Cursing
Cursing
Cursing
pointed “singing chiefs” for a traditional congress house sep- Howe’s “Village Political Organization among the San Blas
arate from the “administrative chiefs” who conduct secular Cuna” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1974).
affairs. It is possible that this development contains the seeds
ALEXANDER MOORE (1987)
of a Cuna church or ecclesiastical cult separate from the civil
government. Such a church could very well be the outcome
of continuing acculturation and urbanization.
CURSING, the antithesis of blessing, is a pan-global,
BIBLIOGRAPHY pan-historical phenomenon in which language, spoken or
The single most important source for Cuna mythology is Norman written and with or without special accompanying actions,
MacPherson Chapin’s Pab Igala: Historias de la tradición is directed at bringing down evil or misfortune upon an in-
Cuna (Panama City, 1970). This comprehensive set of texts tended object, person, or community. Although in colloquial
is arranged in a sequence that Chapin’s chiefly informants parlance cursing commonly refers to imprecations spoken as
agree is correct. The current edition is mimeographed, but spontaneous outbursts of rage or to cold-blooded private
a print edition is planned. There has been no such compila- wishes of malice, as well as to “profane” language generally,
tion of curing, puberty, or funerary texts. The text for child- this article emphasizes not only expressiveness but also the
birth appears in Nils M. Homer and S. Henry Wassen’s The presumed efficacy of such language. A curse can be consid-
Complete Mu-Igala in Picture Writing (Göteberg, 1953). This ered efficacious in a given cultural context either because of
is the subject of a celebrated essay by Claude Lévi-Strauss,
an explicit or implicit appeal to a deity or spiritual power to
“The Effectiveness of Symbols,” in Structural Anthropology
endorse and realize the curse or because the spoken or writ-
(New York, 1963). Chapin has corrected Lévi-Strauss’s eth-
nographic errors in “Muu Ikala: Cuna Birth Ceremony,” in ten word in and of itself is recognized as efficacious by the
Ritual and Symbol in Native Central America, edited by Phil- sender and the object of the curse and/or by the cultural
lip Young and James Howe (Eugene, Ore., 1976). This vol- community. In the latter case, the curse may be considered
ume also contains Howe’s cogent “Smoking Out the Spirits: operative upon being pronounced, and the object of the
A Cuna Exorcism,” pp. 69–76. The best study of curing is curse may henceforth consider him or herself, and be regard-
Chapin’s “Curing among the San Blas Cuna” (Ph.D. diss., ed by the community, as “accursed.”
University of Arizona, 1983).
A middle ground between cursing as spontaneous oral
Unfortunately, recent work has shown the texts of Erland Nor- outburst and culturally recognized or institutionalized ritual
denskiöld’s 1920s expedition to the Cuna to be garbled. His is the broad category of inscribed personal curses that serve
An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna Indians, exclusively private ends. Linguists and folklorists in many
written in collaboration with Ruben Pérez and edited by S.
cultural contexts have collected private and personal curses,
Henry Wassen (Göteberg, 1938), should be read only in
including modern Palestinian curses that follow biblical
connection with other works cited here.
curse formulas. For example, a da Dweh may call upon God
James Howe, Joel Sherzer, and Norman MacPherson Chapin have (or sometimes Satan) to bring down affliction on an enemy’s
published Cantos y oraciones del Congreso Cuna (Panama health, family, honor, or property: “may God make a disease,
City, 1979) in a beautiful edition that presents a number of whose cure nobody knows, befall you,” “may God destroy
texts and excellent sociolinguistic and ethnological analyses. your tent and your pasture. . . . may God deprive you of
Sherzer expounds the different styles used in reciting Cuna all that throws a shadow” (Canaan, 1935, pp. 247, 259).
sacred texts in “Namakke, sunmakke, kormakke: Three Types
of Cuna Speech Event,” in Explorations in the Ethnography Among the richest sources of such private curses are the
of Speaking, edited by Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer tabellae defixiones of the classical Greco-Roman world.
(New York, 1974). Thousands of such tiny lead tablets, etched with inscriptions
The female puberty ceremony is described, without symbolic anal- and sometimes diagrams and rolled and pierced by a nail,
ysis and without the major sacred texts, in Arnulfo Prestán have been discovered at the bottoms of wells or buried at sta-
Simón’s El uso de la chicha y la sociedad Kuna (Mexico City, dia, crossroads, marketplaces, and the thresholds of homes
1975). The continuing open-endedness or productivité of and shops. These tabellae use succinct and sometimes cryptic
Cuna sacred texts is explained in Dina Sherzer and Joel but often explicit subjunctive or optative language to call
Sherzer’s “Literature in San Blas: Discovering the Cuna down mishap, misfortune, financial disaster, sexual dysfunc-
Ikala,” Semiotica 6 (1972): 182–199. I have explicated the tion, bodily harm or death upon the object of the curse,
application of this mystical strategy to practical diplomacy in whether a despised neighbor, a rival shop-owner, a court-
“Lore and Life: Cuna Indian Pageants, Exorcism, and Diplo-
room adversary, a chariot-racing competitor (Gager items
macy in the Twentieth Century,” Ethnohistory 30 (1983):
93–106. My “Basilicas and King Posts: A Proxemic and
66, 45, and 6, respectively), or the object of frustrated sexual
Symbolic Event Analysis of Competing Public Architecture desire: “I bind you, Theodotis, daughter of Eus, by the tail
among the San Blas Cuna,” American Ethnologist 8 (1981): of the snake . . . and the penis of the god so that you may
259–277, explicates the peculiarly rectangular Cuna house never be able to sleep with any other man, nor be screwed,
construction both in mythological and symbolic terms. Fi- nor be taken anally, nor fellate, nor find pleasure with any
nally, the single best ethnographic study of the Cuna is James other man but me” (Gager item 54).
Sometimes the tablet includes a tiny lead doll, bound and ethical religious ideology assumed to be reflected in the
and pierced, and the written “binding” inscription implies Hebrew scriptures and the polytheistic, “idolatrous,” and al-
an accompanying manipulative action that makes this more legedly non-ethical religious ceremonialism of the neighbor-
like a spell or charm than a purely linguistic curse. The most ing cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Canaan (see, for ex-
thorough and inclusive of all these defixiones curses is a Latin ample, Pedersen, 1926/1964; Mowinckel, 1962; Hempel,
example c. 75–50 BCE against a woman in retribution for a 1961; Alt, 1934; and Blank, 1950–1951; cf. the criticism
curse she had put upon the scribe: it scrupulously enumerates and the review of scholarship in Keim, 1992, pp. 7–10; Ger-
her body parts, including “intestines, belly, navel, shoulder vitz, 1961, pp. 137–140; Brichto, 1963, chap. 7; and Craw-
blades, sides” and concludes, “Terribly destroy her, terribly ford, 1992, chap. 2). According to this traditional reading,
kill her, terribly ruin her” (Falco, 140–41). The roots of such cursing was a God-dependent supplication for the biblical
punitive counter-curse formulae can be traced to the much Hebrews, whereas it was a mechanical, magical contrivance
earlier, first-century Mesopotamian Maqlu tablets, which for the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures When a biblical
contain extensive counter-witchcraft directives and incanta- text described curses similar to those of neighbor cultures,
tions: “May their witchcraft, poisons, and charms that are the scholar might lament how “the common people of Israel
not good, but rather evil. / Turn upon them and attack their even in the more mature stages of their religious develop-
heads and their faces. . . . May they dissolve, melt, drip ment frequently relapsed into the gross practices of idolatry
ever away, / May their life force come to an end like water and witchcraft [including]. . . . practices closely akin to the
from a water skin” (Tablet AfO 18, 1957–1958, ll. 56–7, extant Greek and Roman tabellae defixionum, or curse tab-
76–7, in Abusch, 2002, pp. 73–74; cf. Cryer and Thomsen, lets” (Fox, 1914, pp. 111–112). Thus, Alt in his classic 1934
2001, p. 47). monograph on the origins of Israelite law, which influential
EARLY SCHOLARSHIP. In the matter of cultural interpreta- scholar William Foxwell Albright endorsed in his review in
tion, scholarship on cursing in the mid-twentieth century the Journal of Biblical Literature (1936, pp. 164–169), pro-
was heavily influenced by the turn-of-the-century research of motes the chauvinistic idea that “Hebrew apodictic law was
Sir James Frazer’s Golden Bough, A Study in Magic and Reli- original and unique in Israel,” whereas “less advanced” casu-
gion, 12 vols. (London, 1911–1915) and the Cambridge istic law was followed in Mesopotamian and Canaanite cul-
school of ethnography. Their work globalized cultural tures.
studies, but from a very hegemonic perspective. Thus, the The following comment by Westermarck is typical of
early classic studies of cursing by Edward Westermarck, Er- the cultural evolutionist viewpoint on the distinction be-
nest Crawley, and others often display cultural and ethnic tween mechanical and intentional curses: “It is not to be ex-
stereotyping that derives both from their theoretical perspec- pected, then, that distinctions of so subtle a nature should
tive of cultural evolution and from their uncritical use of be properly made by the uncultured mind. . . . But with
travel accounts, colonial memoirs, and ethnographies as the deepening of the religious sentiment this idea [of me-
sources of descriptive and anecdotal evidence. Canaan, for chanically effective curses] had to be given up. A righteous
example, in his article on Palestinian cursing quotes with ap- and mighty god cannot agree to be a mere tool in the hand
proval an earlier writer, Rihbany, who cautioned that in the of a wicked curser” (1908, vol. I, pp. 235, 564; but cf. This-
matter of extravagant verbal outbursts one must “keep in leton, 1974; Lauterbach, 1939; and Blank, 1950–1951,
mind the juvenile temperament of the Oriental” (Canaan, p. 78). But as Graf has demonstrated in a study of Greek
1935, p. 260). magical papyri, the Frazerian dichotomy is untenable (1991,
Early scholarship assumed a fundamental dichotomy p. 194). Contemporary scholarship tends to show, in fact,
between the mentalities of “primitive” cultures, which used that there is no definable, consistent contrast between the
magic, and the mentalities of “higher” civilizations, which curse-formulas and usages of ancient Israel and those of her
developed religion. Scholars believed that cultures begin in neighbors (see, for example, Gervitz, 1961 and 1962; Hillers,
magic and “progress” toward religion and that religion itself 1964 and 1984; Keim, 1992, chap. 1; Crawford, 1992,
naturally “progresses” from animism through polytheism to pp. 231–235; and Cryer and Thomsen, 2001, pp. 120–34,
monotheism (see, for example, Malinowski, 1948 and the 144–146).
critical responses to Malinowski reviewed by Tambiah, CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE. Current anthropological
1968; cf. Keim, 1992, chap. 1; Fox, 1914, p. 122; and Cryer and cultural studies and scholarship in comparative religion
and Thomsen, 2001, pp. 113–117). “Although the theoreti- are no longer tied to the Frazerian evolutionist paradigm or
cal basis of this interpretive model has been largely discred- unaware of its colonialist biases, as Mary Douglas shows in
ited and abandoned by anthropologists today,” as Keim con- Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution
cludes, “its legacy remains strong within the field of biblical and Taboo (London, 1966). Instead, Western scholarship has
studies. . . . [as] the idealistic framework remained intact, come to be as concerned with emic or indigenous self-
whereby the mythological and magical develops (in Israel) representation and self-understanding, as with etic analysis
toward the historical and ethical” (p. 9). and interpretation from the outside (see, for instance, the
Thus, until recently, biblical scholarship operated from theoretical introduction by Frank Salomon and Stuart
similar presumed contrasts between the “higher” theocratic Schwartz to the South America volume of the Cambridge His-
tory of the Native Peoples of the Americas, 1999). Anthropolo- Ongka’s Big Moka, which shows an oath-making ceremony
gists no longer confidently plot a diachronic cultural progres- intended to refute an accusation of death by sorcery in a vil-
sion from magic through religion to science (whose defining lage of Papua, New Guinea (dir. Charlie Nairn, Granada
differences no longer seem self-evident, in any case) but are Television International, 1974).
more inclined to see these as overlapping and synchronic
Comparable traditions have been widely reported for
mentalities, not only within cultures but within individual
other indigenous cultures of Native America, Africa, Oceania
psyches. Moreover, in his seminal monograph How to Do
and, especially, Aboriginal Australia. Death brought about
Things with Words, John Austin offered a significant philo-
by Aborigine “bone pointing” became a fixture of early eth-
sophical and linguistic contribution to the discussion of such
nographic reporting (Warner, 1941; Basedow, 1925) and of
speech acts as cursing and blessing, which seem to combine
popular culture as well, as in the Australian mystery novel
both utterance and performance. Although Austin’s taxono-
The Bone Is Pointed by Arthur Upfield (1947/1984). Similar-
my of “performative language” continues to be critiqued by ly, it is reported that among the Maoris, “the anathema of
philosophers of language (see, for example, Tambiah, 1968; a priest is regarded as a thunderbolt that an enemy cannot
Searle, 1965, 1975, and 1979), it has nonetheless proved escape” (Polack, 1840, I.248; cf. Crawley, 1934, pp. 11–19
useful to analyses of ritual language, as in recent studies of for other Maori citations). A healthy but inconclusive ongo-
West African ceremonialism (Finnegan, 1968; Ray, 1973– ing scholarly exchange on the subject of vodou death, with
1974). The concept of performative language offers at least an emphasis on Australian Aborigine culture, has appeared
the beginning of a more productive way to think and talk over the years in the pages of American Anthropologist (Can-
about cursing or blessing as understood within given cultural non, 1942; Lester, 1972; Lex, 1974; Eastwell, 1982; Reid &
contexts. Williams, 1984), often looking for empirical explanations of
One way to create order out of the welter of ethno- such reported deaths or, in the case of Reid and Williams,
graphic and literary sources on cursing is to survey the mate- charging that vodou death is a European/American construct
rial thematically, the approach taken in Falco’s dissertation and not an Aborigine reality.
on “The Malediction in Indo-European Tradition.” Draw- PERSONAL CURSES AND INSTITUTIONALLY SANCTIONED
ing upon Indic, Hittite, Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, Ger- CURSES. Nonetheless, belief in the power of the word itself,
manic, and Celtic literary sources, Falco offers examples of independent of any separate invocation of a deity, can be at-
curses that reference such universal themes as the body and tested in many cultural contexts, including the Indo-
its parts (particularly the eye), food and hunger, sex, child- European. In fact, it is particularly distinctive of the Sanskrit
lessness, homelessness, and pursuit and also more culturally tradition, in which numerous Vedic, Brahmanic, and
specific themes such as allusions to swine and the sea and Upanis: ads texts convey the idea that a primordial word, such
metaphors of atavistic dissolution into water, earth, and as Brahma itself, embodies the fundamental creative and sus-
ashes. Particularly elaborate is the so-called Hittite Soldiers taining power of the universe that can accomplish all things
Oath, actually more of a threat of sanction than an oath, (Zimmer, 1956, pp. 74–83; Westermarck, 1908, I.563;
which charges that any soldiers breaking the military code II.658, 716), and the idea of chanted mantra having all-
will be changed “into women, and may they dress them in pervasive efficacious power is common to Hindu, Buddhist
a womanly fashion . . . and let them place in their hands and Tantric traditions alike. Not surprisingly, therefore, effi-
a distaff and a spindle. . . . And let them be so cursed that cacious curses abound in Indic, Persian, and other Indo-
their land not bear fruit, that their wives not bear children European epic literature, as Falco demonstrates. A number
like unto their begetters, but monsters, that their cattle not of biblical passages imply an automatic potency to curses
increase according to nature, that they suffer defeat in battle (e.g., Num. 21–22), although this remains a subject of schol-
and in lawsuits and in marketplace, and that they perish ut- arly controversy (see Fox, 1914, p. 122; Hillers, 1984,
terly” (Falco, 1992, pp. 89, 121). p. 185; Lauterbach, 1939; Thiselton, 1974; and Blank,
1950–1951, pp. 78, 86).
In ethnographic study and popular culture, perhaps the
most familiar category of curses as speech acts that happen Similar beliefs in mechanically effective cursing speech
are the reported instances of “vodou death.” Haitian vodou, acts have been documented from numerous cultures
Brazilian Xango, and Cuban Santería derive from West Afri- throughout the world (see especially Grimm, 1883–1886/
can religious traditions syncretically combined with aspects 1966; Frazer, 1911–1915; Westermarck, 1908 and 1933,
of folk Catholicism, and all are popularly supposed to in- Crawley, 1934; Hobley, 1967; Skeat, 1965; Kluckhohn,
clude traditions of casting charms and spells, including fatal 1944/1967). The curse can be reified and treated as a baneful
curses that take effect instantaneously and across any distance substance, as in reports of Irish folk opinion “that a curse
(for Haitian vodou, see Metraux, 1959/1972; Rigaud, 1953/ once uttered must alight on something” (Crawley, 1934,
1985; Pluchon, 1987; Abrahams, 1983). Casting of powerful p. 368) or of old Teutonic images of curses alighting, set-
and deadly spells has been reported for Malaysia (Skeat, tling, and returning home to their sender like birds (Grimm,
1965, chap. VI) and for Melanesia (Codrington, 1891, 1883–1886/1966 III.1227) or in the somewhat more sym-
pp. 51, 147) and is illustrated in the documentary film bolic notions that Arabs considered curses so polluting and
contagious that they would lie flat on the ground so that a unless forgiven, is believed to be fatal (Westermarck,1908,
curse could fly over them, or that when forced to take an oath I.622). Examples from Cameroon are given in Ngankam
a Berber might undress entirely so that the oath could not Fogue, La malediction chez les Bamileke du Cameroun (Ba-
cling to the clothing (Westermarck, 1908, I.57–59). The roussam, 1985; p. 14). Oedipus in exile delivers a terrible pa-
idea that curses can be contagious is the basis for two of Fra- ternal curse against his disloyal sons (Sophocles, Oedipus at
zer’s most prominent themes in The Golden Bough, sympa- Colonnus 1299, 1434). In fact, the curses of parents were em-
thetic magic and the transference of evil. Actual personifica- bodied as avenging spirits, as the Erinyes among the Greeks
tion of curses is familiar from the Greek myth of the or as the divi parentum of the Romans (Iliad 9. 453–457;and
pursuing Erinyes, who may be born of the blood of a mur- 21.412 seq.). The final scene of the third act of Verdi’s Rigol-
dered man, as in Aeschylus’s Eumenides (cf. Choephori 283 leto contains a highly dramatic malediction pronounced by
seq.; Plato, Laws ix.866). a wronged father: Count Monterone curses his tormentor,
the jester Rigoletto, a curse fulfilled at last against both Rigo-
In contrast with private and personal cursing, culturally letto and the count’s own innocent daughter. By extension,
recognized and institutionally sanctioned cursing involves many cultures privilege the curses (and blessings) of the el-
speech acts that depend not only on the power of the words derly and especially the dying; Grimm reports that in old
or formulas themselves, or on the deity or spiritual power Teutonic ideology, the curse of a dying person was the
which may be invoked, but on the proper setting and cir- strongest of all curses (1883–1886/1966, IV.1690; cf. Wes-
cumstances and, above all, on the recognized empowerment termarck, 1908, II.637 for examples from Africa and classical
of the (special) person delivering or pronouncing the curse— Rome).
the “technician of the sacred.” Depending on the religio-
cultural context, such a person may be designated as priest, WOMEN AND CURSES. In cultures where women carry an
prophet, sage, shaman, wizard, or witch. aura of taboo or where witchcraft is widely credited, a
woman’s curse can be particularly feared. Alice Ahenakew
The “specialist” in cursing goes under many different tells the Cree story of “The Old Woman’s Curse,” about a
cultural designations, along a spectrum of degrees of per- mother who inflicts a terrible fate on the young man who
ceived positivity and negativity, ranging from the priest who robbed her of her daughter (Wolfart and Ahenakew, 2000,
heroically curses enemies on behalf of a community to the pp. 20–24 and chap. 11). Zahan emphasizes the role of
witch or sorcerer whose curses are wholly malicious. The women in nyctosophy among the Bambara of West Africa be-
major Mesopotamian text on witchcraft, Maqlû, consists of cause of “woman’s enigmatic and impenetrable charac-
rubrics and incantations of an asipu or exorcist directed at ter. . . . All the more amazing because of the psychological
subverting the negative powers of a kassaptu, a sorcerer or character of her soul” (1970/1979, pp. 94–5), without ac-
witch, one who performs destructive magic: “May the curse knowledging the gender bias inherent in such a comment.
of my mouth extinguish the curse of your mouth” (Abusch, Similarly, Westermarck reports that among the Berbers of
2002, p. 132). In his writing about West African culture, Morocco, “a person who takes refuge with a woman by
Dominque Zahan emphasizes the polarity between magi- touching her is safe from his pursuer,” explaining that the
cians who are healers and sorcerers, whom he labels nycto- “reason why women are regarded as able to offer an asylum
sophers, or practitioners of night-wisdom (1970/1979, chap. is obviously the belief in their magic power and the great effi-
7). Both have fearful power that mediates between the com- cacy of their curses” (1907, p. 367). There is a great deal of
munity and that which is wild or extraordinary, but among evidence of malevolent cursing in medieval and Early Mod-
such groups as the Azande or the Lugbara, the sorcerer repre- ern Europe (see Kittredge, 1929; Thomas, 1997; Douglas,
sents the inversion of the idealized human image (Ray, 1976, 1970), but scholars now discount the idea that there were
p. 151; Evans-Pritchard, 1936/1976). A similar fundamen- active covens of female witches who consciously preserved el-
tal distinction between healer and witch as spiritual ements of pre-Christian European religion (see the review of
“technicians” holds for the Navajo, but in addition Clyde critical literature on European witchcraft in Thomas, 1997,
Kluckhohn states that four distinct kinds of witchery are des- chap. 16, esp. pp. 514–515).
ignated by four distinct Navajo terms, with the sorcerer
(‘inzi’d) being the one to specialize in spells and curses SOCIAL JUSTICE AND CURSES. At the opposite pole from fig-
(1944/1967, pp. 31–33; cf. Simmons, 1974/1980, chap. 9). ures of authority and technicians of the sacred, is another
group believed to have a special power to curse: the stranger,
Alternatively, the person’s power to curse may derive in- the guest, the poor and the needy, and the victim of injustice.
stead from some more existential circumstance: from his or Thus in many parts of the world—and numerous examples
her role as parent, a superannuated person, a stricken or ranging from North Africa to the Tonga Islands and the Na-
dying person, or from the social role of stranger, guest, beg- tive American Southwest are presented in the surveys by
gar, or victim of injustice. The curse of a parent is particular- Westermarck and Crawley—strangers who step over the
ly dreaded in many cultures. According to a Moorish prov- threshold are not only welcomed, but given a position of
erb, “If the saints curse you the parents will cure you, but privilege at bed and board, at least for a limited period of
if the parents curse you the saints will not cure you,” and it time, lest any dissatisfaction from a guest bring harm to the
is reported that among the Nandi of Uganda a father’s curse, household. The Greeks believed that guests and suppliants
and beggars had their Erinyes, or avenging spirits, which per- er is violated, or an oath, treaty, or covenant is broken.
sonified the curses they cast upon any who despised them or Curses as protective threat-formulae are a familiar feature of
turned them away (Homer, Odyssey xvii.475; Aeschylus, Sup- ancient Egyptian inscriptions. Represented in Western pop-
pliants 349, 489). Ecclesiasticus warns, “Do not avert your ular culture as “the mummy’s curse,” the textual threat-
eye from the needy, and give no one reason to curse you, for formulae (involving a variety of Egyptian word roots, includ-
if in bitterness of soul some should curse you, their Creator ing and others) encompass a vast lexicon of stipulations and
will hear their prayer. . . . The prayer of the poor goes from injunctions and a vast array of threatened punishments for
their lips to the ears of God, and his judgment comes speedi- such criminal or sacrilegious acts as theft, defilement, efface-
ly” (Sir. 4:5–6; 21:5; cf. Prov. 28:27). A pair of Palestinian ments, and other violations of tombs, stelae and monuments
proverbs sums up the philosophy of social justice underlying (Morschauser, 1991; Nordh, 1996; Parrot, 1939). In the
this category of cursing: “Do not be an oppressor and you words of one Sixth Dynasty tomb inscription: “As for any
do not need fear curses,” and “There is no veil separating noble, any official, or any man who shall rip out any stone
heaven from the prayers and imprecations of the oppressed” or any brick from this tomb, I will be judged with him by
(Canaan, 1935, p. 263). the great God, I (will) seize his neck like a bird, and I will
cause all the living who are upon the earth to be
A special case of the conditional curse as an appeal for
afraid. . . .” (Pritchard 1969, p. 327c; for other examples,
social justice, protection, or sanctuary is the North African
see pp. 326–328). Similar protective curses are common in
Arab concept of l- Dâr, which signifies a compulsory relation-
Mesopotamian and Iron Age Syro-Palestinian Semitic in-
ship in which a claimant invokes support and protection at
scriptions (For Mesopotamian examples see Pomponio,
the implied risk of a curse in the event of being denied. As
1990; Grätz, 1998, chap. 2; and Speyer, 1969, pp.
Westermarck explains, the “constraining character of l- Dâr is
1170–1174. For Syro-Palestinian examples see Crawford,
due to the fact that it implies the transference of a condition-
1992, chaps. 4 and 5). An eighth-century Karatepe inscrip-
al curse,” mediated by what he calls “external conductors,”
tion carved in Phoenician upon a statue and pedestal of Baal,
such as sharing food, or grasping or touching a person, the
threatens any defacers of the name of King Azitiwada:
person’s child or horse, or grasping the person’s tent-pole
(1907, pp. 361–362). A similar claim and conditional curse Now if a king among kings, or a prince among princes,
can be represented by a heap of stones: or any man who is a man of renown, effaces the name
of Azitiwada from this gate and puts up his own name,
A common practice among scribes is to make a cursing or more than that, covets this city and pulls down this
cairn for a wealthy man whom they have in vain asked gate which Azitiwada made, and makes another gate for
for a present. They make a cairn either outside his house it and puts his own name on it, whether it is out of cov-
or in some open place, read over it some passages of the etousness or whether it is out of hatred and malice that
Koran, and, with the palms of their hands turned hew pulls down this gate—then let Baalshamem and
downwards, pronounce a curse upon the niggard. El-Creator-of-Earth and the eternal Sun and the whole
(p. 364) generation of the sons of the gods efface that kingdom
and that king. . . . (Crawford, 1992, p. 162; cf.
A coercive claim can be made upon a saint by building a p. 165, and Beyerlin, 1975, pp. 242–243; also see the
cairn or by tying a rag to a house or a tomb and declaring, inscriptions of Hadad and Nerab, in Crawford
“O saint, behold! I promised thee an offering and I will not pp. 200–207)
release [literally open] thee until thou attendest to my busi-
ness” (p. 369)—a threat/prayer analogous to that of Jacob A sixth-century tomb found in Sidon tries to warn off poten-
wrestling with the angel (Gen. 32.26). Another method tial tomb-robbers:
would be to sacrifice an animal at the threshold of the person I, Tabnit, priest of Astarte, king of the Sidonians, son
whose benefits are sought, for “of all conductors of curses of Eshmunazor, priest of Astarte, king of the Sidonians,
none is considered more efficient than blood” (p. 365). Wes- lie in this sarcophagus. Whoever you may be who
termarck reports that in the Great Atlas Mountains a Jew comes across this sarcophagus, do not open it and do
who settles in a Berber village “always places himself under not disturb me. For they have collected no silver for me,
the protection of some powerful man by putting ār upon nor have they collected any gold nor any other kind of
valuable. Only I am lying in this sarcophagus. You must
him.” Because a supplicant’s declaration that “I am in the ār
not open it and you must not disturb me, for that
of God and your ār,” implies a claim of sanctuary, Wester- would be taboo to Astarte. And if nevertheless you do
marck concludes that lār “is thus a great boon to weak and open it and do destroy me, may (you) not have any seed
helpless people, criminals, and strangers” (p. 366). among the living under the sun nor a resting place
among the spirits of the dead. (Beyerlin, 1975, p. 245)
Protective curses. On the other hand, the protective
conditional curse is at the heart of prohibitive inscriptions To maximize their efficaciousness, Egyptian curse-threats
and edicts of rulers and the elite, and of the traditions of often were directed against the violator’s own mortuary cult
oaths, treaties, and covenants in Egypt and the Ancient Near and ritual burial, his remembrance, his family, and his off-
East. In each case, the conditional curse invokes stated or spring: “As for anyone who shall violate my corpse in the Ne-
agreed sanctions in the event that a tomb or boundary mark- cropolis, or who shall damage my image in my chamber: he
shall be a hated one of Re. He shall not receive water or oint- (Mercer, 1912, p. 40 n.3; Crawley, 1934, p. 47; cf. Gen. 15
ment for an Osirian, nor shall he ever bequeath his goods to and the discussion in McCarthy, 1981, pp. 93–95). Crawley
his children” (Morschauser, 1991, pp. 117–129, 179). Some (1934, pp. 39–48) and Westermarck (1908, chap. 50) pres-
inscriptions known as the execration texts, imply that magi- ent within a Frazerian evolutionist model numerous exam-
cal actions accompanied the formulae (p. 142), and spells in ples of such oaths, and the related convention of trial by or-
medical papyri and curses in royal decrees are particularly deal, from worldwide cultural contexts.
prominent in the Rammesid period (Morschauser, 1991, KUDURRU AND COVENANTS. The oath/curse formula charac-
p. 182; cf. Nordh, 1996, p. 103). A stock image in late New terizes two important, distinct yet related genres of Ancient
Kingdom texts is the threat against a perpetrator, his wives, Near Eastern literature: kudurru, or boundary-stone inscrip-
or children of sexual violation by an ass or of their sexual vio- tions, and vassal-treaties, or covenants (for examples and
lation of each other: “He shall violate an ass, an ass shall vio- sources see Fensham, 1963; Grätz, 1998, chap. 2, esp.
late his wife, and his wife shall violate his children” (Mor- pp. 46–65; and Hillers, 1964, chap. 2). Scholars have dif-
schauser, 1991, pp. 198–200, 227–229). fered over the commonalities and differences among these
Harsh and even crude as such curses sound, both Mor- Ancient Near Eastern kudurru and treaty forms, but Dennis
schauser and Nordh emphasize the functionality of the McCarthy has demonstrated “the essential elements of the
Egyptian curse-formulae as supplements to and guarantors form: stipulations, the god lists or invocations, and the curse
of stipulations that, although having legal and moral stand- formulae which are invariably found in the treaties from
ing, were nevertheless unenforceable, as in the case of the Eannatum of Lagash to Ashurbanipal of Assyria” (McCarthy,
protection of the tombs, monuments, and inscriptions of the 1981, p. 122; cf. Fensham, 1962, p. 1–6; Hillers, 1964,
deceased. Nordh proposes further that curses were a way of chap. 1). McCarthy reviews and analyzes important exam-
propagating the orthodox ideology of living in accordance ples of Hittite, Assyrian, and Syrian treaty texts, including
with the all-embracing Egyptian cosmovision subsumed the seventh-century Assyrian treaty of Esarhaddon and the
under the name of Maat (Nordh, 1996, p. 104; cf. Mor- eighth-century Aramaic-Syrian treaties of Sefiré (McCarthy,
schauser, 1991, p. 266). As Keim insists, 1981, Part I; for original publication of texts see Wiseman,
1958; Dupont-Sommer, 1958, and Korosec, 1931; for trans-
One of the things that must be asserted at the outset, lations and bibliography see Pritchard, 1969, pp. 534–541,
and reasserted in the course of study, is that ancient 653–662). McCarthy’s comparative study shows that al-
Near Eastern maledictions are religious. . . . There though a verbal blessing and cursing formula typically con-
can be no question of such practices arising out of magi- cludes the Hittite texts (chap. 4), the Sefire treaties actually
cal practices and then developing into religious systems. incorporate the rubrics of acted out or performed curse-
If there was such a development, it was long before the actions (1981, chap. 5; cf. Hillers, 1964, pp. 21–24), and
dawn of history and is no longer recoverable. Every-
the Esarhaddan treaty includes an exceptionally long and
thing we actually know about maledictions in the an-
cient Near East attests to the deeply religious nature of graphic curse (a “baroque elaboration,” as McCarthy calls it
their forms and operations. (1992, p. 33) (p. 121), accompanied by demonstrative actions: “just as
male and female kids . . . are slit open and their entrails roll
Indeed, the most renowned legal inscription of the Ancient down over their feet, so may the entrails of your sons and
Near East, the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1675 BCE), concludes daughters roll down over your feet” (p. 117 and chap. 6).
with an extended curse invoking the gods Adad, Sin, Innana, “The reason for this emphasis on the curses,” McCarthy con-
and others to inflict terrible punishments on any who disre- cludes, “is evident enough. They sought to secure the obser-
gard, distort, or efface the king’s words (Pritchard, 1969, vance of the treaty by multiplying as it were the religious
pp. 178–180). In addition, Tzvi Abusch argues that the sanctions and by the use of rites which were thought infalli-
counter-witchcraft ritual, the Mesopotamian Maqlu, was bly to bring about the ruin of the transgressor” (p. 151).
based on the fundamental social contract embodied in an
oath, mamitu, whose violation by the witch brings down the The Ancient Near Eastern vassal-treaty and its atten-
punitive counter-curse (2002, pp. 236–245, 253; and see dant curse formulae provide an apt transition to analysis of
Mercer, 1912, pp. 26–28). the curse traditions of the Hebrew scriptures, specifically in
relation to the central biblical idea of covenant (see Hempel,
As many scholars have pointed out, any oath intrinsical- 1961; Alt, 1934; Fensham; Hillers; Keim, 1992; and McCar-
ly implies a conditional self-curse calling down on oneself a thy, 1981). The locus classicus is the blessing and cursing rit-
sanction or punishment in the event that the oath-taker ual at Shechem in Deuteronomy 27, and the expansion or
proves untrue to what has been sworn. Often the medium midrash on the blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 28, with
or vehicle of the oath embodies its assurance: the eye, the its overwhelming preponderance of curse sanctions threat-
heart, the right hand, one’s children, orone’s parents are put ened for disobedience to God’s law (Dt. 28:15–68; cf. the
at risk; or a weapon or a ritually slain animal are taken to rep- parallel text in Lev. 26; see Lewy, 1962; Buis, 1967; Hillers,
resent either the means or the consequences of a violated 1964 chap. 3; McCarthy, 1981, chap. 9 and sources). The
oath, as with the custom of the Nagas of Assam in which curses of Deuteronomy 28 are compulsively thorough, prom-
each party to an oath lays hand on a dog chopped in two ising every manner of illness, misfortune, destruction, aban-
donment, and disaster: “Cursed shall be the fruit of your in Numbers 22–24 in which Balak futilely urges Balaam to
womb, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle curse, rather than bless, Israel; Balak’s expectation is that
and the issue of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you such a curse (or blessing) would be automatically efficacious
come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out” (Dt. 27: upon pronouncement, whereas Balaam assumes that it
18–19). Although scholars continue to debate the origins of would be dependent upon God. Qbb as revile also occurs in
cultic proclamation of covenant law, the cultic character of Proverbs 11:26 and 24:24 as an unambiguous malediction
the Deuteronomic formulae is clear (see Alt, 1934; upon bad behavior, and also in the familiar passage in which
Mowinckel, 1962; Grätz, 1998, chap. 3; Schottroff, 1969, Job curses the night of his birth (3:8). In fact, the extended
esp. pp. 217–230; and the review of scholarship in McCar- passage of Job’s curse upon his birth (3:1–9) includes parallel
thy, 1981, pp. 197–199). But, it is reported, so dread were uses of three of the Hebrew words for curse: qbb, Earr, and
the Deuteronomic maledictions in medieval synagogues that qillel. As a noun qelala is used to signify either that which
there were difficulties in obtaining readers at the appointed is accursed or curse as the opposite of blessing (baraka—and
times; in one case, “on a Sabbath on which the ‘chapter of sometimes berek, bless, is used euphemistically to mean qillel,
maledictions’ was to be read, the Scroll of the Torah was curse, as in I Kings 21:13 and Job 1:5 and 9–11). As a verb
shamefully permitted to lie open for several hours, because qillel is generally used in the Old Testament in a rather de-
no member of the congregation was willing to come up to fuse and imprecise way to convey personal contempt, disre-
the pulpit” (Trachtenberg, 1970, p. 59, sources on p. 284, spect, or abuse directed at a variety of objects, including par-
notes on pp. 32–35). ents, kings, and, in Leviticus 24:10–16 and Exodus 22:27, the
Deity. In Genesis 8:21 God promises never again to qallel the
Other Old Testament texts that focus on the covenantal earth, which as Brichto argues (1963, pp. 119–120), means
relationship, notably the Sinai texts of Exodus and various abuse or treat injuriously, rather than curse (for full discus-
prophetic texts that espouse a covenant theology, have re- sion on this root see Brichto, 1963, chaps. 4 and 5).
course to the curse sanctions of the Near Eastern treaty
model: “If the prophets of all periods knew the terms of the Thus, the two primary terms for curse in the Old Testa-
covenant with Yahweh,” Hillers concludes, “they knew the ment remain Ealah and Earr. The Ealah term usually has the
curses associated with the covenant as well, for these, an es- force of conditionality and is associated with oaths and
sential part of the covenant between men . . . were also swearing, and it is deeply implicated in the curse-sanctions
commonly attached to the covenant with God” (1964, of treaties and covenant. As elsewhere in the Ancient Near
pp. 84–85). Hillers adduces numerous parallels between As- East the Ealah curse is associated with the protection of prop-
syrian and Aramaic treaty-curses and such biblical passages erty (Judg. 17:2; Lev. 5:1; Prov. 29:24), with juridical oaths
as Isaiah 34:11–17 and Jeremiah 13:26–27 and 50, which (I Kings 8:31) or trial by ordeal (Num. 5:21–28, where guilt
call down curses of flood and desolation, devouring animals, of adultery is tested by the curse of bitter waters), and with
broken weapons, incurable wounds, dry breasts, rape, and royal commands (1 Sam. 14:24, where Saul precipitously
harlotry (1964, chap. 4). Fensham had earlier concluded that puts a battlefield curse on anyone who eats before evening).
there “obviously exists a close connection between certain But the most important association of Ealah is as punishment
curses of the ancient Near East and various prophetic male- upon Israel for betrayal of the covenant (berith), as set forth
dictions,” focusing on examples of punitive maledictions in Deuteronomy and a number of prophetic texts (Deut.
from Amos 4 and Isaiah 13. “We have followed the line 29:20; Isa. 24:6; Jer. 23:10; Ezek. 16:59; Dan. 9:11; and see
through from kudurru-inscriptions to treaties and hence to Zechariah’s vision of the flying scroll of curses, Ezek. 5:1–4).
the Old Testament prophecies,” Fensham continues, al-
though the latter, he insists, substitute a moral/theological The Earr term, cognate to the Arabic lār discussed earli-
grounding for the “mechanical, magical execution of the er, forms the basic operative cursing rubric in the Old Testa-
treaty-curse” (1963, pp. 172–173). It is precisely this last ment in its qal passive participle: “cursed be. . . .” Its fearful
point, however, that more recent scholarship calls into ques- efficacy is associated with utterance by a figure of authority
tion. For example, Gervitz’s survey of West-Semitic com- (Num. 5:18–27); a professional curser (Gen. 27:29; Num.
memorative, funerary and votive inscriptional curses shows 24:7); a king (e.g., Jehu, who curses Jezebel in 2 Kings 9:34);
the contain the same mix of apodictic and casuistic forms as or the Deity, as in the paradigmatic curses in Genesis on the
do the Hebrew scriptures. serpent, the ground itself, and Cain (Gen. 3:14, 17; 4:11);
or the angel of the Lord who curses those who do not partici-
Study of the topic of cursing in Old Testament contexts pate in a holy war (Judg. 5:23). Such a curse has the force
is complicated by the fact that several quite distinct Hebrew of a spell, as in the Balak/Balaam sequence in Numbers 22–
words are commonly translated as curse into English (or as 23, and it is the basis of the catalog of curses associated with
malediction in French or Fluch in German.). The major He- violation of the covenant in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, dis-
brew terms are Ealah, Earr, qillel, and qbb (for major discus- cussed above. In one enigmatic passage God threatens to
sions see Brichto, 1963; Keim, 1992, pp. 15–20; Scharbert, curse Israel’s blessings (Mal. 2:2), in a passage that Gordon
1977; Gordon, 1997). The preponderance of occurrences of takes as a satire on the priestly blessing (1997, I.525). In
the verb qbb in the OT occurs in the Balak/Balaam episode other passages, a curse can be nullified by a blessing (Judg.
17:1–2), or it can be taken on by another person, as Rebekah One distinctive cursing form found in the Intertestamental
does to protect Jacob (Gen. 27:13). Other uses of Earr in- literature is the roll-call of woes: 2 Esdras contains woes
clude cursing the day one was born (Jer. 20:14–15; Job against Assyria (2:8); the Sibylline Oracles call down woes
3:1–9), or, as a noun, it is used to signify that which is cursed upon Babylon, Ethiopia, Libya (3:295–334), Phoenicia,
(Gen. 4:12 and 9:25; Josh. 9:23) or banned (Jer. 17:5). Com- Crete, Thrace (3:492–511), Lycia (5:1–26), and Greece
pare it with the related term herem “identical with the curse (11:183–185). The Apocalypse of Baruch declares that in the
in its most potent form” (Pedersen, 1926/1964, vol. 2, last days the dead will be blessed (10:6, 11:7) and the living
p. 272), meaning that which is placed under a ban, even to will be cursed (10:7, 14:14). Most impressively, the final
threat of extinction (Exod. 22:19; Deut. 7:6 and 13:13; Judg. judgment section of 1 Enoch (94–105) contains a rolling de-
5:23 and 21:11). nunciation of the foolish and the unrighteous, especially of
the wealthy who oppress the poor, for they will be given over
CURSING IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. A special
“to a great curse” (94:6–8; 97:8–10).
case of the use of cursing in the Old Testament, one that has
been particularly problematical for pastoral theology, is the These Intertestamental apocalyptic themes and the rhet-
“cursing psalms,” which Brueggemann has subsumed under oric of the woes offer a direct connection to some of the most
the more general heading of “Psalms of Disorienta- distinctive curse motifs in the New Testament. (Note that
tion” (1984, chap. 3; cf. Pedersen, 1926/1964, vol. 1, the NT, like the Septuagint (LXX), adopts the Greek words
pp. 446–452; Mowinckel, 1962, pp. 48–52). Here cursing anathematizo and kataraomoi as equivalents to the various
is turned into a weapon against personal enemies (Ps. 35) or, Hebrew words for cursing.) The apocalyptic woes spread
more characteristically, into a weapon of Israel against its na- over the earth in Revelations 9–12 directly carry over from
tional enemies (Pss. 79, 109 and 137). Thus, the familiar the Intertestamental woes, as does Jesus’ pronouncement of
Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon. . . .” concludes with woes upon the towns of Galilee (Matt. 11:21–23; Luke 10:
the violent wishful prayer that the hated Edomites be 13–15). On the other hand, Jesus’ reiterated “Woe unto’s”
crushed for “what you have done to us!/Happy shall they be reflect a more intense focus on personal authenticity and
who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” spirituality, as when Luke parallels the beatitudes with woes
(8–9). Most extravagant of all is Psalm 109, an uninhibited unto the opposite behaviors (6:20–26). Jesus pronounces
prayer for Yahweh to visit every manner of cruel revenge woes unto the betrayer of the Son of Man (Mark 14:21; Luke
upon the unnamed evildoers. 22:22). But the major instance occurs when Jesus pro-
nounces woes against the scribes and Pharisees as blind fools,
“Curses of the covenant” delivered by priests and Levites hypocrites, and vipers (Matt. 23:13–36; Luke 11:42–52), a
appear in the initiation ceremony of the Qumran communi- rolling denunciation that is the New Testament equivalent
ty (1QS 2:16 and 5:12; and CD 1:17; 15:2–3), and whoever of the Deuteronomic curses in the Old Testament. Apart
attacks the covenantal relationship is accursed (11QTemple from these texts, the only direct curses Jesus utters are the
64:9–12). The Talmud permits cursing the wicked (Men. apocalyptic words of judgment, “Depart from me” (Matt.
64b), and acknowledges the efficacy of curses (Ber. 7a; Meg. 25:41), and the enigmatic cursing of the fig tree (Mark
15a; Sanh. 105b), especially when uttered by a sage, and even 11:12–22; Matt. 21:18–20), usually taken as an “acted out”
if undeserved (Ber. 56a; Mak. 11a). Hence, there also are parable denouncing the barrenness of Israel (see Van Den
prohibitions against cursing, for example, by a wife (Ket. Doel, 1968, pp. 247–251; Hatch, 1923; Robin, 1962).
72a), and against self-cursing (Shebu. 35a). A Jewish curse Other than this, Jesus’ main teaching on the matter of curses
adapted from Psalm 109 that has retained currency is Yim- is to refrain from all oaths (Matt. 23:16–22; cf. James 3:9),
mah shemo (vezikhro): “May his name (and memory) be blot- and the Book of Revelation declares that in the Heavenly Jeru-
ted out!,” but the general rabbinic provision was to “Let salem “Nothing accursed will be found there any more”
yourself be cursed, rather than curse someone else” (Sanh. (22:3). Paul, nevertheless, concludes his First Epistle to the
49a). One well-known perpetuation of synagogue exclusion Corinthians with the words, “Let anyone be accursed who
was the excommunication of Spinoza from the Portuguese has no love for the Lord” (1 Cor. 22; a similar Islamic execra-
synagogue of Amsterdam in 1656 (Little, 1993, pp. tion is found in QurDān 2:161).
277–278).
The New Testament does present a number of instances
There is some continuity but not as much emphasis on of individuals pronouncing oaths and curses, especially in the
cursing in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Intertestamen- Acts of the Apostles. Examples include the oath of conspirators
tal literature (see Van Den Doel, 1968, chap. 2). In the wis- against Paul (Acts 23:12), Peter’s implicit curses against Ana-
dom tradition, a well-known passage in Sirach parallels a nias and Simon Magus (Acts 5:1–11, 8:9–24), and similar
mother’s curse and God’s curse (3:9, 16) and another warns punitive curses of a folkloric character that occur in a num-
against the curse of the neglected poor (4:5–6). The Wisdom ber of the New Testament Apocrypha (see Van Den Doel,
of Solomon reiterates the Genesis curse on the Canaanites 1968, p. 247). In 2 Peter 2:14 the apostle denounces false
(12:11) and promises that the ungodly and idolatrous will teachers as “accursed children,” and earlier Peter had sworn
be accursed (Genesis 3:12; 14:8), and Tobit 13:12 calls ac- an oath against himself upon denying Christ (Mark 14:71;
cursed all those who would dominate or harm Jerusalem. Matt. 26:74).
But the curse of greatest theological richness occurs in far less ecclesiastical sanction (Geary, 1983), when the chief
Galatians 3:10–14, in the teaching that “all who rely on the relics held by a monastic church were taken from their usual
works of the law are under a curse” because justification is places of veneration and placed on the floor of the chancel
only by faith, but that “Christ redeemed us from the curse and covered with thorns. This ritual, combined with the ces-
of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, sation of virtually all work and ritual at the monastery, appar-
‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’” (citing Deut. ently created enough distress on the part of the local commu-
21:23). This radical doctrine of substitution (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21) nity and the offending baron that a settlement of the relevant
may have led certain Gnostics to honor only a spiritual issue could be negotiated. The religious phenomenology of
Christ and to repudiate the earthly Jesus, leading to Paul’s the ritual is complex and conflicted: although the prayers are
otherwise enigmatic admonition, “Therefore I want you to directed to God, the successful outcome is attributed to the
understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever saint, who has, however, not been prayed to but in effect co-
says, ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’” (1 Cor. 12:3). erced and even punished for dereliction of duty. Verification
Early Christian writers wrestled with the question of the of this interpretation comes from unauthorized versions of
appropriateness of cursing, generally labeling it a pagan prac- the Humiliation ritual in which peasants would angrily strike
tice but allowing for it as an occasional moral corrective (Au- the relic (an interesting contemporary representation occurs
gustine, De sermone Domine in monte 1:63–4; PL 34 1261– in the Francine Prose novel Household Saints and its film ad-
62) or as a judgment of justice rather than revenge (Gregory aptation). Behind all this, as Little argues, was the very real
the Great, Moralia in Job 6; PL 75:638–9). In the eighth cen- need for justice and protection against very real adversaries
tury, Rhabanus Maurus Christianized the Deuteronomic in a situation of extreme vulnerability. Nevertheless, by the
presentation of blessings and cursings (Deut. 27) by associat- time of the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, the church
ing the curses with the Law and the blessings with the Gospel forbade the ritual of Humiliation, although the tradition of
(Enarratio super Deuteronomium 3:24–5; PL 108:947–61). the Clamor continued in the form of special votive masses
Thomas Aquinas’ scholastic solution was to conclude that and prayers in time of trouble and in the Ash Wednesday
justified curses were curses only in accident and not in sub- Commination in the Book of Common Prayer.
stance when judged according to intentionality (Summa Although the Protestant Reformers were understand-
theologiaa IIa–IIae, q. 76). ably hostile to the Catholic Church’s claim of authority to
CURSING AND THE CHURCH. Moreover, the post- anathematize and excommunicate, many of the Reformed
Constantinian Church, building upon Paul’s comments in churches (basing themselves upon Matt. 18:15–18 and 1
1 Corinthians 16:22 and Galatians 1:8, incorporated formal Cor. 5:11) arrogated to themselves comparable powers of
procedures for anathema and excommunication, ratified at “evangelical separation,” usually referred to among the radi-
the councils from Elvira (fourth century), Tours (sixth cen- cal Anabaptist sects as banning or shunning. Characteristic
tury), and Toledo (seventh century) to Toulouges (eleventh expressions of this reformed version of exclusion can be
century). In his study of medieval cursing rituals, Benedictine found in several texts collected in George Hunston Wil-
Maledictions, Lester Little sets out the documentary history liams’s Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (1957/1970), includ-
of liturgical maledictory formulas in the monasteries of ing Conrad Grebel’s “Letters to Thomas Müntzer” (1524),
northern France from the tenth through the thirteenth cen- Balthasar Hubmaier’s “On Free Will” (1527), Caspar
turies. Little shows that in the context of deeply unsettled so- Schwenckfeld’s “An Answer to Martin Luther’s Maledic-
cial structures, amid the threat of recurrent violence and dis- tion” (c. 1544), Dietrich Philips’s “The Church of God”
order, and in the absence of effective instruments of law and (c. 1560), and Ulrich Stadler’s “Cherished Instructions on
justice, the Benedictine monasteries developed a pair of elab- Sin, Excommunication, and the Community of Goods”
orate ritual responses: the Clamor and the Humiliation of (1537); and a systematic presentation is set out in Menno
the Saints. These rituals were influenced both by biblical pre- Simons’s “On the Ban: Questions and Answers” (1550).
cedent and by the Irish Christian folk culture that had earlier
CURSING IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD TO THE PRESENT.
been carried by monks to the Continent. The rich tradition
One of the most familiar carry-overs of the curse tradition
of Irish saints, beginning with Patrick, whose weapons in the
in popular culture since the Early Modern period has re-
wilderness were fasting and cursing combined with the
mained the protective curse, famously called to the attention
strong language of the maledictory Psalms, produced a pow-
of tourists at Stratford-on-Avon, England, when viewing
erful ritual of prostration and cries unto the Lord for protec-
Shakespeare’s tomb engraving:
tion against enemies who ranged (in the eyes of the monks)
from marauding Vikings to recalcitrant or peremptory local GOOD FRIENDS FOR JESVS SAKE FORBEARE,
barons. (See Little, 1993, Appendix C for “A Miscellany of TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE:
Curse Formulas”; Little also reminds us that a modern liter- BLESE BE ye MAN yt SPARES THES STONES,
ary adaptation of the Clamor appears in Sterne’s Tristram AND CVRST BE HE yt MOVES MY BONES.
Shandy.) In Anathema! Marc Drogin has collected hundreds of fly-leaf
The Clamor was made even more dramatic when com- book curses from medieval to Early Modern times aimed at
bined with the Humiliation of the Saints, a tradition with protecting books from theft, defacement, misuse, or even
misreading, concluding with a contemporary British postal tian material is covered in Katarina Nordh, Aspects of Ancient
mailing carefully inscribed, “PLEASE DO NOT BEND/ if Egyptian Curses and Blessings (Uppsala, Sweden, 1996); Scott
anyone shall bend this, let him lie under perpetual maledic- Morschauser, Threat-Formulae in Ancient Egypt (Baltimore,
tion. Fiat fiat fiat. Amen.” To this someone in Her Majesty’s 1991); and André Parrot, Maledictions et violations de tombes
Postal System succinctly appended, “FART” (1983, p. 111). (Paris, 1939). The Mesopotamian Maqlû ritual for counter-
ing a witch’s curse is thoroughly analyzed by Tzvi Abusch in
Finally, note that the corpus of world literature is full Mesopotamian Witchcraft (Leiden, 2002). Greek magical pa-
of curses that drive plots and provide dramatic and melodra- pyri are studied by Fritz Graf in “Prayer in Magic and Reli-
matic dénouements, including: Enkidu’s curse on the prosti- gious Ritual,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Re-
tute in Gilgamesh (vii.3); Oedipus’s unwitting self-curse ligion, edited by Christopher Faraone and Dirk Obbink,
(Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 269–72); Dido’s curse on Aeneas, pp. 188–213 (Oxford, 1991). The major study of curse tab-
who abandoned her (Aeneid IV.863–919); Medea’s curse on lets or tabellae defixionum in the Greco-Roman world is John
Gager’s Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient
Jason, who betrayed her (Euripides, Medea 160 seq.); Cali-
World (New York, 1992). Curses as a motif in the Indo-
ban’s curse on his new island overlords (Shakespeare, The European literatures are the subject of Jeffrey Louis Falco’s
Tempest I.ii.353–67); Byron’s denunciation of Lord Elgin in “The Malediction in Indo-European Tradition,” Ph.D. diss.
“The Curse of Minerva”; the bitter curses rained down upon (UCLA, 1992). Cursing motifs in Germanic and Scandina-
Brother Lawrence in Browning’s “Soliloquy of the Spanish vian folklore are dispersed throughout Jacob Grimm’s classic
Cloister”; and Dylan Thomas’s plea to a dying father: “And early work, Teutonic Mythology, translated by James Steven
you, my father, there on the sad height, / Curse, bless me Stallybrass, 4 vols. (1883–1888; reprint, New York, 1966).
now with your fierce tears, I pray / Do not go gentle into For examples from India, see Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies
that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” of India, edited by Joseph Campbell (New York, 1956),
pp. 66–83; and Paul Hockings, Counsel from the Ancients: A
Study of Badaga Proverbs, Prayers, Omens, and Curses (Am-
BIBLIOGRAPHY sterdam, 1988), Index, p. 777.
A comprehensive survey of primary and secondary references to
cursing in the ancient Mediterranean world (Mesopotamian, Magical formulas, including curses, from Ancient Mesopotamia
biblical, and Greco-Roman) is provided by Wolfgang Spey- and Syria-Palestine, and from the Old Testament are illus-
er’s article “Fluch” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, trated and discussed in Frederick Cryer and Marie-Louise
Bd. VII (1969): 1160–1288. Such an assemblage will not Thomsen, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Biblical and
have to be done again. Cursing, however, is a thematic topic Pagan Societies (Philadelphia, 2001). Many relevant selec-
embedded in a vast range of other ethnographic literature of tions from Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, legal, political,
which there is no comparably complete or analytic survey. and literary, are conveniently available in James B. Pritchard,
The widest ranges of reference are to be found in the work ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament,
of two early surveyors of ethnographic sources: Edward Wes- 3d ed. with supplement (Princeton, N.J., 1969); Walter
termarck and Ernest Crawley. For Westermarck see The Ori- Beyerlin, ed., Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old
gin and Development of the Moral Ideas, 2 vols. (London, Testamentv (Philadelphia, 1975); and Francesco Pomponio,
1908), especially chapters xxiii, xxiv, xxv, and l; Pagan Sur- ed., Formule di maledizione della Mesopotamia preclassica
vivals in Mohammedan Civilization (London, 1933; Amster- (Brescia, Italy, 1990). A major comparative study is Sebas-
dam, 1973) and his important article, “L DÂr, or the Transfer- tian Grätz, Der strafende Wettergott: Erwägungen zur Tradi-
ence of Conditional Curses in Morocco,” Anthropological tionsgeschichte des Adads-Fluchs im der Alten Orient und im
Essays Presented to Edward Burnett Tylor (London, 1907), Alten Testament (Bodenheim, Germany, 1998). Thomas
pp. 361–374. For Crawley see Oath, Curse, and Blessing, ed- Crawford’s Blessing and Curse in Syro-Palestinian Inscriptions
ited by Theodore Besterman (London, 1934), extracted from of the Iron Age (New York, 1992) analyzes Semitic cursing
Crawley’s The Mystic Rose (London, 1902); the material is inscriptions in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Aramaic, Phoenician,
also abstracted in Crawley’s article “Cursing and Blessing” Hebrew, and Edomite. Contemporary Palestinian curses are
for the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, edited James the subject of T. Canaan’s “The Curse in Palestinian Folk-
Hastings, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1908–1926; reprint, New lore,” Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 15 (1935):
York, 1970), pp. 367–374. Another comprehensive presen- 235–279.
tation occurs in the article “Maldición” in volume xxxii of Of particular importance among the Ancient Near Eastern texts
the Enciclopedia Vniversal Ilvstrada Evropeo-Americana (Ma- for Old Testament study are treaties and covenants. Impor-
drid, 1958): 486–492. Also see the early overview article by tant original texts were published in D. J. Wiseman, The Vas-
W. Sherwood Fox, “Cursing as a Fine Art,” Sewanee Review sal-Treaties of Essar-haddon (London, 1958); A. Dupont-
Quarterly 27 (1919): 460–477. The classic expression of cul- Sommer, Les inscriptions araméennes de Sifré (Paris, 1958);
tural evolutionism is James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A and V. Korosec, Hethitische Staatsverträge (Leipzig, Germa-
Study in Magic and Religion, 12 vols. (London, 1911–1915). ny, 1931). Important studies include Dennis McCarthy, S.
A key example of early-twentieth-century anthropological J., Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Ori-
perspective on magic and religion is Branislaw Malinowski, ental Documents and in the Old Testament (Rome, 1981);
Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (New York, Paul Arden Keim, “When Sanctions Fail: The Social Func-
1948). tion of Curses in Ancient Israel,” Ph.D. diss. (Harvard,
There has been a good deal of scholarship on the motif of cursing 1992); and Delbert Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testa-
in Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean literature. Egyp- ment Prophets (Rome, 1964). Also see Delbert Hillers, “The
Effective Simile in Biblical Literature,” American Oriental Se- ton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writ-
ries 65 (1984); Samuel Mercer, The Oath in Babylonian and ings,” Journal of Theological Studies 25 (1974): 283–299. For
Assyrian Literature (Paris, 1912); F. Charles Fensham, “Male- the biblical and later Jewish tradition, see Joshua Trachten-
diction and Benediction in Ancient Near Eastern Vassal- berg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion
Treaties and the Old Testament,” Zeitschrift für die Alttesta- (New York, 1970), chaps. 4, 5, and 8; and the article “Curs-
mentliche Wissenschaft 74.1 (1962): 1–9, and F. Charles Fen- ing” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, edited by Isidore Singer et
sham, “Common Trends in Curses of the Near Eastern al. (New York, 1916): IV, pp. 389–390.
Treaties and Kudurru-Inscriptions Compared with Maledic-
For the New Testament, the major studies, in addition to Speyer,
tions of Amos and Isaiah,” ZAW 74.2 (1963): 155–175.
are Anthonie Van Den Doel, “Blessing and Cursing in the
In addition to Speyer, already mentioned, major work on the sub- New Testament and Related Literature,” Ph.D. diss. (North-
ject of cursing in the Old Testament has been contributed western Univ., 1968); and L. Brun, Segen und Fluch in Ur-
by Josef Scharbert, including the articles “‘Fluchen’ und christentum (Oslo, Norway, 1932). Regarding the cursing of
‘Segnen’ im Alten Testament,” Biblica 39 (1958): 1–26; the fig tree; see A. De Q. Robin, “The Cursing of the Fig
“Curse,” in the Encyclopedia of Biblical Theology, edited by Tree in Mark XI: A Hypothesis,” New Testament Studies 8.3
Johannes Bauer (New York, 1981): 174–79; and articles in (1962): 276–281; and W. H. P. Hatch, “The Cursing of the
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, edited by G. Jo- Fig Tree,” Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society III (1923):
hannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, translated by John 6–12. Discussion of the various words for curse in the New
Willis (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1977): I.261–266, 405–418; Testament occur in articles by Behm and by Büchsel in Theo-
and his book Solidarität in Segen und Fluch im Alten Testa- logical Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard
ment und in seiner Umwelt (Bonn, Germany, 1958). Other Kittel, translated by Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids,
book-length studies focusing on cursing in the Old Testa- Mich., 1964): I, 355–356 and 448–451.
ment include Willy Schottroff, Der altisraelitische Fluchs-
Aspects of ritual cursing in medieval Christendom, especially in
pruch (Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany, 1969); and Herbert
monastic milieux, are the subject of studies by Patrick Geary,
Chanan Brichto, The Problem of “Curse” in the Hebrew Bible
“Humiliation of Saints,” in Saints and Their Cults, edited
(Philadelphia, 1963). Robert Gordon is author of a series of
Stephen Wilson, chap. 3 (Cambridge, U.K., 1983); and by
articles on the various Hebrew words for curse in the New In-
Lester Little, Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in
ternational Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis,
Romanesque France (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993). Little is author of
edited by Willem A. VanGemeren (Grand Rapids, Mich.,
the article “Cursing” in the original edition of the Encyclope-
1997): vol. 1, items 457 and 826; vol. 3, items 7686 and
dia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, vol. 4, pp. 182–185
7837; and vol. 4, pp. 491–493.
(New York, 1987), which includes a focus on Catholic, and
An important article that offers a comparative analysis of cursing especially Irish, saint lore. Medieval book-curses are garnered
in the Hebrew scriptures and neighboring cultures is Stanley in Marc Drogin, Anathema!: Medieval Scribes and the History
Gervitz, “West-Semitic Curses and the Problem of the Ori- of Book Curses (1983). Reformation traditions of banning as
gins of Hebrew Law,” Vetus Testamentum XI.2 (1961): a Protestant form of excommunication occur in various texts
137–158 (and see his article “Curse” in the Interpreter’s collected in George Hunston Williams, ed., Spiritual and
Dictionary of the Bible, 4 vols. [New York, 1962]: I, Anabaptist Writers (Philadelphia, 1957; reprint, 1970).
pp. 749–750). Earlier treatments of the same issue include:
The role of cursing in European witchcraft appears intermittently
Albrecht Alt, Die ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts (1934);
in the discussion by George Lyman Kittredge, Witchcraft in
Johannes Hempel, “Die Israelitische Anschauungen von
Old and New England (Cambridge, Mass., 1929); and in the
Segen und Fluch im Lichte altorientalisher Parallelen,” Bei-
more recent essays by Norman Cohn, Peter Brown, Keith
heft zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 81
Thomas, and Alan MacFarlane collected in Part I (“The
(1961): 30–113; and, with respect to Deuteronomy, Imman-
Context of Witchcraft in Europe”) of Witchcraft: Confessions
uel Lewy, “The Puzzle of Dt. xxvii: Blessings Announced,
& Accusations, edited by Mary Douglas (London, 1970); and
but Curses Noted,” Vetus Testamentum XII.2 (1962): 207–
in Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies
211; and Pierre Buis, “Deuteronome xxii 15–26: Maledic-
in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century En-
tions ou Exigences de l’Alliance?,” Vetus Testamentum
gland (New York, 1997).
XVII.4 (1967): 478–479. On the cursing element in the
Psalms, see Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture, 4 Cursing as an aspect of magic is a subject of ethnographic study
vols. in 2 (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926; reprint, London, in worldwide contexts. Classic studies of magic in Africa in-
1964); Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, clude: E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic
2 vols., translated by D. R. Ap-Thomas (New York, 1962); among the Azande, edited and abridged by Eva Gillies (1936;
Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapo- reprint, Oxford, 1976), esp. chaps. 3, 5, and 11; C. W. Hob-
lis, 1984); and Sheldon Blank, “The Curse, Blasphemy, the ley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, 2d ed. (London, 1967), esp.
Spell, and the Oath,” Hebrew Union College Annual XXIII.1 chap. 7, “The Curse and Its Manifestation”; the essays col-
(1950–1951): 73–95. The question of whether Old Testa- lected in Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa, edited by John
ment texts manifest a belief in the automatic efficacy of Middleton and E. H. Winter (London, 1963; reprint, 1969);
curses is addressed by W. Sherwood Fox, “Old Testament Dominique Zahan, The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of
Parallels to Tabellae Defixionum,” American Journal of Semit- Traditional Africa, translated by Kate Ezra and Lawrence
ic Languages and Literatures 30.2 (1914): 111–124; by J. Z. Martin (1970; reprint, Chicago, 1979), chap. 7, “Nicto-
Lauterbach, “The Belief in the Power of the Word,” Hebrew sophers and ‘Healers’”; and Benjamin Ray, African Religions
Union College Annual XIV (1939); and by Anthony Thistle- (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976), chaps. 4 and 5. Relevant ar-
ticles include: Ruth Finnegan, “How to Do Things with Navajo (Cambridge, Mass., 1946, 1974), chaps. 5 and 6; and
Words: Performative Utterances among the Limba of Sierra Marc Simmons, Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and In-
Leone,” Man 4.4 (1969): 537–552; Benjamin Ray, “‘Perfor- dian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande (Lincoln, Neb.,
mative Utterances’ in African Rituals,” History of Religions 13 1974, 1980). For other Native American examples, see They
(1973–1974): 16–25; the essays by Alison Redmayne and Knew Both Sides of Medicine: Cree Tales of Curing and Curs-
R. G. Willis in Witchcraft: Confessions and Accusations: Part ing Told by Alice Ahenakew, edited and translated by H. C.
II, “Cleansing and Confession of Witches,” and, on the sub- Wolfart and Freda Ahenakew (Winnipeg, 2000); and, for
ject of “cursing deaths” in East Africa, Godfrey Lienhardt, South America, Peter Riviere, “Factions and Exclusions in
“The Situation of Death: An Aspect of Anuak Philosophy,” Two South American Village Systems,” in Witchcraft: Con-
in the same collection, chap. 13. fessions and Accusations, chap. 11.
Curses, including death by cursing, is treated in studies of African- The ur-text on performative language is John L. Austin, How to
derived vodou traditions. For Haiti see Alfred Metraux, Voo- Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures Delivered
doo in Haiti, translated by Hugo Charteris (1959; reprint, at Harvard University in 1955 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).
New York, 1972), Section V; Milo Rigaud, Secrets of Voodoo, The on-going debate is reflected in S. J. Tambiah, “The
translated by Robert Cross (1953; reprint, San Francisco, Magical Power of Words,” Man 3.2 (1968): 175–208; and
1985), chap. 6; and Pierre Pluchon, Vaudou: Sorciers Empoi- in the essays gathered in The Philosophy of Language, 3d ed.,
sonneurs (Paris, 1987). Non-academic and exploitive litera- edited by A. P. Martinich (New York, 1996), part II,
ture on vodou abounds, as in the case of Robert Pelton, Voo- “Speech Acts”: J. L. Austin, “Performative Utterances”
doo Charms and Talismans (New York, 1973), which (1961); and John R. Searle, “What Is a Speech Act?” (1965),
contains instructions, for instance, on how “To Place a “A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts” (1979), and “Indirect
Curse” (chap. 1). On performative language in the West In- Speech Acts” (1975) Although there is little direct discussion
dies, see Roger Abrahams, The Man-of-Words in the West In- of the subject of cursing in this literature, the concept has
dies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture (Balti- been invoked in the studies of African ritual by Finnegan and
more, 1983). Ray.
Related material on cursing traditions is found in studies of South- GEORGE SCHEPER (2005)
east Asian and Oceanic cultures, including Walter William
Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1965), chap. vi, “Divination
and the Black Art”; Francisco Demetrio, S.J., Encyclopedia of
Philippine Folk Beliefs and Customs (Cagayan de Oro City, CUSANUS SEE NICHOLAS OF CUSA
Philippines, 1991), pp. 52–54, 296; R. H. Codrington, The
Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folklore (Ox-
ford, 1891), chaps. xi, “Prayers,” and xii, “Magic”; and the
book-length evangelizing work by Pieter Middelkoop, CUSHITE RELIGION SEE KUSHITE RELIGION
Curse—Retribution—Enmity: As Data in Natural Religion,
Especially in Timor, Confronted with the Scripture (Amster-
dam, 1960). For the Maori see J. S. Polack, Manners
and Customs of the New Zealanders (London, 1840) and CYBELE (Latin) or Kybele (Greek) is the Greek and
other nineteenth-century ethnographies cited in Crawley Roman name given to a female deity of Anatolian origin
Oath 10–19. whose worship was widely disseminated throughout the an-
cient Mediterranean world. The deity’s name in her home-
For the extensive and controverted reporting on vodou death or
bone-pointing among the Australian Aborigines, see, among
land was Matar, or Mother; in some cases this was modified
the older works, H. Basedow, The Australian Aboriginal (Ad- by the Phrygian epithet Kybeliya, meaning “mountain,” the
elaide, Australia, 1925), pp. 178–179; and W. L. Warner, A source of the term Cybele. The Greeks and Romans also ad-
Black Civilization: A Social Study of an Australian Tribe (Lon- dressed the goddess as Mother (Meter in Greek, Mater in
don, 1941), p. 242; and, for the more recent scholarly debate Latin), and the epithet Megale (Greek) or Magna (Latin),
in the pages of American Anthropologist: Walter Cannon, “ meaning “great,” was frequently used, causing her to become
‘Voodoo’ Death,” AA 44.2 (1942): 169–181; David Lester, known as the “Great Mother.” Both the name and the visual
“Voodoo Death: Some New Thoughts on an Old Phenome- image of the goddess first appear in Phrygia, in central Ana-
non,” AA 74.3 (1972): 386–390; Barbara Lex, “Voodoo tolia (modern Turkey), during the early first millennium BCE
Death: New Thoughts on an Old Explanation,” AA 76.4 and spread from there, first to the Greek cities on the west
(1974): 818–823; Harry Eastwell, “Voodoo Death and the
coast of Anatolia, and then to mainland Greece and to Greek
Mechanism for Dispatch of the Dying in East Arnhem, Aus-
tralia,” AA 84.1 (1982): 5–18; and Janice Reid and Nancy cities in the western Mediterranean. The goddess’s cult was
Williams, “‘Voodoo Death’ in Arnhem Land: Whose Reali- imported into Rome at the end of the third century BCE, and
ty?,” AA 86.1 (1984): 121–133. she became an important figure in Roman religion also. The
deity remained a prominent figure in Greek and Roman reli-
For classic studies of witchcraft and cursing traditions among Na-
gious practice until the dominance of Christianity in the
tive Americans of the Southwest, see Clyde Kluckhohn, Nav-
ajo Witchcraft (Cambridge, Mass., 1944; Boston, 1967), sec-
fourth century CE.
tions 4, 5, and 10, Appendix II, “Sorcery,” and Appendix III, THE ANATOLIAN BACKGROUND. The earliest clear evidence
“Wizardry”; Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorothea Leighton, The for the deity is found in ancient Phrygia. In this region there
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