Witchcraft

=== Americas ===

====North America====
{{main|Witchcraft in North America}}
The views of witchcraft in North America have evolved through an interlinking history of cultural beliefs and interactions. These forces contribute to complex and evolving views of witchcraft. Today, North America hosts a diverse array of beliefs about witchcraft.<ref name=Games>{{cite web | url=https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jar254 | doi=10.1093/jahist/jar254 | title=Witchcraft in Early North America | date=2011 | last1=Breslaw | first1=E. G. | journal=Journal of American History | volume=98 | issue=2 | page=504 }}</ref><ref name=BergerBook>Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America; Edited by HELEN A. BERGER; Copyright: 2005; Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press; https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fh7kf</ref>

[[Indigenous people of North America|Indigenous communities]] such as the [[Cherokee]],<ref name=Kilpatrick-Cherokee>{{Cite book |last=Kilpatrick |first=Alan |title=The Night Has a Naked Soul - Witchcraft and Sorcery Among the Western Cherokee |date=1998 |publisher=[[Syracuse University Press]]}}</ref> [[Hopi]],<ref name=GeertzHopi>{{cite journal |last1=Geertz |first1=Armin W. |title=Hopi Indian Witchcraft and Healing: On Good, Evil, and Gossip |journal=[[American Indian Quarterly]] |date= Summer 2011 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=372–393 |doi=10.1353/aiq.2011.a447052 |pmid=22069814 |issn=0095-182X|oclc=659388380|quote=To the Hopis, witches or evil-hearted persons deliberately try to destroy social harmony by sowing discontent, doubt, and criticism through evil gossip as well as by actively combating medicine men. ... Admitting [he practiced witchcraft] could cost him his life and occult power}}</ref> the [[Navajo]]<ref name="PerroneStockel1993">{{Cite book |last1=Perrone |first1=Bobette |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ApJayEh43ZcC&pg=PA189 |title=Medicine women, curanderas, and women doctors |last2=Stockel |first2=H. Henrietta |last3=Krueger |first3=Victoria |date=1993 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0806125121 |page=189 |access-date=8 October 2010 |archive-date=23 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170423165056/https://books.google.com/books?id=ApJayEh43ZcC&pg=PA189 |url-status=live }}</ref> among others,<ref name="Simmons-SW">{{cite book |last1=Simmons |first1=Marc |title=Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande |date=1980 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0803291164}}</ref> included in their folklore and beliefs which malevolent figures who could harm their communities, often resulting in severe punishments, including death.<ref name="Navajo Dictionary">Wall, Leon and William Morgan, ''Navajo-English Dictionary''. Hippocrene Books, New York City, 1998 {{ISBN|0781802474}}.</ref> These communities also recognized the role of [[medicine people]] as healers and protectors against these malevolent forces.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

The term witchcraft arrived with [[Europe]]an colonists, along with [[European witchcraft|European views on witchcraft]].<ref name=Games /> This term would be adopted by many Indigenous communities for those beliefs about harmful supernatural powers. In [[Witchcraft in colonial America|colonial America]] and the United States, views of witchcraft were further shaped by European colonists. The infamous [[Salem witch trials]] in Massachusetts, along with other [[witch hunts]] in places like Maryland and Pennsylvania, exemplified [[Europe|European]] and [[Christian]] fear and hysteria surrounding accusations of witchcraft. These trials led to the execution of numerous individuals accused of practicing witchcraft. Despite changes in laws and perspectives over time, accusations of witchcraft persisted into the 19th century in some regions, such as Tennessee, where prosecutions occurred as late as 1833. 

The influences on [[Witchcraft in Latin America]] impacted North American views both directly and indirectly, including the diaspora of [[Witchcraft in Africa|African witchcraft beliefs]] through the slave trade<ref name=Wallace>{{cite journal |first=Dale Lancaster |last=Wallace |title=Rethinking religion, magic and witchcraft in South Africa: From colonial coherence to postcolonial conundrum |date=January 2015 |journal=Journal for the Study of Religion |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=23–51 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317449743 |access-date=2023-09-15 |via=Acaemdia.edu}}</ref><ref name=Bachmann>{{cite journal | url=https://brill.com/view/journals/mtsr/33/3-4/article-p381_6.xml | doi=10.1163/15700682-12341522 | title=African Witchcraft and Religion among the Yoruba: Translation as Demarcation Practice within a Global Religious History | date=2021 | last1=Bachmann | first1=Judith | journal=Method & Theory in the Study of Religion | volume=33 | issue=3–4 | pages=381–409 | s2cid=240055921 }}</ref><ref name=BergerBook /> and suppressed Indigenous cultures adopting the term for their own cultural practices.<ref name=Silverblatt>{{cite journal | url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6362989/ | pmid=6362989 | date=1983 | last1=Silverblatt | first1=I. | title=The evolution of witchcraft and the meaning of healing in colonial Andean society | journal=Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry | volume=7 | issue=4 | pages=413–427 | doi=10.1007/BF00052240 | s2cid=23596915 }}</ref> [[Neopagan witchcraft]] practices such as [[Wicca]] then emerged in the mid-20th century.<ref name=Games /><ref name=BergerBook />

==== Latin America ====
{{main|Witchcraft in Latin America}}
When Franciscan friars from New Spain arrived in the Americas in 1524, they introduced Diabolism—belief in [[Devil in Christianity|the Christian Devil]]—to the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas]].<ref name="credoreference2005">{{Cite web |date=2005 |title=Diabolism in the New World |url=http://www.credoreference.com/entry/abcibamrle/diabolism_in_the_new_world |access-date=February 10, 2013 |publisher=ABCCLIO |archive-date=July 18, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718192639/https://search.credoreference.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Bartolomé de las Casas believed that human sacrifice was not diabolic, in fact far off from it, and was a natural result of religious expression.<ref name="credoreference2005" /> Mexican Indians gladly took in the belief of Diabolism and still managed to keep their belief in creator-destroyer deities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Young |first1=Eric Van |last2=Cervantes |first2=Fernando |last3=Mills |first3=Kenneth |date=November 1996 |title=The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. |journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=76 |issue=4 |page=789 |doi=10.2307/2517981 |jstor=2517981}}</ref>

Witchcraft was an important part of the social and cultural history of late-Colonial Mexico, during the [[Mexican Inquisition]]. Spanish Inquisitors viewed witchcraft as a problem that could be cured simply through confession. Yet, as anthropologist [[Ruth Behar]] writes, witchcraft, not only in Mexico but in Latin America in general, was a "conjecture of sexuality, witchcraft, and religion, in which Spanish, indigenous, and African cultures converged."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Behar |first=Ruth |date=1987 |title=Sex and Sin, Witchcraft and the Devil in Late-Colonial Mexico |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=34–54 |doi=10.1525/ae.1987.14.1.02a00030 |jstor=645632 |hdl-access=free |hdl=2027.42/136539}}</ref> Furthermore, witchcraft in Mexico generally required an interethnic and interclass network of witches.<ref>Lavrin, Asunción. ''Sexuality & Marriage in Colonial Latin America.'' Reprint ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992, p. 192.{{ISBN?}}</ref> Yet, according to anthropology professor Laura Lewis, witchcraft in colonial Mexico ultimately represented an "affirmation of hegemony" for women, Indians, and especially Indian women over their white male counterparts as a result of the [[casta]] system.<ref>Lewis, Laura A. ''Hall of mirrors: power, witchcraft, and caste in colonial Mexico.'' Durham, N.C.:Duke University Press, 2003, p. 13.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

The presence of the witch is a constant in the [[ethnographic]] [[history]] of [[colonial Brazil]], especially during the several denunciations and confessions given to the [[Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith]] of [[Bahia]] (1591–1593), [[Pernambuco]] and [[Paraíba]] (1593–1595).<ref>{{in lang|pt}} João Ribeiro Júnior, ''O Que é Magia'', pp. 48–49, Ed. Abril Cultural.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

''[[Brujería]]'', often called a Latin American form of witchcraft, is a [[syncretic]] Afro-Caribbean tradition that combines Indigenous religious and magical practices from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao in the Dutch Caribbean, Catholicism, and European witchcraft.<ref name="Herrera-Sobek">{{cite book|author=María Herrera-Sobek|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDIwZ8BieWcC&pg=PA174|title=Celebrating Latino Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Cultural Traditions|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2012|isbn=978-0313343391}}</ref>{{rp|174}} The tradition and terminology is considered to encompass both helpful and harmful practices.{{r|Herrera-Sobek|p=175}} A male practitioner is called a {{lang|es|brujo}}, a female practitioner, a {{lang|es|bruja}}.{{r|Herrera-Sobek|p=175}} Healers may be further distinguished by the terms {{lang|es|kurioso}} or {{lang|es|kuradó}}, a man or woman who performs {{lang|es|trabou chikí}} ("little works") and {{lang|es|trabou grandi}} ("large treatments") to promote or restore health, bring fortune or misfortune, deal with unrequited love, and more serious concerns. Sorcery usually involves reference to an entity referred to as the {{lang|es|almasola}} or {{lang|es|homber chiki}}.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Blom |first1=Jan Dirk |last2=Poulina |first2=Igmar T. |last3=van Gellecum |first3=Trevor L. |last4=Hoek |first4=Hans W. |date=December 2015 |title=Traditional healing practices originating in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: A review of the literature on psychiatry and Brua |journal=Transcultural Psychiatry |volume=52 |issue=6 |pages=840–860 |doi=10.1177/1363461515589709 |pmid=26062555 |s2cid=27804741|url=https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/f32d1bf6-8b1e-4b0b-ab2b-467700fe5ca6 }}</ref>