About Witchcraft

From: RobMH@aol.com
Date: Fri 18 Nov 1994 - 11:31:13 EET



The most chilling witchcraft story I've ever read appears in Leslie Marmon Silko's book CEREMONY and in her collection of stories called STORYTELLER.  I'd love to type the whole story out and send it to folks, but that would be rude to Leslie's copyright. You can't go wrong reading Ceremony, particularly not folks who've enjoyed Hillerman and want a different slant into Native American life. Well, OK, maybe some people could go wrong reading Ceremony, but if you're reading the book and not enjoying it, look for the story about witchcraft. It takes up several pages in the book, I don't remember exactly where, and it's guaranteed to kick you in the teeth.  For that matter, if you manage to go ahead and tackle Silko's monstrously dark THE ALMANAC OF THE DEAD, you'll be able to compare that book to the witchcraft story and maybe get a hint of what, exactly, Silko's unconscious mind had attempted to accomplish. Hell, not to be too cryptic, the witchcraft story is an origin story, of sorts. Of Europeans. And Almanac of the Dead is a kind of spell, I think, a spell to get rid of Europeans. I always did think that we Europeans hit the new world like a plague of Broo, and this story by Silko seems webbed to accomplish something concrete by expressing that fact.
- --Rob Heinsoo


End of Glorantha Digest V1 #7


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