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The Bible was the source of Puritan beliefs about sex. It gave them a long list of sexual activities to avoid, including self-pleasure, adultery, homosexuality, and fornication. The Puritans were not without compassion, though, and when offenses did occur, they often looked the other way. After all, men who came to America had often left their wives behind in England; but they hadn’t left their urges. Likewise indentured servants, who were frequently young men with no attachments. Women were also treated less severely, especially if they were widows or young servants with few prospects.

The Puritans fully embraced the passions of marital sex, though. The Bible says a couple owes it to one another, that they must cherish one another intimately, and solace each other with the ”signs and tokens of love and kindness” – which was often inferred to mean kissing. In fact, it’s been said that the Puritans were the founders of romance in marriage. In a time when marriage often began as a civic partnership, joyful sex helped couples bond together in an affectionate and loving relationship.

Why didn’t Puritans celebrate Easter? Did they celebrate other holidays?

The Puritans believed that the Church of England was too much like the Catholic Church. They wanted to purify the church (hence the name “Puritan”), and remove everything that even smelled of Catholicism, especially practices that didn’t come directly from the Bible. Therefore, since “Easter” isn’t mentioned in the Bible, they believed it was a Catholic invention, and therefore it was a sin to celebrate it. They also banned Christmas, and anyone who celebrated it paid a fine of five shillings.

So what holidays did the Puritans celebrate? Only four:

Election Day – When colonists elected their local leaders. Some people had to travel quite far, and might stay overnight. It was a festive day, and celebrations sometimes included rum, gingerbread, and fruitcake. The Puritan ministers didn’t entirely approve; in fact one prominent minister wrote that Election Day had become a time “to meet, to smoke, carouse and swagger and dishonor God with the greater bravery.”

Commencement Day – The day when ministerial students graduated from Harvard. It was a day of pride, and dinner, wine, and commencement cake were served. This holiday was typically celebrated in Cambridge by other ministers and notables.

Thanksgiving – As most Americans know, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in Plymouth by the Pilgrims. But it didn’t become an official U.S. holiday until Abraham Lincoln was president, 240 years later. Before that, Puritans could declare a Thanksgiving any time there was something to be thankful for. During the year of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, the governor declared a day of Thanksgiving in July for his own safe arrival from England.

Training Day – The militia’s public display of firing guns, shooting cannons, and other military exercises. Prayers were offered before and after, followed by a festive dinner.

Was there racism in Salem?

Yes. When the witchcraft hysteria began, the first enslaved people had been brought to the new world 170 years earlier. So racial division and slavery were already firmly in place in New England. But when the West Indian Tituba confessed to witchcraft, it electrified the racial questions around her and other enslaved people. They had dark skin. Many of them had foreign accents and frightening folklore. And now, it seemed, at least one of them was in league with the Devil.

In addition, the colonists were terrified of Native Americans, who also had dark skin and accents. Allied with the French, with both intent on destroying England’s presence, they’d declared two brutal wars. Many in Salem were refugees of those wars, sometimes watching family members and friends die in horrific ways. During the trials, when witnesses said they’d had visions or nightmares about black men, it was Native Americans they were referring to.

Why were there babies in jail?

History doesn’t tell us why Sarah Good had her baby with her. But we do know that her baby, 5 months old, was still nursing. Puritans were strict about mothers nursing their own babies rather than using a wet nurse; in fact, Cotton Mather, a prominent minister of the time, later wrote that women who refused to suckle their infants are “dead while they live.”

Still, wet nurses were used in Puritan society during the first few days of a child’s life, until the mother was no longer producing colostrum (which the Puritans believed was poisonous, or at least impure). A wet nurse would also be required in the case of maternal death, or other extreme circumstances. But prison probably wasn’t one of them, especially for a beggar.

Were the afflicted girls really having “fits,” or were they faking it?

Probably both, sometimes maliciously, but also because of stress, past trauma, fear, boredom, and perhaps mass hysteria.

Of the ten main accusers, at least two and probably more were traumatized refugees from the Indian Wars in Maine. These were teenage girls and young women who’d watched as their homes and towns were burned and their family members murdered brutally. The attacks were not small or isolated. In one campaign, 60 miles of Maine coastland were destroyed in five weeks, with not one English settlement left.

Today we would say these girls had PTSD. But the Puritan Church of the time believed that dreams and nightmares carried messages and prophesies. One can only imagine what kind of dreams or even hallucinations these girls were having, and what they were told they meant.

Consider, too, that at least four of the girls – some of them refugees – were orphans who’d lost their parents, and therefore their financial and emotional support, dowries, and social connections. Puritan culture required each person to be “attached” to a family unit. So the orphan was taken in, frequently by extended family, and treated as a servant. Overnight these girls had lost their prospects. They’d never be married, never have children, and never have status in the church. They would be servants forever. Some of these hopeless girls had nothing else to lose, and may have been vengeful or uncaring.

On a larger level, the entire community was suffering tremendous anxiety. They were at war with the Native Americans, believed that Satan was active and intent on destroying them, and had just endured a brutally cold winter. Even the youngest accuser, age 9, would have picked up on that level of turmoil.

Still, despite any compassionate context, it’s true that some fakery was at play, with staged injuries, dramatic acting, and obvious teamwork. One accuser eventually confessed that she’d lied, and two of them joked that they just wanted to have fun. It was complicated, but not, and leaves us with questions we’ll never be able to answer fully.

What were Puritan doctors like?

The Puritans believed that all things were from God: good things like bountiful crops and summer rain, and bad things like disease and affliction. When bad things happened, it wasn’t necessarily because the person was sick. It was because they’d sinned and God was displeased. It could be:

God was testing your faith.
You’d sinned and mad God angry.
If a lot of people were sick, God was wreaking revenge for the collective sins of the society.
Someone else was attacking you, often a “witch” in league with the Devil, or even Satan’s army of demons.

So, while a doctor tried to diagnose illness, he was also asked to find and explain the sin behind the affliction.

With that in mind, a doctor cared for the body so the minister could care for the soul. In fact, sometimes the doctors were the ministers. This could explain why doctors were so poorly trained in medical practices. There were no medical schools or programs in America. Instead, doctors practiced “feseke” (physick, or medicine) based on what they knew from British medicine, which was usually passed down through the decades and was sometimes obsolete.

What was the infant mortality rate in colonial New England? How did the Puritans think of it?

In healthy Puritan communities like Andover (right next to Salem), about 10% of children died before their fifth birthday. In less healthy communities, like Boston, up to 30% of children died before they were five. Those were just the averages. The prominent minister Cotton Mather, who played such an important role in the Salem Witchcraft Trials, lost 8 of his 15 children before they were two years old.

Puritan views on infant death were complicated. On one hand was the natural affection of a parent toward a child. Cotton Mather called his children “little birds” and gave each of them a pet name. On the other, because childhood death was so common, parents were taught to keep some distance from their children, to see them as “on loan” from God.

Regardless, the death of a child was always met with grief, in the family and in the community, and their loss was often seen as God’s punishment toward the family or community for somehow going astray.

LEARN MORE: What did the Puritans think about depression and mental health?

The Puritans believed that illness was brought on by sin. So if you or your family were sick or injured, it meant God was testing or punishing you.

Depression, though, wasn’t seen as an illness. Instead, depression (what the Puritans called distraction, melancholy, or being crazed in the head) was an opportunity to increase faith and trust in God. Specifically, God used depression to make a person less able to take care of themselves, or even to live, which forced them to humble themselves and ask God for help. One could even see depression as a gift, because it left a person with increased faith.

Today we know that depression is not an opportunity or gift by any stretch. It’s an illness, and although faith in a higher power might help, other things can, too. If you or someone you care about might be depressed, talk to a doctor or another medical care provider. If that’s too hard, you can call a mental health hotline at 1-800-662-4357. And if that’s too hard, you can text “MHA” to 741741. It really is possible to feel better.

Why was the Charter so important?

A “Charter” is a document that establishes a new colony, details how the government will be formed, and dictates what laws will be followed.

The story of the Charter and why it had such a huge effect on the Puritans can be divided into three stages: getting the first Charter, losing it through disobedience, and earning a new one. Here are the general highlights.

Stage 1: The King gives the Puritans a Charter

In 1629, eight years after the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower, a thriving trade in fish and fur had evolved. So the English formed a Company to manage it. The King gave them a Charter, with permission to move to New England and form their own government, as long as they followed English law.

Many of the Company’s stockholders were Puritans, who’d been wanting to form their own religious commonwealth. They knew an opportunity when they saw one. So they bought out their non-Puritan colleagues and moved to New England by themselves, taking the Charter with them. In the next decade, about 20,000 more Puritans followed.

Stage 2: The Puritans break the rules and the Charter is revoked

Now, far away from the eyes of the King (Charles I), the Puritans began to bend the rules, reinterpret, and even ignore parts of the Charter to suit their own interests. Among many things, they cut England out of lucrative trade deals; started minting their own money (melting down English currency to do it); and bypassed English laws, creating their own (especially against other religions).

This continued for more than 50 years, but England was too busy with other problems to notice: A civil war broke out, the King was beheaded, there was no monarchy at all for ten years, and the Great Plague had decimated London.

In 1684, King #2 (Charles II) punished the independently-minded Puritans and revoked the Charter. They could still live in New England, he said, but they could no longer build their own government. Instead, the King would appoint it, and enforce English law.

The ink was barely dry when the King died.

Enter King #3 (James II), who went much, much further. Without a Charter, Massachusetts didn’t legally exist as its own entity, so it had no government or laws of its own. Instead, the King appointed an extremely unpopular governor who combined many of the colonies into one mega-colony, forced the Puritans to open their churches to Anglicans (the very religion Puritans were rebeling against), seized land from individual landowners, and imposed new taxes, which the furious colonists refused to pay.

Meanwhile, back in England, the King was overthrown. When the people of Boston heard about it, they rioted until the unpopular royal governor was gone. Then they decided to go back to their old way of running things, as if they still had a Charter (which they didn’t).

Now, in 1688, the Puritans had been without a charter for four years, and were subject to their fourth King (and his Queen). To keep things steady, England let them have their old Governor, who’d been in office when the Puritans had a Charter. But he had no real authority to govern.

It was the perfect storm: No Charter, no government, no high courts – and then the Witchcraft Hysteria broke out in Salem. With nothing more than local officials and jails, all they could do was arrest people and wait.

Stage 3: The Puritans are given a more restrictive Charter

Finally, in late 1691, King William III and Queen Mary II gave the Puritans a new Charter that restored their government, but on royal terms. Massachusetts was no longer autonomous: It was a royal colony, and the King would appoint the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Judges. The Puritans were required to tolerate other Protestant denominations. And all male property owners could vote, not just church members.
Not everyone was happy. Many people insisted on getting the original Charter back. That wasn’t possible, though, so their representatives negotiated as well as they could for a second Charter.

Although Massachusetts had lost much of its self-government, at least it had one now. The business of legislating could resume, as could the Court system.

This is the Charter that the royally appointed Governor William Phips carried with him from the King and Queen.

What’s an “examination”? How did a person in Salem go from accusation to execution?

COMPLAINT – An afflicted person would formally accuse someone by making a “complaint” to a Magistrate. At that time in Salem, women weren’t allowed to file complaints. Usually the accusing girls’ fathers or kinsmen did it for them.
ARREST – The Magistrate issues an arrest warrant, and the sheriff or constable takes the accused person into custody.
EXAMINATION – Witnesses submit depositions, and the accused person is given a chance to explain themselves. The Magistrates examine the evidence, and if it seems the person might be guilty, they’re sent to jail to await trial.
GRAND JURY – The case is presented to the Grand Jury, and depositions are entered into evidence. If the Grand Jury believes that charges should be brought against the accused, then that person is sent to trial.
TRIAL – The accused person is tried in court, where a trial jury decides the defendant’s guilt. If the person is found guilty, then he or she proceeds to sentencing.
SENTENCING – The convicted defendant receives his or her sentence from the Court. In Salem, witchcraft was a capital crime. So each convicted defendant was automatically sentenced to be hanged.
EXECUTION – The Sheriff and his deputies hanged the convicted witches.

Why did prisoners have to pay for their time in jail?

Then as now, it was expensive to keep someone in jail. Taxes were used to keep the building in good repair and to support the jail keeper and his family (who usually lived upstairs). Prisoners had to buy everything else, though, including food, blankets, even their own shackles and chains. Wealthy prisoners could pay to stay in the jail keeper’s house, or go to church under guard.

Not much has changed. In fact, “pay-to-stay” is practiced in every state except Hawaii (as of Nov 2020). Depending on the state, prisoners pay for anything from toilet paper to food. In some prisons, inmates can pay for cells with bigger beds, private TVs, and sofas.

At the time of the trials, prisoners were held until their entire bill was paid. Today, prisoners are released and expected to pay their bills over time. If they default on the debt, the government may seize their savings, paychecks, inheritances, or other sources of income.

If a crime leads to the death penalty, you wouldn’t confess to it. You’d deny it. Why was this reversed in Salem?

At the time of the Trials, the Puritan ministers of New England were convinced that the Church had become complacent. They’d worried for weeks that God was about to punish them by allowing attacks from the Devil. Entire congregations had been fasting and praying about it, and the ministers were on high alert for any sign of evil.

When the news exploded that a group of girls could see the specters of witches, the source of the evil was revealed. But the girls weren’t the only ones who could see into the “Invisible World.” Witches could also see and identify each other to the authorities. The longer the confessed witches were alive, the more of their evil friends they could expose.

Tituba was the first of several accused “witches” to realize that she could save her life by confessing, then describing in great detail what – and who – she could see. Those who maintained their innocence either hadn’t figured it out or would rather die than tell a lie.

What was the jail in Salem like?

The Salem “Gaol” was only eight years old when the witchcraft trials began. The floor was dirt, and the windows had iron bars. But we don’t know much more about the building, except that it was described as “thirteen feet stud, and twenty feet square, accommodated with a yard.” It’s hard to translate that into today’s measurements. Was the facade of the building 20 square feet? Or did that refer to the length and width? Did it have two stories? What was the distance between studs? Was it built of stone or wood? We know it had a yard, but was it secured to the exterior of the building, or was it a central courtyard?

The most important thing we know is that the conditions were appalling. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and smelled of dung, vomit, dead vermin, and unwashed bodies year-round. It was miserably overcrowded, and prisoners were infested with fleas and lice thanks to vermin, which spread “jail fever” (typhus). An earlier prisoner said he was “almost poisoned with the stink of my own dung and the stink of the prison having never so much as a minute’s time to take the air since I came into this dolesome place.”

Notes:

“A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience”
Book by Emerson W. Baker

Salem Jail in 1692
https://salemwitchmuseum.com/locations/salem-jail-in-1692-site-of/

Procedures, Courts & Aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ma-salemcourt/2/

Architecture in Early America
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/topic_display.cfm?tcid=33

Is a magistrate the same thing as a judge?

In a way, yes, but a magistrate is lower level, a lay judge who deals with minor offenses. They may also hold preliminary hearings for more serious offenses that will later go to trial.

In Salem, the magistrates were local politicians and/or respected merchants. They usually dealt with minor charges like drunkenness. For the Salem Witchcraft Trials, they held examinations, or hearings, for people accused of witchcraft to decide whether a more former trial should take place. If the magistrate decided there was enough evidence to suggest guilt, the accused person would go to jail until a grand jury could convene for a trial.

Why were prisoners allowed to leave jail?

These days, a guilty sentence might include a number of years in prison, where being locked up is a punishment in itself. In colonial times, though, jail was not a punishment. It was a detention center, where prisoners waited for their actual punishment; for example, whipping, fines, or death.

If a prisoner could convince the authorities that detention wasn’t necessary, they could leave jail for a few hours, as long as they promised to return for the night. Occasionally they were released for days or even weeks. These prisoners were almost always rich or well-connected men who were seen as trustworthy.

Even with the privilege of leaving jail, actual escape was difficult. There were no getaway cars or flights to another country. Horses and hiding were the only options, both of which were easy for authorities to discover. Successful escapees usually depended on a chain of friends and family to hide them in several places as they traveled to other colonies. It required connections and money, which most prisoners didn’t have.

What were some of the things people did to identify a witch?

There were many ways to reveal a witch. In Salem, these were used the most frequently:

Moles, birthmarks, skin tags, scars, or any other mark or protrusion of flesh could be marks of the Devil. For additional proof, the examiner would nick the mark with a blade. If it didn’t bleed or hurt, it was the Devil’s mark. During the Salem Witchcraft Trials, some examiners used knives with retractable blades, so when they “punctured” the mark, nothing happened, proving the person was indeed in league with the Devil.
The inability to recite scripture correctly pointed to the Devil’s influence. In Salem, the judges most frequently used the Lord’s Prayer as the test. Not only was it Scripture, but any devout churchgoer should be able to recite it perfectly. The Devil, though, or anyone in league with him, would not be able to say it.
The touch test said that if a witch touched someone they were bewitching, the witch’s evil power would immediately transfer back to them, leaving the bewitched person “cured” (at least for the moment).

Why was long hair taboo?

Puritan women were required to grow their hair long, but not too long. In European folklore, extremely long, severely matted hair was called witches-locks, or elf-locks. It was firmly believed that mats like that could only be caused by evil forces tangling and twisting the hair at night. By day, the hair – impossible to comb – provided a convenient hiding place for a witch’s familiars and other small evil beings.

Because witches-locks were evil, it was supposedly impossible to cut them. So it became a test of innocence. If the hair could be cut, it was possible that the accused person was innocent. If not, she was guilty without question.

Why did Native Americans attack and destroy settlements in Maine?

22 years before the Salem witchcraft trials, English officials banned selling ammunition to Native Americans, hoping to quell rising tensions. Instead, they were inflamed. So when war broke out in southern Massachusetts, Commissioners were sent to northern Massachusetts – today’s Maine – to proactively enforce the ban on ammunition sales.

Letter about the Indian raid on Casco Bay — *A letter dated Sept. 13, 1676 and sent to John Leverett, Governor of Massachusetts, about an Indian raid on Casco Bay, Maine.*

The war spread to Maine, though, when the French (longtime foes of the English) gave ammunition to the Native Americans anyway, and British sailors killed a Native American baby. After five weeks of aggressive fighting on both sides, 60 miles of Maine coastland was wiped clean of English settlements. Native American villages were just as devastated. Families were forced to flee their homes and leave fields unharvested. With no access to fishing grounds or guns for hunting, many Native Americans starved.

A peace treaty was eventually negotiated, but the English settlers ignored it, flagrantly. Over the course of the next 20 years they intentionally blocked fishing streams, let their cattle destroy Native American crops, and inflicted other major abuses. (In one overture for “peace,” the English invited 400 Native Americans to attend a conference, and promptly captured and enslaved 200 of them.)

War broke out again, with the major event being the burning destruction of Falmouth (now Portland), Maine. Many of its traumatized residents – including at least one accuser and four who were in turn accused – fled to Salem, just two years before the witchcraft hysteria began.

Who were the Wabanaki Indians?

The Wabanaki, or “People of the Dawn,” are the first people of the area known today as Northeastern New England and Maritime Canada, and have lived there for more than 12,000 years.

During the time of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, Maine was sandwiched between New France (Canada) to the north, and British America to the south. By then, the native Wabanaki people had become more dependent on European guns and ammunition for hunting. When the English made it illegal to sell ammunition to the Wabanaki, and France stepped in to give it to them anyway, an alliance was born, most of it centered in Maine, with English settlers being the common enemy of both. The attacks were constant and merciless, with the Wabanaki people suffering as much as the English.

The Wabanaki people have continued to struggle in Maine. Until the 1950s, Wabanaki children were often taken away from their communities and sent to boarding schools, where they were forced to assimiliate into White American culture. Others were separated from their families through adoption, foster care, and placement in orphanages. In fact, in the mid-1970s, Maine had the second highest rate of Indian foster care placement among states. As late as the 1990s, Indian children in Maine were still being placed with and adopted by non-Native families without notification to the tribe, as required by the law.

Since then, Maine has established a commission — the first in the U.S. territory — that collaborates with tribal nations to focus on Indian child welfare. But, with only 8,000 tribal members alive today, it may be too little too late.

If people were so afraid of smallpox, why were they fighting about inoculation? Didn’t they want to be immune? What role did the media play?

A disease that’s highly contagious, with a 30% fatality rate, is terrifying in any context. Imagine: In a small family of only 3 people, it’s likely that one person will die. In the average Puritan family, two or three of the children would probably die (if not their parents). Across the community, they would lose up to a third of the ministers, the farmers, the midwives, adults in every occupation. Those who survived were almost always left with scarring, sometimes severe. Some became blind.

Wouldn’t people do anything they could to reach immunity? The answer: “Yes, but.”

In colonial days, there was no ”germ theory.“ People didn’t know exactly how smallpox spread, only that it did, sometimes through the air, and sometimes through things that had been touched by sick people. Aggressive quarantines weren’t always successful, since there was a lag between when a person was infected and when they showed symptoms. And there was no such thing as a vaccine.

There was, however, “inoculation,” where a small amount of pus or a scab from someone with smallpox would be rubbed into a small incision in a healthy person’s skin. That healthy person usually became ill with a much milder case, and then became immune. These days science tells us why that’s true, but at the time the belief was based on anecdote and experiences in other countries. And while some people fully believed in the practice, others thought it just spread smallpox even more.

Cotton Mather, one of the prominent ministers involved with the Salem Witchcraft Trials, is largely credited with introducing inoculation to the colonies, and vigorously campaigned for it during a 1721 smallpox epidemic. It engendered a fierce public debate; in fact, a small bomb was hurled through Mather’s window, with the message “Cotton Mather, you dog, dam you! I’ll inoculate you with this; with a pox to you.’’ The doctor who was administering inoculation received so many threats that he hid in his house for two weeks.

Emotions ran high on both sides of the debate, and was fueled by the media of the time. Newspaper and pamphlet articles from both sides condemned their opponents with name-calling, sarcasm, and verbal abuse. (One anti-inoculation newspaper was headed by its 16-year-old editor, Benjamin Franklin. His own son would die of smallpox 15 years later.) Both sides had merit, and both sides claimed support from God: In the short-term, inoculation did spread smallpox, since people who were inoculated came down with a mild-case of it. But in the long term it built immunity.

The proof was in the pudding, as they say. Once the outbreak was over, the death rate in the inoculated population was 2%, as compared to the 15% death rate of the non-inoculated. After that, the procedure was used for decades until the first vaccines became available.

The last major smallpox epidemic in the United States was in Boston between 1901-1903; the last outbreak was in 1949. In 1980, the World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated. No cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since.

Notes:

1721 Boston smallpox outbreak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1721_Boston_smallpox_outbreak

History of Smallpox
https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html

Making the right decision: Benjamin Franklin’s son dies of smallpox in 1736
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653186/

The Boston Smallpox Epidemic, 1721
http://www.researchhistory.org/2011/04/13/the-boston-smallpox-epidemic-1721/

To Inoculate or Not to Inoculate?: The Debate and the Smallpox Epidemic of Boston in 1721
https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=constructing

What was the difference between Salem Town and Salem Village?

Salem was divided into two distinct parts: Salem Town and Salem Village. Although they were part of the same entity, they were distinct in economy, social class, and values. The Village was inland, and most of its people were farmers. But the Town was a prosperous seaport, and most of its residents were merchants (many of them wealthy). But even though it was more prosperous, the Town still collected taxes from the Village, and depended on its farms for food.

As much tension as there was between Town and Village, there was also division within the Village itself. Those who lived near Ipswich Road, close to the Town, made more money as merchants and tavern keepers (like the Proctors). But those who lived farther away weren’t as prosperous, and believed the Town’s worldliness threatened their Puritan values.

In the early days of the witchcraft hysteria, most of the supposed witches and those who accused them lived on opposite sides of the Village, with the “witches” living closer to the Town.

Why did people believe that witches and their specters dressed alike? Why was that important?

When Tituba confessed, she described in detail the clothes worn by the specters she’d seen: a tall, white-haired man wearing black or woolen clothing, a woman wearing two silk hoods, and another woman wearing a wool coat with a white cap. That established fact #1: Specters actually wear clothes.

The day after Tituba’s confession, Elizabeth Hubbard saw the specter of the beggar Sarah Good. The specter was barelegged and barefoot, with her dress pulled down to reveal one breast. Later Elizabeth’s neighbors were shocked to find out that the real Sarah Good had been in exactly the same state of undress. This established fact #2: Specters were dressed like their “owners.”

In court, some testimonies mention what a specter was wearing or how their hair looked. It was considered proof that a particular person had a specter, and that it had been seen doing evil.

What is a poppet? Why was it so frightening?

A ”poppet” was a small doll that was meant to represent a specific person. In theory, anything that was done to the doll would also be done to the person. To inflict evil, pins were used to cast spells or inflict pain. To provide healing or joy, the poppet was stuffed or bound with medicinal herbs.

Voodoo dolls are one kind of poppet. Others kinds have been used in many other cultures and times.

The poppets in Bridget Bishop’s walls were the only ones known to be used during the time of the Salem witchcraft trials. But they’ve never been found. They were probably much like this one, which was found in a New England home of the same period and is on display today at the house belonging to one of the trial judges.

Why weren’t witch marks supposed to hurt?

It was common knowledge that the Devil placed marks on witches so their familiars could suckle. But those marks weren’t part of the witch’s body. They were foreign; attached to the skin, not growing out of it. Therefore, they wouldn’t hurt or bleed if they were pierced.

Piercing, known as “pricking,” was used throughout Europe and the colonies as one of several tests to identify a witch. There’s no record of deception in Salem, but not all examiners in Europe were honest. For example, some pricking tools had hollow wooden handles and retractable points. Push it “into” a person’s skin – even up to the hilt of the tool – and it would look like the suspected witch had been stabbed without bleeding or pain. Other tools included needles that were sharp on one end and dull on the other. A deceitful examiner could use the sharp end to cause pain and draw blood, or the dull end, to cause … nothing.

Today in Salem

Telling the story of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, one day at a time

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