Pistols and Pokeberry
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| "Moonshot" by Via Hedera, 2024 |
Guns and witches have history. These weapons were supposed to have been used to fire shots of silver or hair at our familiars or our shadow-selves. These silver bullets or supposed hair-balls were thought to combat witch-dogs, witch-turkeys, witch-hogs and witch-hares. Pokeberry would take care of the bewitched hog, while silver was a good remedy for a hare or a doe. Asafoetida (Satan’s weed) and barleycorns are both referenced in the Frank C. Brown collection for their disenchantment capabilities over firearms, and needles with lye loaded into a gun were intended to do the same. Or, if one needed to get rid of a bewitchment, they could draw the witch or write her/his name on a tree, or on a paper shaped like a heart, and then shoot the image itself, or with a witch-bullet (a type of apotropaic hairball, see more here).
"To the witch was ascribed the tremendous power of inflicting strange and incurable diseases, particularly on children, of destroying cattle by shooting them with hair-balls, and a great variety of other means of destruction; of inflicting spells and curses on guns and other things,--" -Cross, Tom Peete. Witchcraft in North Carolina (p. 9). [Chapel Hill] : The University. Kindle Edition.
I’ve hesitated to discuss guns in folk magic because they aren’t a part of my lifestyle. Not volentarily at least. It never feels like the right time you know? Because of all of the mass shootings. Because of the outright threats against public figures and private citizens. Because of the unease the clockwork of these events brings in my specific country. I support my country’s constitution and value the art of weaponry deeply, but I also grew up Southern California in the early 90’s… Violence, especially gun violence, was a source of terror for me frequently as a child. I even had little rhymes I had made up to help me feel safe, ones I still say to myself when I hear that dreadful clap in the night. It’s just another tool of blood and war magic—which I suppose I appreciate, but all the same, not my personal tool of passion. Or magic.
When it comes to
our folklore and the folk magic of liberty, protection and steadfastness, a pistol or a rifle is one of our magical and spiritual tools—like it or not. And on another note— Southern and
Southeastern USA folklore does have more than its fair share of charms
regarding the creation of a witch through shooting a silver bullet at the full
moon. I’m not saying it’s how we make
witches… but it is one of our strange ways. It
is specific to us. We climb to hilltops
and shoot through handkerchiefs at a full moon to become servants of the
Man-in-Black and his jaybird. I touch on a bit in my book, and I encourage you to embrace the facinating notion that firearms are intrinsically linked to our cultural history so also our witchlore.
I have a deep
respect for people who hunt their food and defend themselves; I suppose that’s
what I always hoped guns would be used for; practical purposes. I grew up with ethical hunters; folks who
used every icky and squishy part and never took more than their pantry freezer and the shelf
date could withstand. We regularly got gator and elk from cousins when there was enough to share, and damn was it good. My perspective has
long been ecocentric and respectful to the system as I see it. It’s the
violence between us humans I find so distasteful and terrifying. I see the art in sharp-shooting, in weaponry-enthusiasm,
engineering, in the history of liberty behind the weapon, the beautiful
mechanics of this revolutionary tool and the practical applications it's brought into our lives. A weapon of liberty and opression; it's quite the nuanced matter.
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American hero Lt. Holloman's modified M1911 pistol; with a “sweetheart". On loan, Tukwila WA: Museum of Flight |
The human need for apotropaic charms are a deep and personal interest to me; a unifying force shared and syncretic between so many culutres and peoples. Who knew that guns have a lot to do with magic, and with witches? Guns were used to shoot silver bullets at the images of witches or at haunted cattle, they could be bewitched by one touch from a witch. The Frank C. Brown collections, Journals of American Folklore and a few of the general folklore collections of the 20th century have a bit to say about guns and witches, surprisingly. According to these sources, guns were especially prone to witch-tampering. So, I suppose I see why practictioners of old would want to learn some basic gun-bewitching, for their own sake and that of their friends, family and familiars.
We witches had a knack for quelling gun violence I suppose. Our ancestors often thought it was in the nature of charmers, bewitchers, enchanters, witches, sorcerers or conjure folk alike to pass their hands over guns and cause them to misfire, or otherwise faulter in some way. In some cases, these suposed rifle-hexers would bewitch a gun so that it could fire at no beast (likely because witches move in or are served by animal-shaped familiars and as it happens, there are plenty of tales Southern U.S tales of a hare or rabbit catching a bullet and a suspected witch being found with a corresponding wound in place of the hare). Witch-men and witch-women would mutter simple hexes or other incantations to make a gun useless to hunters. Even a witch in one’s presence might make the weapon ineffective to fire. Likewise, one simple charm referenced in Brown's collecion references a wife who was reported to cause her husband’s gun to fail by knotting the corners of her apron.
Witches could reportedly also bless a gun or charm it to never miss as well. Luck played a large role in the matter of North American gunlore I’ve found; the idea that the capricious spirits of the world could make this weapon powerful or useless seemed to be of some worry to some of the common folk.
Notable Gun Auspices: reported in Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium of American Folklore: Ohio edited by W. Hand
- To dream of firearms means trouble
- Bad luck to point an empty gun and bad luck to look
down the barrel
- Stepping over a rifle is bad luck (especially a woman doing so, apparently)
- Good luck to fire a shot before hunting
- Save your first shell for good luck
- Blood of the first kill blesses the barrel
- Some would bullets before loading for luck
- Running water and silver shot will rid the weapon of witching
To Make a Gun Useless: reported in the Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore Vol: VII: [7904]
- Brown’s bit of Illinois folklore claims that a gun
can be enchanted through a tree-knotting spell. A hickory sapling or
withe is tied into a knot by the charmer in the name of the devil, and the
gun was not to operate until the knot was undone.
- One can enchant another’s gun by taking a bullet from
the gun, tying it with string and hanging it from a willow over a stream
where it will shake in the stream. As it’s kicked about by the
water, the gun was supposed to become shaky and waiver until the bullet is
untied. Again, this hex is done in the name of the devil.
- To rid a gun of bewitchment however, it was reported
that allowing the water from a stream to pass through the barrel would
wash the witching away.
Gun Bewitching: reported in Daniels' Encyclopedia of Susperstisions, folkflore and the occult sciences of the world
- To Prevent Every Person from Hitting the Target-
Put a splinter of wood which has been hit by a thunder bolt behind the
target. No person will be able to hit such a target.
- To Cause Rifles or Muskets to Miss Fire- Speak
these words: Afa, Afca, Nostra, when you are able to
look into the barrel of some person's gun and it will fail to discharge;
but if you desire it to give fire, recall these words backward.
- To Prevent a Person from Firing a Gun While You
are Looking into the barrel- pronounce the words: Pax Sax Sarax.
Firearm magic has
an unsettling wildness and indirectness to it despite the very art of it being
aimed and intentional. Typically, a
blade swung is with focus and with great limitation. But a gun… One second of time passes and lifetimes
are changed irrevocably. I suppose that's why I'm facinated by the natural way that we as humans have used magical practices as a rebellion and reaction against this very tool of rebelion and reaction. The way we merge our natural and unnatural fears with our spirituality and creatre tools meant to avert evil, facinates my restless mind. Spiritual and physical protection-- how do we change as we percieve it? What power comes of it? The metaphysical potential of protection magic against any weapon, or the use of hexing-magic to prevent the operation of weapons is a part of that fabric of New World folklore so many of us are working to preserve and restore-- the actions and reactions of time and change. I make no commentary on what this
means in our social climate. I'll keep muttering my protective charms and wishing for a kinder world.
- Realm: Hilltops, graveyards, homesteads, woodlands, battlefields
- Elements: All (fire in spirit and air in travel, water to purify and restore, born of earth)
- Sphere: Mars, Luna
- Moon: Full
- Metal & Stone: Silver, lead, galena
- Apotropaic herbarium: Hickory, wllow, asofoteda, barley, pokeberry
- Animal associations: Rabbits, hares, hogs, deer, hounds
- Colors: Gunmetal grey, matte black, blood red
- Symbols: Hearts, skulls, stars, crosses, prohibition sign (circle with slash)
- Gifts: Rebellion, opression, survival, violence, choice, consequence, steadfastedness
- Annointing: Blood of the first kill, kiss from the owner, hickory lye, streamwater, silver, hair
-Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore
-Daniels, Cora L. Encyclopedia of Susperstisions, folkflore and the occult sciences of the world
-Botkins, B.A. Treasury of Southern Folklore
-Hand, Wayland D. Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium of American Folklore: Ohio
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