Witchcraft in Illinois: A Cultural History by Michael Kleen

Author:Michael Kleen [Kleen, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781625858764
Google: zM8wDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35662191
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2017-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Part II

Beliefs

6

Qualities of a Witch

For over a century, witches represented a malevolent force in frontier Illinois, a force the average person could blame for a variety of maladies.Any misfortune, no matter how small, could be the result of maleficium. “More ample powers for mischief can not be imagined,” explained Milo Erwin, author of History of Williamson County, Illinois (1876). “The means by which the witch inflicted these diseases were one of the hidden mysteries which no one but the witch understood.”133 While the believer in witchcraft may not have been able to explain how the witch executed his or her powers, he or she understood what those powers were.

In fact, the written record offers a clear picture of what magical abilities witches allegedly possessed. This included the ability to shape-shift—to transform him or herself and others into a variety of animals—to steal milk and other goods, to spread disease and affliction to humans and livestock and to control others by making them dance, shake, hallucinate and vomit foreign objects. These specific powers distinguished witches from the witch masters and folk healers who also made their home on the Illinois prairie.

Witches were not born with the power to harm others. In order to become a witch, a person had to make a pact with the devil. The trade-off for eternal damnation in the afterlife was the power to transform into an animal, obtain material wealth and control and punish others through magical means. Several African Americans from Adams County, Illinois, explained to folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt, “The devil will give you power to do evil things, if you sell yourself to him…[and] you can talk to the devil face to face, if you sell yourself to him.” Some summoned the devil by binding two hatpins and cursing God.

Other methods of calling the devil were much more gruesome. One involved boiling a black cat and scattering its bones at a four-way intersection. Another variant of this theme combined animal sacrifice with cursing God. According to one African American informant,

If you want to be a evil fortune teller, take and kill a black cat and take the bones out of the top of the cat’s head and a teaspoonful of brains, and a bone out of the cat’s neck, a chicken wishbone; then go out to the four comers of the road on a very dark night, if it is raining that would make it still better, holding all these things in your left hand. Then turn your back first on the east, swearing, using the Lord’s name in vain; then turn your back on the north, swearing, using the Lord’s name in vain; then the west, and the south last. Then kneel down and pray, using the Lord’s name in vain again.134

In European American lore, becoming a witch involved writing one’s name in the devil’s book. According to Milo Erwin, witches received their power after writing their names in their own blood and giving it to the devil.135 Likewise, in Legends and Lore of Southern Illinois (1963), John W.

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