Fascinating Guardian article
on witches in Ghana- Darakat, you would've already seen this I suppose.
African Witches
I find stuff like this incredible (non-judgemental tone used here). It's very interesting when you look at the economic/social reasons for any form of persecution that occurs, in any country- including our own.
African Witches
I find stuff like this incredible (non-judgemental tone used here). It's very interesting when you look at the economic/social reasons for any form of persecution that occurs, in any country- including our own.
It is because most societies have no place, or no way of imagining, women who are single, older and no longer virgins. They must be strange because they are not married or with children or waiting for this to happen, when women are defined in relation to their relationship to others, a women who is herself is regarded with suspicion.
A similiar demographic were targeted during the baby farming cases in 19th century England. Young women who killed their children were always aquited of infanticide. Older single 'rational' women who took in children from poor or embarrassed mothers, and either deliberately killed them, or killed them through neglect, were invaribly convicted.
[this is one of the reasons that so many people hated Lindy Chamberlain - how to place her? She is married, tick, she is a mother, tick, but she is rational, she is not bawling, she is not claiming insanity)
Interesting to see that the same thing is happening today.
(yes I wrote an essay on this ; ) )
Thanks for the link.
Reply
Yes- I agree. It's very interesting that this is, in fact, done only to women and not to older men. And, of course, in a great majority of African cultures traditiona;/tribal and otherwise, the older male is very much the pillar of the social group- much more so, even, than the case is here, where retirement etc. tends to lead to a sense of being 'no longer useful'. of course, the women are an economic burden where there is not much food etc, however surely the grandfater (for instance) is of an equal burden- if not greater because the grandmother, at least, has experience in child rearing etc. which could be useful to future mothers. Presumably, however, the role of 'advice giver' at such times has probably fallen to her daughter by this point.
I'm presuming that young women were aquitted on the basis of their ability to continue to bear children?
It's very interesting (and sad). The thing I've always thought fascinating about the term 'witch' is the way that it is (almost always) used to denote power, and indicates the fear of (particularly natural) oower, from which presumabley men feel defenceless. Of course, here I'm speaking historically, but having said that, even when people use terms like 'bewitching' or say that a girl has someone 'under her spell' it is still a negative indicator which infers power. There really isn't any similar term/phrase to apply to men, even when they exercise exactly this same 'power' over a woman.
Reply
They were aquited because they could fit into an acceptable notion of feminine sexuality: virgin (mostly single, would claim that they were raped or promised marriage etc), insane (would usually argue that they had no memory of what happened - it was believed anyway that a women suffered from post partum insanity for TWO YEARS after the birth), emotional, dependent, mothers, etc.
Baby farmers, as they were called, were rational (taking money for the job), single, independent etc. This was not an acceptable type of sexuality.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment