Salem - Wicca Central?

I'm sitting here in my very nice room at the Salem Inn in, where else, Salem, Massachusetts. I grabbed J down in Providence and we headed up here for a couple of nights to explore my (and her) ancestral roots. J was game for going anywhere that included good food and a bathtub - with not too many museums thrown into the mix. Okay - easy parameters....

About ten years ago, my genealogy research led me to Salem and then to the sobering information that one of my direct ancestresses had been hung for witchcraft is those harrowing tales we've all heard about in 1692. It was a surprise and led me further into researching not only the context in which Sarah Averill Wildes died but how two of my many times removed aunts - Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esteys died as well. There are a plethora of records that not only document the trials but the lives of these women. My ancestress Sarah Wildes had been up in front of the town fathers before - on a charge that had to do with disciplinary action due to her daring to be wearing a silk scarf under her puritan uniform. She sounds directly related to my mother! And I say that in full appreciation for what it took for any woman in that society to be daring enough to 'court' the censure of the town council.

Sarah Averill Wildes story is as dramatic as any you can read today. She married a carpenter by the name of John Wildes. Sarah was his second wife and he was a well known man - having settled in the Ipswich area around 1637. John's first wife's family did not like the fact that he remarried within a year of their sister dying and apparently some of the enmity is reported to be partially responsible for the rumors that were eventually spread about Sarah being in league with the devil. Sarah was at least 60 years old when the warrant was made for her arrest. And one of the saddest pieces of history has to be that her only son, Ephraim was constable at the time and had to watch his own mother taken from her home. He also had to bring in his half sister and her husband (who escaped).

The story is actually much more elaborate but anyone who has studied this history as well as the puritan movement know that what happened with the Salem witch trials - like many similar events in Europe earlier - was much more a statement of a society breaking apart at the seams then there being any practice of witchcraft. Most of the women hanged were older woman - elders who had perhaps garnered some independence and confidence in their own inner strength while living in this harsh new land.

It has always struck me as a horrible moment of mass hysteria that exploded into the deaths of the innocent. I wanted to come to Salem - to this area of Massachusetts - to walk the same land as so many of my ancestors. Not just Sarah - but my Gould, Towne, Smith, French, Hinton, Averill, Howlett and other ancestors who all came over to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early parts of the 17th century. I wanted to find some historical and tangible acknowledgment for what happened to my many-times-removed grandmother.

I know that may seem strange - we're talking over 300 years ago. And yet, as I explained to my daughter - Sarah Averill Wildes is still within me. She lives on in all her descendants - small bits and pieces of genetic code passed down from her, through her and down to me. She is part of our history - part of who made me possible.

You can tell that I'm feeling the solemnity of the moment - like visiting the Vietnam Memorial or Arlington Cemetery. That's not what Salem caters to.

These were god fearing people who probably would make any fundamentalist christian today look like a skyclad druid. They weren't witches even in today's sense of Wiccan definition because they were accused of consorting with the devil. (Wiccans take pains to make sure people understand they aren't satanists and there was certainly no mention of a Goddess anywhere in their confessions!)

So why all the wiccan stores? I've never seen so many spiritual pagan stores in a square mile block as there are in Salem. And the Salem Witch Trial Museum? Schlock! The gift store is filled with garish plastic dragons, tarot cards, plastic wands and velvet witch hats. I even saw something in there about aliens. It turned my stomach. The tourist trade hardly stopped there - but it kind of stopped me in my tracks. Is this what happens to history?

At least the Salem Visitor's center took a historical approach and directed us to a small memorial around the corner. A small plot of land next to a graveyard that had the names of each victim carved onto a rock. There are small shelves to leave flowers or tokens and tomorrow we will go and bring a gift of spring to the memories of our ancestors.

I think I'm more amazed at American ingenuity to turn something somber and historically relevant into a glitzy way to make money. I am happy to see some actually fairly nice pagan stores making enough money to stay in business. I just wonder how easily the depth is lost when all anyone hears is 'witches' and forgets the relevance of what happened. On the other hand, all those little shops do represent something that my ancestress never had: religious freedom.

The weather is beautiful, the town is cute and we found a Starbucks and a Whole Foods market - so the visit is a success. I'll look forward to coming back someday and going to the library or hooking up with the historical society. Maybe then I'll find a slightly different Salem that will unveil a bit more of her historic past.