Tuesday Twosome: Salem Style

Massachusetts, that is. When we visited this charming town, there was one must-see destination for me. The witch museum is really more of a multimedia dramatization of the critical events in Salem's witch trials using large-scale dioramas. Then, another guided section covers the overall global history of witchcraft. It's not a huge place and there aren't a lot of objects, per se, but it has two well-developed arms to its gift shop, the final pass-through of any properly-planned tourist operation.

I did enjoy the exhibits, but wanted to learn more about this interesting chapter in America's history. I say interesting, though it was of course rotten and unjust. The 19 condemned to hang and the 1 pressed to death were too many, and others died of causes related to the witch hunting mania. (Still, Europe executed thousands in the same period, so go us! Well, maybe not.)

A central figure in the tragedy was the Reverend Samuel Parris' servant Tituba, pronounced TICH-u-bah. She'd been brought from Barbados, but was almost certainly American Indian, probably of an Arawak-speaking tribe who migrated to South America in the wake of Spanish conquests, and that before being captured and sold as plantation slaves. Sheesh. It was Tituba who told the young girls who were first "possessed" folk tales of magic and curses. Adolescent hysteria (today directed safely, if expensively, toward Disney franchises like Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron) descended upon an extremely self-critical culture that didn't admit any innocent context for making up spooky stories. Note to self: don't try making it as a fiction writer in 17th century New England.

Some of the women later accused in Salem were older widows, living independently and controlling their own property, a status which seems to have aggrieved some of the neighboring goodwives, notably the busybody mother of one bewitched child who seems to have sweetened the girl's testimony. There was also covetousness at play in the accusations against local men and meddling by out-of-town grandstanders like the voluble Cotton Mather. Upright people and officials did make objection, but the tempest was born.

From the gift shop, I bought Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies by Elaine G. Breslaw, and this week I read-

Tituba the storyteller prolonged her life in 1692 through an imaginative ability to weave and embellish plausible tales...As she hesitantly capitalized on Puritan assumptions regarding Satanism, Tituba drew on the memories of her past life for the wondrous details of a story so frightening in its implications that she had to be kept alive as a witness.

The book my husband picked up was A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials by Frances Hill, which he's finished and said was excellent.

This week (and I'm cheating with 3 again) I wrote-

The main avenue through the cemetery’s grounds crested several little knells, each modeled with an elegant bench beneath an artfully spreading tree. Yellow and orange leaves dotted stones and neat greens, and nearby, rakes strummed in metallic chorus. Camouflaged against the walled perimeter stood a windowless, cinderblock shed.

Please comment with any two sentences you've read and/or written this week, or let us know where to link to your Tuesday Twosomes!