils, where together with narration of horrorand bandits tales, were transmitted proverbs and shared medicinal recipes that meets a knowledge about plants and astralcycle.” (Altered words from Martín Barbero)

If they were too rich or too pretty was a problem too, the lesbians were also accused; it was believed that they caused the disasters, and believe or not the simple fact of have a birth mark or wart made you up to witch. Every antagonist became a witch. The hunt happened mainly in France, German, England, Italy and Switzerland to 1450 until the ascension of Illuminist around 1750. It was a three-hundred-year persecution, getting the boom in the XVI and XVII century, being the church (catholic and protestant) the means of divulgation of the “saint war”. As Joana’s story proof, to be killed one the accusation were enough even without evidences or foundation. For example: Walpurga Hausmaninn. She was an old German healer, widow and lived in the village Dillingen in the south of the country. In 1587 her old clients and friends accused her for killing babies and the animals of the hamlet. Walpurga went to jail without a right for defense. Chained and spanked she confessed had powers given for Lucifer, to be a vampire and able to became an animal.

For more than two hundred years, there were a lot of Walpurgas in Europe and also North America, in the states Massachusetts and Connecticut. Giving more examples, we’ll talk about Angéle de La Borthe murdered for giving birth to a deformed baby. Elisabeth Plainacher accused of inducing epilepsy in her granddaughter, the Warboys’s family. Also happened mass judgments; Bosco’s Witches (Spain) got at least two thousand confessions, the Fulda’s Witches (German) killed there about two hundred and fifty people, the North Berwick’s witches in Scotland got a three-thousand list of accused. The principal way to kill was the balefire but they also used hanging and guillotine. One of the most famous judgments is The Salem one that took place in the USA, proofing how far the English Fascism had arrived.

RACIONAL EXPLANATIONS.

The fanaticism made the people believed that the devil was here, in Earth. There are dozens of depositions of cannibal banquettes where babies and heart of men were eaten, people flying even some who with a blink of eyes were able to transform someone in a snake, mouse or frog, parties with black goats, monsters with seven eyes that were drunk and dancing with women. The fear mixed everybody minds. How the sciences explain this deposition? Well, the psychology characterize this moment as the “collective hysteria”, a disease characterized for the loss of control over emotions and actions. Similar to what happened in theUSA called the “paranoia of anticommunism”(1950). But not only that; at that time the main food was the bread made from rye, as everybody knows, the clime of Europe is humid and rainy; the perfect condition for the fungus “Clviceps purpúrea”. This fungus has an alkaloid that was used in 1943 to the production of LSD in the American laboratories. This mean thatmaybe everybody were out of their minds, literately drugged. In other words, the chemistry alteration can explain all the reverie.

THE MEANING OF WITCHES:

Since the beginning of the first civilizations, man searched to look up to gods who mixed protection, respect and holiness as a way to get comfortable with those things that he couldn’t understand. With the propagation of Christianity around the world the symbolic power of a lot of beliefs, rituals and costumes became to be postulated as sinful. The human relations, says the sociologist, work according symbolic powers; the symbolic power of women is an exterior representation of justice, freedom, peace or as desire objects. The religion had great influence in the vision of world and reality of people, the witches were and will always be the link between mite and reason, on this account they meet each other in the imaginary popular camp widespread for the culture or costumes of a nation, and above all they have consequences.

Now a day the sentence that witches were lovers of devil doesn’t make any sense ‘cause the devil’s image makes part of the Christian dogma and not of pagan one. The most of ideas we have of witches were produced in the past and is found among prejudices and stereotypes. Actually, they weren’t using supernatural powers to make potions, what the cleric were seeing as witchcraft were the beginnings of what we know now days asaromatherapy, phytotherapy and home pharmacology. Unfortunately, lot nature medicine were destroyed or burned.

The first thing that came to our minds when we think about witches it’s a directly association with a bad figure, ugly and dangerous. The juvenile-child books usually describe stories where there is a good and beautiful fairy, most of the times blonde and one ugly old witch. About their houses, for sure we imagine a cold dark place. The witch’s life always was represented as a big mess. The woman who dedicated her time to magic (in this case, knowledge) was taken as indignant of getting married and until today a single woman is not well seen by society. 

IX

CONCLUSION

Since mythology, the women had been the source of sin, with the ascension of Christianity later this conception got worse. Every kind of knowledge or custom that was not from Catholic or Protestant church ended up associated with the devil. It is valid to remember that this civilization was leaving the feudalism, a system that worked based on faith and there was no limit between government and church.

In the feudalism, most part of people lived in the camp, working for the land. By this time the medicine was very restrict and poor people couldn’t afford paying for a doctor, so some women called “healers” substitutes they by making use of plants to cure. In reason of some natural disasters the population came in a state of “collective hysteria” losing control above their emotion, like human being created the conception of “God” to get comfortable with those things he couldn’t understand the conception of “witch” was too. From then on, the healers turned into monsters that should be exterminated, this point of view shows consequences until today in books, movies or superstitions.