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| Justice for thousands of women burned as witches |
Nearly 3,000 people were executed in
Scotland between 1563 and 1736 after wrongly being accused of witchcraft. But a
campaign to achieve pardons for them is gaining momentum – and making people
reassess what they consider a witch.
Margaret Atwood dedicated her epic ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to one.
Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman have portrayed them in Hollywood movies. And
Hermione Granger from Harry Potter is a hero to millions.
Witches have become a staple of modern
culture, but there’s a more sinister side to their history, which a pair of
campaigners are seeking to highlight.
Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi are
behind Witches
of Scotland (WoS), a group that is seeking pardons, apologies, and a
memorial for those accused and convicted under the country’s Witchcraft Act of
1563 to 1736. It’s not widely known, but Scotland executed five times more witches than anywhere else in
Europe.
According to WoS’ conservative estimates,
nearly 4,000 people were accused of witchcraft and more than 2,500 were convicted
and burned. By way of comparison, the renowned Salem witch trials in colonial
Massachusetts saw only 300 accused and 19 handed the death penalty.
Novelist Venditozzi explained, “It’s
not so much that Scotland was an epicenter for witchcraft – it’s more that it
was an epicenter for witchcraft accusations.”
Neither she nor Mitchell believes in the
occult.
“In the times of the witchcraft trials in
Scotland, people were Christians and they would have been horrified to be
described as witches,” she continued.
“There’s been a kind of historical
revisionism … saying that some of these women were herbalists, healers or
midwives and that they were witches, and the patriarchy stamped on them because
they were doing these special feminine arts. But that’s not really the
case.
They were Christians – they absolutely did
not view themselves as witches.”
One of the driving elements of the WoS
campaign is a desire to highlight how women have been marginalized over time.
Mitchell, a QC who specializes in miscarriages of justice, is based in
Edinburgh, and it was while walking her dog in the city’s Princes Street
Gardens that the idea was hatched.
She said, “You wouldn’t be able to
tell women existed – there’s a statue of a dog and a bear, but there
aren’t any statues of women. Not only is history not recording the
great things women do, but it is also not recording when terrible things
happen. I know as a lawyer and someone interested in history that
thousands of people were put to death as witches in Scotland, [and] none of
them was guilty of that offense.
“I thought it really sad that nowhere in Scotland do we have a national memorial to it. Nowhere do we have one central place where people can come and reflect upon the fact that thousands of people were put to death as witches?”
So many
were found guilty because they were tortured by sleep deprivation to force
confessions. What was deemed “witchcraft” was also wide-ranging then, due to
the superstitious culture. One woman, for example, was accused of turning
someone into an owl. Others were blamed for poor crop harvests or illnesses that
befell their neighbors.
Mitchell
said, “Then, as now, a confession is such a powerful statement against
your own self-interest. People can’t get their head around the idea that some
would confess things they didn’t do.”
Once a
confession was made and a conviction secured, the witch suffered a horrendous
fate, as Venditozzi explained. “They were strangled and their bodies
were then burnt, so there was no physical remainder left,” she said.
“That
meant they didn’t get a Christian burial, and these people really believed that
they needed to have that to join their families and loved ones in
heaven … to be on ‘the right side of God.’ It was a ruthless eternal punishment they suffered.”
Along with
a confession, further “proof” was secured in some cases from professional witch prickers. Venditozzi added, “They would jab them with needles and
they would bleed – and [then] they would go ‘you see, they are witches.’ It was
a complete setup. There must have been an absolute climate of terror across
Scotland that you could be accused.”
Another
piece of supposed “definitive” evidence was being labeled a “quarrelsome
dame.”
Venditozzi
said, “Straight away if you went, ‘No, I’m not a witch,’ they would go,
‘You see, you’re a quarrelsome dame.’ There is not a lot you can do
with that, as they didn’t necessarily have legal representation.
“There
were some cases where women were accused and could afford legal counsel and
were not convicted, as they had somebody powerful arguing for them. But the
vast majority of women didn’t have that.”
The
specific targeting of women was particularly apparent in Scotland. While only
16 percent of those executed there were men, in Europe that figure was higher,
at around 20 percent.
Moreover,
men tended to only be dragged into proceedings if they were related to a female
who was deemed a witch.
Mitchell
said, “The idea was women were intellectually and morally inferior, so
it would be easier for the devil to get them on his side – to break with their
Christianity and to renounce their baptism – than it would be for men, who were
more morally upright and more upstanding.”
The WoS
campaign, which was initially launched on International Women’s Day 2020,
appears to be succeeding; in March, a petition was submitted to the Scottish
government.
Now,
MSP Natalie Don is to bring a private members’ bill before
parliament, and if that is voted through, the legislative process can begin.
Mitchell said, “We’ve had a lot of cross-party support from a lot of
politicians behind the scenes, so we’re very, very hopeful that we can get that
pardon.”
The next
stage would then be to build an appropriate memorial, so none of those who lost
their lives are forgotten. But the campaign isn’t only about correcting past
issues.
Venditozzi
continued, “It is pertinent today as there has been an increase of
people being accused of being witches. Again, it’s the more vulnerable members
of some societies. There might not be access to [Covid] vaccines in some
communities, [so] people look for an explanation. Someone dies very quickly and
they say it must be witchcraft. There are still current cases of witchcraft
accusations and executions and banishments that happen in some countries.”
As an example, the United Nations recently highlighted the rise in witchcraft killings of people with albinism as a response to the pandemic, as some believe their body parts in a potion bring good luck. And in the eastern South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, murders of women accused of witchcraft have surged. According to reports, in September alone, eight women were burned to death or lynched, while five were taken away by so-called self-defense militias.
Another facet of the WoS campaign is a
desire to eradicate the use of the word as a slur applied to prominent women,
as has been seen in the past with former British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher and US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and more recently Scotland’s own First
Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Venditozzi said, “She [Sturgeon]
is constantly called a witch with people saying she should be burned at the
stake. It’s really easy in a fairly misogynistic society to say women are
witches and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. But my hope would be
that in time we would be a less misogynistic and less patriarchal society,
and we might think a little bit more about these easy slurs we have,
particularly against women.”
Venditozzi also feels strongly about the
depiction of witches in TV shows and movies.
Images of pointed hats, black cats, and
broomsticks have no relevance to the actual people convicted of being
witches.
She said, “When an article comes
out about our campaign, it’s almost always accompanied by a picture of a hot
witch or a crone. It is super irritating as they weren’t like that; they just
dressed like anybody, they were just ordinary folk.”
But attitudes change over time and the
pair are hopeful that their campaign can raise awareness and revise
perceptions, as has happened with ethnicity.
Said Venditozzi, “As a society, we
wouldn’t do the racist characters that we might have had [before] like in
the Black and White Minstrel Show or blacking up
– we’ve changed our attitudes with that.
“Claire and I both feel quite strongly
that this is a similar situation where people don’t really understand the
history and need to understand the history, so we can be a more evolved and
civilized society.”
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