Six Women of Salem (15 page)

The question persists to this day—what
was
the matter with the girls? Were they faking the whole thing? Would they have dared to? Had they genuinely frightened themselves by forbidden fortune-telling, or was something else wrong, some physical ailment?

Over the centuries critics and commentators, discarding witchcraft as a cause, have proposed that the accusers’ so-called afflictions were the product of the Devil’s deceptions, of their own conscious lies, of a natural mediumship, of clinical hysteria, of influenza, of ergot poisoning. “Fraud and imposture,” wrote Thomas Hutchinson in 1750, a continuing view that in its more extreme form supposes a massive conspiracy.

The more popular explanations imagine a combination of lies and folk magic. In the nineteenth century Charles Upham described ­regular get-togethers of certain girls and young women to practice ­fortune-telling and other forbidden arts that Tituba taught them, as he assumed that, being a slave, she was likely to meddle in voodoo.
Nothing
in the contemporary record supports the idea that Tituba taught magic.

As Parris no doubt told his family and his flock, fortune-telling and other occult practices were an invitation to unauthorized spirits—­devils. Nevertheless, the folk culture that was brought to New England from Britain preserved a strong current of folk magic that sought to counteract other people’s evil magic, sought to deduce hidden information either by contacting angelic (or at least neutral) spirits or initiating some hazily understood natural process. Results, after all, appeared to show that
something
had happened. Although anyone might try to do this, the more proficient were called “cunning folk”—cunning men and cunning women. They knew something others did not.

In that winter of 1691
–
1692 some adults did attempt fortune-telling, and at least two unnamed girls tried to tell the future.

“I fear,” Reverend John Hale of Beverly later wrote, “some young persons, through a vain curiosity to know their future condition, have tampered with the Devil’s tools, so far that thereby one door was opened to Satan to play those pranks;
Anno
1692.

“One of the Afflicted persons,” he continued, “did try with an egg and a glas to find her future Husband’s Calling.” This was also called a Venus Glass, which is to say that she filled a clear beer glass with water and then dropped an egg white into it and watched the forms the thicker albumin made as it moved through the water until it suggested a shape that could be interpreted in relation to possible suitors. As a husband’s condition in the world determined a wife’s status, a girl might make out the hazy shape of someone she already hoped for or an object to serve as a clue: a fish for a fisherman or a sailing ship for a merchant. In this case “there came up a Coffin, that is, a specter in likeness of a Coffin. And she was afterward followed with diabolical molestations to her death; and so died a single person.” (She died before 1697, when Hale wrote his account.)

“Another I was called to pray with,” Hale continued, “being under sore fits and vexations of Satan,” turned out to have “tried the same charm: and after her confession of it and manifestation of repentance for it, and our prayers to God for her, she was speedily released from those bonds of Satan.”

In 1969 Chadwick Hansen suggested that the girl who saw the coffin and died young was Abigail Williams, and that the girl who confessed and recovered was Betty Parris. However, Mary Beth Norton pointed out in 2002 that girls older than nine-year-old Betty and eleven-year-old Abigail were more likely to have husbands on their minds, that Mary Warren or Susanna Sheldon were more likely candidates for the Venus Glass practice.

In Andover Goodwife Rebecca Johnson and her daughter, following a British tradition, turned a sieve to know if her absent brother-in-law was still alive. This involved two questioners suspending a sieve, its cylindrical wooden side made from thin, bent wood, with the bottom mesh woven of horse hair, between the blades of shears—blade and spring beaten from one strip of bent and sharpened metal—each person steadying the hoop with an index finger to the curve of the shear’s spring. They then asked the question and waited for the spirits—or their own muscle twinges—to twitch the arrangement. “By Saint Peter & Saint Paul,” Goody Johnson had recited, “if Haggat be dead Let this sieve turn round.” And the sieve turned—though Haggat was actually still alive.

Or a searcher might place a large house key inside the pages of a Bible, tie the now-bowed book closed, then spin it around while asking a question. They might also first insert thin slips of paper bearing a question or a biblical verse into the key’s hollow shaft. Thus, people sought information on lost loved ones, prospective husbands, strayed sweethearts, missing livestock as well as the identity of the thief who stole them.

Andover farmer and carpenter Samuel Wardwell told fortunes for his neighbors, revealing who would marry and who would die. It seemed a knack for him. “He was much adicted to that,” a neighbor would recall, “and mayd sport of it.” According to another neighbor, “said wardwall would look in their hand and then would Cast his Eyes down: upon the ground allways before he told Eny thing.”

“An ancient woman” confided to Reverend Hale that she had seen her future husband in a conjuror’s mirror back in England. Another parishioner, Dorcas Hoar, studied books of palmistry and physiognomy in order to see what the marks and forms of people’s palms and faces indicated. She also had the disconcerting habit of declaring that apparently healthy children would not live long—to the grief of the parents when the prediction
did
come true.

Roger Toothaker of Billerica and Salem seemed the most professional of the local cunning folk, offering his services as a folk healer who used traditional medicines as well as charms and claiming that he could also find out thieves and witches. He boasted that he and his daughter had even
killed
a witch by using a charm that deflected the magic back against the source. Clearly he considered himself on the side of good spirits, regardless of whatever doubts that others might harbor for his methods.

But any answer, the ministers would explain, if not self-delusion, was the work of evil spirits—devils. Good spirits—angels—were better employed about God’s business, and dead kin—ghosts—would have gone on to the next life in either Heaven or Hell. A wandering spirit was not to be trusted.

If the girls in the parsonage had been attempting magic, it was probably not a Venus Glass. They may have tried to find other information, but if they had not been involved with magic, then what did cause their odd actions and reactions that winter?

Might it have begun with a game of pretend that was later taken too seriously, either by the girls themselves or by adults who unexpectedly observed them?

The theory that it involved symptoms of ergot poisoning from tainted rye bread doesn’t work. No one else in the household had convulsions, and convulsions occur only in cases of vitamin A deficiency, which is unlikely, given the available diet. Otherwise the symptom is gangrene, and no one reported that known malady. Any physical cause seems suspect, otherwise the cases of “bewitched” behavior would have been more widespread throughout the population.

As Chadwick Hansen proposed, clinical hysteria, now known as conversion disorder, seems to fit the situation. Fear and the reactions to great fear can match cultural expectations of what the symptoms would be, and prolonged terror and hopelessness can lead to death. In lesser situations a terrified person breathes too shallowly and, lacking enough oxygen, can fall unconscious, hallucinate, or convulse. The afflicted did all these things. Even if some of them only half-believed their situation, the reactions could become a self-fulfilling prophesy and, thus, apparent proof of evil magic to onlookers.

The times were uncertain.
If
the girls in Parris’s household had been scrying the future on any matter, they would be anxious about ­Reverend Parris possibly catching them at it, for surely he would not approve, considering the method an enticement to devils. The girls
knew
that yet did it anyway (or someone did). That alone would frighten them not just for being caught but also, if he were right and now that they had done it, they may have roused spirits best left alone. It was like striking a hornets’ nest. They might fear the possible presence of baleful spirits
and
being caught and punished. In addition, they had other matters to worry them. At home in the parsonage the girls could have overheard enough of the parents’ discontent to be uneasy.

Reverend Parris had not been paid his salary for a year, except what portions his supporters gave him themselves. His supply of firewood dwindled dangerously low in the freezing weather while the committee in charge of payment—Francis Nurse was on that committee—refused to collect it, never mind distribute it. They even disputed the promised transfer of ownership of the parsonage that Parris thought had been settled. Did he own his own home? Would he receive enough earthly substance to support himself and his family? Did he have the moral support of his congregation or not?

Beyond the Village problems, the times were uncertain for all of Massachusetts and New England: no one knew what London might decide to do to their government or what murderous attacks France and their Indian allies might inflict.

News at the end of January that York, Maine, had been attacked and burned on January 25 did nothing to calm anyone. Salem heard that seventy to a hundred survivors were kidnapped and about fifty people were dead, including the minister—shot through the head as he mounted his horse in front of his own door, and his corpse was mutilated as the town burned. All of this provided the attackers, as Cotton Mather would put it, with a “Diabolical Satisfaction.”

____________________

As word of the York attack spreads through Salem Village, Ann Putnam’s maid Mercy Lewis is struck by the news even more directly than the rest of the household, for she had lived through just such a nightmare when she had been a young child, surviving when so many others had perished brutally. Ann hopes the girl is not frightening the children with the bloody details. Thomas looks grim, and Ann forbears asking him about his own past experiences fighting such savages. To the whole household the frontier war has become an intimate and imminent threat.

The peril is real enough to the Nurse household, yet their relief that Benjamin at least has been spared frontier militia duty tempers their anxiety. Francis and Rebecca need his help more and more, as does his wife and child. Rebecca can be grateful for that mercy.

In the Village parsonage Tituba overhears her owners’ worries. Reverend Parris sees the York attack as a scene straight from Hell, the violence not only leveling a whole settlement but also specifically targeting the minister, thus striking not only at the physical body of the community but also at its spiritual head. Tituba remembers the rumor from two winters before that the French would attack the English settlers but spare “the Negro and Indian servants”—the slaves. From what she and John have heard, however, nothing like that happened at York. They cannot expect a liberation from the Eastward—only more danger.

(
2
)

Having finished overseeing the children’s lessons, checking her embroidered marks identifying the freshly laundered linens against the household inventory to confirm none were missing, entering the latest rent receipts collected from her tenants, seeing that the kitchen servants have supper well in hand, and leaving milk from the bob-tailed cow cooling in the buttery, Mistress Mary English sits in her parlor and opens a book. The blue evening light in the diamond-paned windows contrasts with the coppery hearth fire and the clear flames of good beeswax candles.

No sooner does she settle to reading than the front door opens and her husband’s voice fills the entry as he calls for one of the men to pull off his snowy boots. He surges into the parlor and sits down triumphantly.

“I’ve done it!” he announces. “The selectmen took a vote favoring my building and furnishing a proper pew for us in the meeting house”—for himself and two other merchants, Mary knows, suitable for their status.

He tosses his periwig onto another chair for the servant to carry out with the boots. No more wandering drafts along the meeting house floor, much less wandering dogs. And so much for Boston’s insulting order that no French are to live on the coast. Obviously, Salem knows him better than that, knows
he
is not siding with the enemy. His native Jersey and its Protestant ways are at risk from Catholic King Louis as well. None of the other French in town are about to leave everything and depart either.

“That is a good turn of events,” Mary agrees. With all the latest troubles, the neighbors’ trust is a comfort—one less thing to worry about.

Elsewhere in Salem Goodwife Bridget Bishop stands by her fire to hook the iron lid off the Dutch oven and stir the stew within. Replacing the lid and the pan of coals on top, she looks sharply about the room for her granddaughter. Susanna is busy lining up little pieces of kindling and playing with them like dolls, well away from the cook-fire and the grease-filled Betty lamp that is casting a dim glow in the room. Bridget twitches the hem of her woolen petticoat away from the fire. Being woolen, it will smolder first, but there is no use risking flames and a burn.