While the juridical persecution of witches in the Western world ended in the middle of the eighteenth century, ethnologists and historians have demonstrated that in some areas witchcraft narratives and beliefs persisted well into the twentieth and may continue even today (e.g., Favret-Saada, 1980; Davies, 2007). Barbara Rieti’s Making Witches contributes to this growing body of scholarship by presenting and contextualizing narratives about spells, counter-spells, and witches in Newfoundland. Drawing from historical and archival sources as well as fieldwork done in the 1980s and 1990s, Rieti draws a vivid portrait of how such legends functioned in the small-scale, face-to-face farming and fishing communities characteristic of the province.
Primarily settled by immigrants from England and Ireland, Newfoundland is heir to the British tradition of witchcraft beliefs. The province lacked large urban centers until the mid-twentieth century; the majority of the population lived in small communities that subsisted on fishing and farming. Life was difficult and precarious, interdependence was essential for survival, and the poorest community members were always vulnerable. Before the social reforms and welfare programs of the mid-twentieth century, these were almost always elderly women--widows or spinsters who depended upon the good graces of their neighbors for their very survival. It was also this population group that was most likely to be suspected of “wishing” or putting spells on those who refused them succor, in a clear instance of what Rieti correctly identifies as projection.
In the typical Newfoundland witchcraft narrative, an elderly woman asks a neighbor for some item. The neighbor politely refuses. The woman then says something like, “Never mind. Soon enough, you won’t have any to spare.” And sure enough, disaster strikes the grudging neighbor, who is then herself or himself in a position of want. These narratives are almost always told from the perspective of the recipient of the “wish” or curse, who interprets the reversal of fortune as a result of the actions--conscious or unconscious--of the witch.
Clearly, one result of this ideology was that it compelled people to be generous and offer aid to the poorest members of society. Newfoundland is in fact renowned for its extraordinary hospitality. Rieti moves beyond strictly functionalist approaches, however, demonstrating how these narratives also served to stigmatize social outsiders--for example, Mi’kmaq Indians, who, in typical fashion, were both marginalized and exoticized as having the capacity to do magical harm. These narratives of social exclusion were also applied to members of Newfoundland society whose behavior differed from the norm, thus reinforcing social standards. Women who practiced divination, vernacular magic, and healing on behalf of their neighbors were somewhat more vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. Some individuals suspected of casting spells, however, were otherwise well-respected and integrated into the social system. As historians have observed in the case of European witch trials, no one-size-fits-all pattern applies across the board to every case of witchcraft; each must be understood in context. It’s here that Rieti’s book makes an especially fine contribution, as all instances, even those drawn from student papers in folklore archives, are fleshed out with rich ethnographic details, allowing the reader to get a clear picture of how the system operated in the minds of Newfoundlanders. As the title suggests, witches are a social construction--a product of the interplay between social structure, economic conditions, neighborly relations, and individual personality, expressed through narrative.
The strength of this book is ethnographic rather than theoretical. Although the author uses a range of current analytic constructs to interpret her data and relates it to the general literature on witchcraft, her work echoes that of other scholars, rather than challenging it or providing new interpretive constructs. Because she works so closely with narrative, one wishes she had drawn more heavily from the rich theoretical literature on legend and belief--for example, Linda Dégh’s eponymous work (2001). Still, the book’s contributions are valuable even without reference to this literature.
Making Witches is beautifully written and accessible to a broad audience. This book will of course appeal to those interested in the regional culture of Newfoundland and the North Atlantic more broadly, and is particularly valuable to scholars of witchcraft. It is also of interest to narrative and belief scholars. It could easily be used in introductory folklore classes and those on the anthropology of religion, to illustrate how seemingly incomprehensible belief systems operate in contexts more ordinary and close to home.
Works Cited
Davies, Owen. 2007 (2003). Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History. London: Hambledon.
Dégh, Linda. 2001. Legend and Belief. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Favret-Saada, Jeanne. 1980. Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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[Review length: 762 words • Review posted on October 29, 2008]