Burchard’s strigae , the Witches’ Sabbath, and Shamanistic Cannibalism in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

This article looks at folkloric beliefs about maleficent spirits and spirit-hordes as these affect the witchcraft literature in early modern Europe. The author proposes a possible model for viewing and understanding the cultural matrix that the witchcraft literature makes visible in anthropological treatments of shamanistic cannibalism. Isolating features of what she calls a “predatory cosmology” in these accounts, the author points out many parallels with the aspects of the stories retailed about vampiric strigae. She accentuates the point that beliefs do not exists in isolation: the supernatural is humanly mediated; it is always embedded in a matrix of praxis, and this matrix sometimes influences learned discourse as well.