Talk:Witchcraft/Archive 11

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Hutton re Africa and Melanesia: "harm", "power"

Darker Dreams, three times now you have re-written the same sentence so that it no longer matches the source.

This was the original sentence: "some Indigenous peoples in Africa and Melanesia believe witches have a substance or an evil spirit in their bodies that drives them to do harm".

Here's what the source says, Hutton, The Witch, pp.19-20:

"Some peoples in Africa and Melanesia have regarded it as a consequence of a literal physical malady. The Hewa of the New Guinea highlands thought that witches had a being...living inside them which craved human flesh and drove them to kill to get it ... The Swazis considered it to be a virus...which drove sufferers to join a secret witch society dedicated to murder ... The Bamileke believed it to be an extra organ which produced a literal blood lust, satisfied by magical attacks ... [The Azande believed it] possessed them and needed to prey vampire-like on the life forces of non-witches ... [In Mysore] witches were likewise believed to be women afflicted with an evil spirit that drove them to do harm ... Among the Ga people of Southern Ghana, it was thought the spirits that possessed witches could torment or kill their human hosts unless they placated them by murdering others".

Darker Dreams changed that to "some Indigenous peoples in Africa and Melanesia believe witches have a substance or an evil spirit in their bodies that gives them power".

Can we all agree that this re-wording misrepresents the source? Pinging some editors who recently commented: Skyerise, Slatersteven, Alalch E., Chetsford. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 21:55, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'll take some time to review this change. On a first look, I'm leaning toward restoring the previous language as "power" seems like not a very powerful way to transmit the message of the source text. Okay, it's some kind of power. Harm-inducing, blood-lusting, murderous, power? —Alalch E. 22:08, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

If the Hutton source about substance isn't granting them power and just about causing them to do harm; that's just possession. Witchcraft is "the use of alleged supernatural powers of magic." Even under the "harm" definition it was still "is the alleged use of supernatural powers, usually to do harm or evil." Wanting to murder someone with a hatchet and eat them doesn't seem to fit either of those descriptions, even if it's caused by a thing crawling inside people and causing them to do so. There is some ambiguity in that undefined "it" at the start of the quote; but if "desire to harm" is the entirety of what Hutton's saying in that section the citation simply doesn't belong and should be removed as irrelevant to this topic.

By contrast, the citation after the "asleep or unaware" phrase that currently follows has this quote;

In Evans-Prichard's account, witchcraft (mangu) [...] travels by night, sometimes seen as a glowing ball amongst the leaves of the forest, moving between the sleeping and often unaware witch and the object of the witch's jealousy (1965a [19373]:33), causing illness, accident, and even death."

I've provided two further sources, with quotes, in Talk:Witchcraft_in_Africa#Possible references for non-malevolent witchcraft which provide examples of "substance produced" witchcraft. Strikingly, they all cover "grant power," while these others may or may not be malevolent. - Darker Dreams (talk) 23:01, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

The Hutton source is about that which it is talking about and only that. We can't interpret a source through the prism of the definition of the subject provided in the lead section of our article here. That runs against WP:NOR.—Alalch E. 23:08, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

The Hutton source is only about what it's talking about. Though, again, that dangling, undefined "it" in the first sentence removes clarity as to what is being defined/described.

Meanwhile, we do dermine appropriatness for inclusion in an article through the topic of the article. That's not OR. - Darker Dreams (talk) 23:16, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

You are interpolating our first sentence of the lead into the source as if Hutton was talking about "Witchcraft ... [as] the use of alleged supernatural powers of magic" as an exegetical prism that filters out his expressly denoted meanings of witchcraft as a medium of harm, only because this sentence that we've come up with does not explicitly denote those meanings (but it does not exclude them either). In doing so you are synthesizing our house definition and his text to produce something different from what he said. He said that witchraft, in the context that he is discussing it in, is something that is believed to produce harm, while you simply say "power". And yes, the ability to magically produce harm is also a type of power, but by eliminating the specific element of harm, you are taking a pretty sharp detour from the core message of the text. He is talking about witchcraft as a medium of harm in a certain cultural context. By filtering out the essence of what he is saying and coming up with some generality about witchraft being equated with power, you are no longer talking about what he is talking about. —Alalch E. 23:49, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Hutton is cited as "the most common usage of the word "witchcraft" means somebody who works destructive magic." Not destruction; destructive magic. I'm assuming nothing beyond that in his definition. I am presenting two options, either he's saying that these substances or entities are granting that power OR they're forcing those with the ability to use it in a specific way. The quote as presented is unclear. If it's saying these things give power, I'm not misusing the quote. If it's saying these things are forcing those with power to use it in a specific way it needs removed. I suppose there could be a rational that makes it relevant, but that would need significantly more clarification for to its relevance. Given that I've got several other sources saying that these things are giving magical power I was operating on the assumption Hutton said the same. - Darker Dreams (talk) 00:36, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I struck some text in an earlier reply where I wandered off-topic because I saw a shiny thing. - Darker Dreams (talk) 00:53, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I understand how there could seem to be a dilemma here regarding your point about possession. You are arguing that content that seems more like possession than witchcraft shouldn't be in this article and are receiving pushback. Elsewhere, Skyerise is arguing that religious practices later suppressed as "witchcraft" (usually by hostile Christians) should be in this article and is receiving pushback. I can see how it might seem like there is a shifting and arbitrary line of what is and isn't appropriate to include. However, the simple reality is that "witchcraft" is, among other things, an anthropological term describing a very broad range of supernatural, often harm-causing practices. If Hutton uses the term in this way to describe these cultural beliefs, I don't really think that we're in a position as Wikipedians to be arbiters of the bounds of the anthropological definition of witchcraft. Regarding your interpretation of the text, I really don't see it as being faithful to the original. Being infected by malevolent spirits may grant power to the infected, but the power is only manifested as part of a compulsion to engage in harmful behaviors. His main emphasis is on the harmful use of the power, not on the power by itself. I am also unconvinced by the argument that this doesn't qualify as witchcraft under Hutton's own definition. He is explicitly talking about it as "witchcraft" in his book on "The Witch". You can argue based on your own personal understanding of the term that it doesn't count, but I don't think you can faithfully argue that it goes against Hutton's definition. Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 04:30, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

@Pliny the Elderberry:If we were all the way to "possession without granting supernatural power is how Hutton is defining witchcraft in this section," I might concede the point. It'd be a really weird situation, but we'll get there. To get there, we have to skip the fact we're reading a passage with an undefined initial "it" and an indeterminate amount of elided material. The ask here is that we assume in this clearly incomplete quote Hutton entirely ignores one of the key characteristics he set himself as common to the forms of witchcraft he's discussing. I'm all for assuming good faith, but I also have to assume some coherence from singular sources written by professional academics. - Darker Dreams (talk) 05:50, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

The passage begins "Equally variable across the world are local answers provided to the question of whether witchcraft is voluntary or involuntary; and if it is involuntary, what implications this has for the treatment of the suspected witch. Some peoples in Africa and Melanesia..." So clearly he's talking about witchcraft.

Darker Dreams has also re-written at least two other sentences so that they no longer match the sources either:

• "A common belief in cultures worldwide is that witches tend to use something from their victim's body to work black magic against them" → "A common belief in cultures worldwide is that witches may use forms of sympathetic magic. They tend to use something from their target's body to work magic on them" — this has been changed to imply that it could mean something positive, but the source only talks about inflicting harm. There's no mention of "sympathetic magic" in the source either.
• "It is commonly believed that witches use objects, words and gestures to cause supernatural harm, or that they simply have an innate power to do so" → " It is commonly believed that witches use objects, words, and gestures to use their powers, or that they simply have an innate ability to do so." — this has also been changed to imply that it could mean something positive or neutral, but the source only talks about inflicting harm.

As Alalch and Pliny have noted, reinterpreting the sources ourselves goes against Wikipedia policies: WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH and WP:TSI.

– Asarlaí ^(talk) 08:22, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Your argument is that everything I'm doing is out of bounds because the words I'm using aren't exactly those Hutton used in the order Hutton used them. The problem is Wikipedia directs and requires that we put things in our own words. Doing otherwise results in copyright violations and articles that are just strings of quotes. Sometimes, that means recognizing descriptions of things and calling them or comparing them to that thing (ie. sympathetic magic). Sometimes, that means recognizing that an author has flatly stated they are focused on a subset of the topic; recognizing that we've cited that statement; and recognizing forwarding every adjective into wikivoice can slip more than slightly into POV. Especially when counterexamples and broader examples are available in other sources. If something grants the power to do harm, we can legitimately say it grants power. None of that is original research, synthesis, or violates the source's integrity. I'm not saying, for example, that there is no such thing as malevolent witchcraft - that would violate source integrity. Every time the article makes a case for "healing" or other non-malicious forms of witchcraft there's another source that explicitly says that - without synth. However, requiring every reference to witchcraft from Hutton to overtly specify malicious magic or malevolent power is also overstating what he says. I would be shocked if you could provide a quote from Hutton which says 'these forms of witchcraft never encompass positive aspects.' Especially, again, when Hutton has admitted this work has a particular focus deliberately ignoring whether or not other aspects exist and, again, counterexamples and broader examples are available in other sources.

Now, if the assumption that one works from is the defining feature of witchcraft is harm I can see how the changes I'm making would be a huge issue. It would go against the core feature of what the source is talking about. The problem is; that's not the defining feature of witchcraft broadly construed. Even Hutton's definition starts with magic. Hutton then makes the point that harm is not the only definition of witchcraft. We quote him verbatim making that point. The quote to do that comes from the book whose integrity you say you're trying to protect. - Darker Dreams (talk) 23:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

"If something grants the power to do harm, we can legitimately say it grants power." Yes, but that does not seem to be faithful to the source. We need to change the wording of things to respect copyright, but we shouldn't change the point or argument the source is making. If there are sources that say that there are people who have these cultural experiences but see them as a positive thing or use them in an empowering way, then you can incorporate and cite that. What we cannot do is say things that are technically true but practically misleading. To use an extreme example, if I was shot in the head people could legitimately say that I was granted a cranial lead supplement. That would be technically true, but that really isn't the point. And yes, as has been discussed countless times, Hutton recognizes other ways of understanding "witchcraft". That book, though, is about one particular type (in his estimation, the most widespread definition). I think it fully reasonable that in his book about a certain type of witchcraft he is talking about that certain type of witchcraft. If you want to talk about a different interpretation of witchcraft, it would be best to use sources that talk about it that way instead of reinterpreting sources that talk about it from a different lens. Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I absolutely agree we should be faithful to the source. Lets see... the section Asarlai quotes from starts, "Around the world, it has commonly been believed that witches gain their malignant powers through training or inheritance; but there has been no general solution to the question of how this is done." So we are talking about the sources of their power. I'm sorry; malignant power.

Let's see what else, one of those elipsis hides "The Tiv of Nigeria thought that witchcraft was a substance that grew on the hearts of certain people and gave them magical powers." Not stated to be malevolent, malignant, or harmful. I assume this time I am to presume that?

Then, on the next page, "Other societies regarded involuntary witchcraft as more of a spiritual than a physical affliction, though the boundaries between the two were hazy." Wait, that was a different thing that I got complaints about not being in Hutton. So I put a whole different source to it. But it's right here... a whole section on it.

Meanwhile, I'm reading things in here about cultures where I have cited positive images / attributes / powers of witchcraft, and to say those aspects are being ignored puts it mildly. - Darker Dreams (talk) 06:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Despite three editors opposing their changes because it goes against Wikipedia policies on WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH and WP:TSI, Darker Dreams has yet again reverted an attempt to correct it, branding the correction "POV pushing". Pliny the Elderberry, Alalch E., Skyerise, Netherzone, Slatersteven, Robert McClenon, Chetsford, how would you suggest we deal with this? – Asarlaí ^(talk) 08:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

User:Asarlaí - I have not been following this discussion since I failed the mediation because User:Darker Dreams requested arbitration. I would advise User:Darker Dreams that an editor who reports conduct allegations in an area should be very careful that their own conduct is proper. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Asarlaí and other pinged editors, it seems that the article being steamrolled again with OR, SYNTH and a personal interpretation of sources, and removal/replacement of sources that are aligned with a specific editor,'s POV . It also seems that WP:OWN and actions against consensus are occurring. Netherzone (talk) 20:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I do have to agree with Netherzone's assessment. This seems like edit-warring against consensus to me. I don't know what to do at this point so I would love it if we could get some authoritative outside guidance. Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 21:25, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have not been following what's occurring on this article beyond my intervention to close the RfC, so am not a good source to answer any further questions beyond that. Chetsford (talk) 04:24, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

North America Indigenous is now unsourced

I'm not sure when this happened given all the flurry of changes, but currently the subsection on North America which now only very briefly covers North American Indigenous peoples is unsourced. I know that a new page was created, but the content in this article should remain sourced. Could whoever may have removed the sourcing please replace the sources? Netherzone (talk) 17:23, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

@Darker Dreams, thanks for adding some sources to the "pruned" version of the North America Indigenous content. However I'm confused, as it seems that you added different sources than what were originally there. Why is that? Or am I mistaken about this? Also you have added a new source that is a bare URL.

It seems that you forgot to add back the Kilpatrick, Kluckhorn, Geertz, Mooney and Keen citations. Was there consensus for that? Also the sources that I had provided above re: Witchcraft in the Southwest were not restored (I've partially restored those).

Could you please point to the part of the discussion where consensus was achieved for the changes you made to this subsection? Netherzone (talk) 14:03, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

None of the content has been "pruned." As it says at the top of the section and you acknowledge, the main article is now at "the new page"; Witchcraft in North America, which has the full text that was previously in that section, including all sources. As is normal, the remaining text is a summary of that article. As the edit histories show, this was accomplished in this case by using the intro for the new article. As you note, through cooperative effort, relevant citations were put in place. If there are further issues with the citations, everyone is free to improve them. - Darker Dreams (talk) 19:40, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

You pruned out all the citations, which are a fundamentally essential part of content. After I left my note above you replaced two of them with your own choice of sources that were not in the original content. I had to then retrieve the original sources that were moved from this article and add them back. Netherzone (talk) 20:47, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Again, nothing was pruned; the existing text was moved and has not been substantially changed. And, again, through cooperative effort the relevant sources for summary text in this article were put in place. Can you more clearly explain what you feel the issue is? - Darker Dreams (talk) 22:45, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

It is very clear above, but I'll reiterate.

• Content was removed (pruned a.k.a. trimmed).
• All of the citations were removed (pruned).
• With all of the former citations removed the section was left entirely unsourced. Any editor, including you, could then come along and remove the section completely since it was left entirely without citations.
• Why were all the citations removed?
• After I called attention that the section had been stripped of sources, you then replaced the citations a but not with the original sources. You added new sources that backed up your POV, and left out the ones that did not.
• Why did you not include the former citations, but changed them?
• And one of the citations was not even properly formatted it was a bare url.

That procedure isn't a "cooperative effort", at least not the kind I'm used to having with fellow editors. IMHO, it is problematic. Does that clear things up for you? Netherzone (talk) 19:37, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Content was not removed. Content was not pruned. Citations were not removed. Citations were not pruned. All of it was moved, so asking why something that didn't happened did happen doesn't seem productive. You did call attention to it, but made no effort towards actually fixing it expecting it to be done. I'm not sure why you feel it important that even I could just remove the section. Is there something that makes you think that I would do that? I added back sources I was working with relevant to the things said. I'm absolutely baffled why the presence of new sources seems to be a point of contention for you. I do find it interesting that your statement is "the sources back up my POV." The sources aren't backing any sort of extraordinary claims. I did put in place citations that more directly addressed the some of the overlapping influences rather than some of the single topic subjects in the text that was moved. But I would think that's in line with objections the talk section above where you complain I'm too loose with what the sources say. As for the bare URL; I may get around to fixing it, you're welcome to do so, so are any number of other people or bots. Wikipedia is not broken because there's a bare URL in this article for a while.

I agree, this is not the kind of cooperative effort I'm accustomed to either. It's certainly not what I expected when I started working on this article. But, I also didn't expect the prevalent accusations and assumptions of me acting in bad faith. - Darker Dreams (talk) 02:22, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Sourced Material Not Covered

The current article does not cover material such as the decades of work for witches in Nigeria to gain religious recognition, the Milne Bay/Samarai witches, or other types of witches worldwide that do not fall within the "malevolent" or "Neopagan" categories. There are currently no other Wikipedia articles that cover this subject as a topic. Darker Dreams (talk) 03:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Witchcraft in Africa is, well, now there. I look forward to your improvements to the article. Skyerise (talk) 20:10, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

That gives somewhere to put information on the movement for recognition in Nigeria. It doesn't do anything for Milne Bay witches, nor the self-identified Brujas of indigenous Andean descent. Should each of these be covered in their regional articles? Probably. However, that presents this contextualized as "witches are evil... except in almost every contenent/region there is at least one counterexample where they're not just that." This article still serves mostly to present the malific view of witchcraft, the neopagan approach is covered in an independent article, reducing these to regional counterexamples seems... unbalanced. Darker Dreams (talk) 04:29, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, all that material should go into the correct articles. But it should also be proportionally included in the summaries of those regional articles, both in their lead sections and here. So while the bulk of the material goes in the regional articles, there should be a sentence or more, depending on its relative proportion in the regional article, included here. And of course as this material is included, the lead should also be updated to include some summary of these summaries. Skyerise (talk) 12:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Darker Dreams you recently added this to the lead:

"other indigenous groups view witchcraft in other ways, including as a method of preserving cultural knowledge.[1][2][3][4]"

As I explained when I reverted you: the claim doesn't seem to be supported by the sources, the references are just bare URLs, and it was put into the lead despite not being in the main body. That goes against three guidelines: WP:NOR, WP:BAREURL and WP:LEAD. Surely we're all aware of these?

I read through the sources and couldn't find anything supporting the claim that Indigenous non-European peoples see witchcraft as a way of preserving cultural knowledge. Could you give us some quotes that you think support that? – Asarlaí ^(talk) 11:08, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Darker Dreams, I think Asarlaí is asking for quotations from the sources. I thought there was a more specific template for that, but if you provide the quotations here, I can integrate them into the citations for you. Skyerise (talk) 13:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, all I'm asking for are quotes from the sources to back up the statement, and I'm only asking because I couldn't find any. So either I've missed something, or the sources are being misinterpreted and we'll need to re-word. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 13:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of the sourcing, new information not contained in the body of the article should not be added to the lead. The lead is meant to be a summary of the article. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 14:51, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

That's just as easily remedied by making the addition to the body rather than removing it from the lead. Skyerise (talk) 14:54, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Quotes still haven't been provided to support the statement, and the content still hasn't been added to the main body. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 12:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I have repeatedly told you that not only is the relevant text for those items available online at the links provided, the quotes have already been provided and remain available on this talk page. No one owes you more than that. The material will be added to the body when there is an appropriate method for it to be presented with due balance. Given that the article is currently written with thirty-four citations to a single book explicitly about malefic witchcraft; it's difficult to place material about traditional practices described as witchcraft in a way that doesn't effectively suppress it. Given that one of those thirty-four citations is the book acknowledging "at least four different forms [of witchcraft]," trying to constrain the coverage to malefic witchcraft in this article and neopagan witchcraft in another article is explicitly contradicted by sources. - Darker Dreams (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

"Anthropologists have noted from first-hand observation that when a witch-finding movement passed through a district, the people whom it convicted and forced to surrender their materials of witchcraft certainly produced objects in response. These were, however, of a kind also associated with positive magic, such as that intended for protection and healing." Hutton, the Witch pg 37. - Darker Dreams (talk) 09:56, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

"Some of the most convincing and disturbing evidence for the actual practice of magic with the intention of harming others comes from the recent escalation of fear of witchcraft in Africa. In Soweto in the 1990s, magical healers admitted that clients regularly asked them for spells with which to kill, and there seemed to be a black market in witchcraft equivalent to that in drugs in other parts of the world. ...

Among the Kamba of Kenya, magicians who normally market their powers for benevolent purposes are known often to sell the materials for curses, especially for the pursuit of neighbourhood feuds" Hutton, The Witch - Darker Dreams (talk) 09:59, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

"In the short term, a reputation for being a witch could enhance the status of a woman in Shona society, in which females were usually repressed." - Darker Dreams (talk) 10:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

"The great European parallel for Siberian shamanism [...] has been detected among the Sámi or Lapps [...] Sámi magicians were sometimes accused of witchcraft, and also caught up in the more general process of the enforced conversion of their people to Christianity." Hutton, the Witch p87-88 - Darker Dreams (talk) 10:01, 4 October 2023 (UTC)