This blog is about the legends and beliefs about witches as they are found in Native American culture.
As every simple child and adult knew in the 19th and 20th century, that without question, witches existed especially in the West. Witches were believed to possess the power to soar at will, high and with uncanny speed, above the moonlit Rio Grande, over the loftiest mountain ranges, and across the cactus flats and deserts from south Texas to Arizona.
Native American cultures believed in and sometimes in self-defense, they worshipped witches.
Witchcraft in Pueblo, Plains and Great Lakes TribesBelief For native peoples of the New World no crime loomed more heinous nor brought swifter retribution than that of witchcraft. Often, mere suspicion resulted in condemnation and execution. Had a victim many relatives or friends, further bloodshed might follow if they sought revenge.
Yet more frequently, execution of a witch served a useful therapeutic function for the society as a whole: with removal of the scapegoat upon whom all blame had been heaped for things gone wrong, anxieties were relieved and the community or tribe felt purged of evil.
In witchcraft and in manipulation of supernatural powers for evil purposes was practically universal among American Indians. Many of the rites and customs of black magic indulged in by inhabitants of the New World bore striking resemblance to practices found in Europe, Africa, the South Seas, and elsewhere, for in whatever tribe or environment the craft appeared, there could be found the common belief that blame for human suffering often rested upon deliberate misuse of otherworldly powers by persons versed in the black arts.
Many Indian modes of bewitching paralleled those reported in Europe and New England. Native witches sought locks of hair, nail parings, saliva, urine, or fragments of perspiration-stained clothing from their prey so that these might be employed in occult treatments to produce disease or misfortune.
Among tribes of the Northwest Coast, witches made images of enemies, then tortured those parts of the body in which they desired to instill pain. The Chippewa of the Great Lakes followed similar practice, except their images were not dolls or effigies, but figures drawn in the sand or the ashes of a campfire.
Among the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, doll-like representations of amatl paper were fashioned to serve the needs of witches. The Tarahumara of the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua dispensed with images and relied upon a rasping stick and song to cause injury or death, to adversely control the weather, or to provoke other misfortune.
A technique for bewitching encountered among most Indian groups involved the injection of some foreign object into a victim, such as an arrowhead, spearpoint, or piece of bone. Witches accomplished this, not through direct physical means, but by symbolic propulsion or by exerting mental energy.
The Haida believed witches introduced mice inside a person's body and that if these could be expelled health returned. The Cheyenne of the Great Plains used the "intrusion theory" to explain serious illness, and their medicine men, employing supernatural rites, were called upon to locate and extract the disturbing element.
Most tribes attributed to an evil medicine man the power to draw out a person's soul and fill the vacuum with the spirit of an animal or snake.
A great website on these Native American cultures: http://americanindianoriginals.com/
If you have heard of any witch legends in Native American culture please send comments.
