A search for people labeled witches, or for evidence of witchcraft, that identifies and singles out an individual, most often a woman, child or other marginalized person, as the cause of a community's misfortune through malevolent supernatural means, frequently escalating into persecution or violence.
Facts
Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountMost intensively documented in early modern Europe, roughly 1450 to 1750, an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 executions across the Protestant Reformation and Thirty Years' War era; persists today chiefly in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, monitored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as an ongoing human-rights concern. 1 Documented YearSourced to the subject's own account1450 marks the beginning of the most intensively documented historical wave, the early modern European witch trials (circa 1450-1750), not the origin of witchcraft belief or accusation generally, which is far older and not attested to a single year; the practice also continues today in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Belief in witchcraft functions as an explanatory framework societies use to account for misfortune; divinatory practice (identifying who is responsible) and witchcraft accusation are documented as working together in societies where both are live beliefs, most famously E.E. Evans-Pritchard's account of the Zande poison oracle, not yet a live entity on this atlas.
Studied By
His Azande fieldwork, published as Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937), is the foundational ethnographic study of witchcraft accusation as an internally coherent system of belief.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Witch-Hunt
WikipediaOpening definition, descriptionQuote, Opening definition, description
A witch-hunt or a witch purge is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft.
1. Wikipedia: Witch-Hunt
WikipediaHistorical scale section, typical regionQuote, Historical scale section, typical region
an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 executions across the continent during the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation and Thirty Years' War.
1. Wikipedia: Witch-Hunt
WikipediaHistorical scale section, documented yearQuote, Historical scale section, documented year
The most intensive period occurred in Early Modern Europe from approximately 1450 to 1750.
1. Wikipedia: Witch-Hunt
WikipediaAnthropological context section, divination linkQuote, Anthropological context section, divination link
Scholars recognize that belief in witchcraft provides frameworks for explaining misfortune, and economic pressures or social crises frequently trigger accusations and violence against suspected practitioners.
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