Witchcraft

====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 />
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