Whiteman Witches – Tru or Giaman?

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

by Anton Lutz

In our previously posted blog piece, Sorcery Tactics, we learned about the English word Sorcery. We saw how it was used to refer to people who are believed to learn to control and use some kind of power through their knowledge, words and actions. Even though this kind of belief has been common all over the world for thousands of years, we also looked at some of the ways that we can now use scientific knowledge to challenge these old stories that we told to our children. 

When journalists from the outside world come to PNG and try to write about the torture and murder, and they hear the words posin and sanguma, they often decide to translate these two words as Sorcery and Witchcraft. Is this accurate? This week, let us take a first look at the English words Witch and Witchcraft and a simple overview of witches in European history. 

Witches in history

When a whiteskin uses the word witchcraft, we should remember that there are two meanings. There is a historical meaning of that word as well as a second meaning that refers to witches in art and culture, movies and books. 

In European communities going back thousands of years, societies believed that witches lived among them. These ‘witches’ were often women, and lived on the borders of communities. They were often people who did not fit in, who did not participate in the normal activities of village or town life, or perhaps acted in what other members of the community considered to be rude or inappropriate ways, which gave people a shock. Some people think that witches were people who resisted male dominated society (patriarchy) and male dominated religion (Christianity), instead holding on to the teachings of their mothers and grandmothers. Many witches were healers and wise women. 

But European society was going through a huge amount of change from the time of Jesus through the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. There were many wars, invasions and great epidemics. Europe was also went through a mini ice-age, meaning that in some parts of Europe it was harder to grow enough food for oneself and one’s family. There was no healthcare and sometimes people and animals just died in the streets. Life was not easy. The church and the important people created an authoritarian society where people who were different were seen as dangerous enemies who should be forcefully removed. 

In those dark times, when things went wrong, the community would look often for someone to blame. Sometimes, people perceived as outsiders who were from different places or spoke other languages were sent away, persecuted or killed. And sometimes, people living on the margins – ugly, unpopular and unpowerful people – were likewise killed. 

The stories people told created an environment where people assumed they “knew” what a “witch” was. Just because their cousin told them a story. According to the stories, witches could turn themselves into black cats and sit on their broomsticks, which would then fly through the air. Witches supposedly wanted nothing more than to make yummy soup out of human hearts! 

You can see how these stories grew and grew, with no basis in fact. 

And then the church got involved in telling these stories. With no evidence, and only some beer to sustain them, two monks sat around and had the following conversation: 

Brother Applestein:   “I wish we could blame someone for all our problems! What about witches?”

Brother Biermug:       “I was thinking we should blame Satan, but I haven’t seen him around lately…”

Brother Applestein:   “Maybe we could blame witches AND Satan?”

Brother Biermug:     “Oh, that could work… maybe they know each other…”

The next day, the story started to spread around, just as if it had gone viral on Facebook and Twitter in modern times. All the Christians became convinced that witches worked for Satan and were out to hurt the church.

“And what do we do with witches?” 

“We burn them!”.

But was any of this actually true? Of course not. But everyone said they believed it anyway. Brothers Applestein and Biermug were pretty good storytellers, after all. The church-sponsored torture and murder went on and on, year after year.

Change happens

By the time the whiteskins stopped torturing and murdering the people they called witches, centuries had passed and hundreds of thousands of women and some men and children were dead. Science and new ideas about what kind of evidence was allowed in official witch trials had made a difference. But for all those thousands upon thousands of innocent people who had been brutally murdered, it was too late. 

From that point on, witchcraft was not a word that whiteskins feared anymore. Why is this? It’s because we realized their so-called magical powers are not real. No one actually thinks that some black cats are really witches who have temporarily turned themselves into cats. We finally understand that these were imaginary stories told to frighten the children, and to justify the removal of ugly, unpopular and uncooperative members of the community. 

In the whiteskins’ stories today, we can see the leftover pieces of these old fears and superstitions. In the stories of Snow White, or Cinderella, or Hansel and Gretel, we can see that there are “witch” characters, who are supposedly able to do various astonishing and impossible things. In the Harry Potter series, there are witches and sorcerers who use their power for good or evil. But these stories are all make-believe. Totally giaman. Stori nating. Camera tricks. 

When whiteskins sit back and think about the fact that our ancestors participated in the ignorant torture and murder of so many innocent people, we are shocked and ashamed. It was wrong. There was no reason at all to hurt them. They weren’t flying on broomsticks. They weren’t making deals with Satan. They weren’t eating human hearts. They were just human beings, struggling to live a good life on this planet, like all of us. And we killed them in horrible ways just for being different. 

We can learn from this sad part of history that the stories we tell our children really make a difference. If you lie to your children – through your words and actions – and tell them that violence against some women and weak people is good, they will believe you. 

So let us be very careful about our words. Don’t lie to your children. Don’t tell them that ‘even ol waitman gat sanguma!’ Giaman. The witches in Europe were not witches. They were normal, innocent humans, made in God’s image, just like you and me.