Enchantresses and Enchanters Through the Personalizing of “Magical Agents”: a historical, ethnographic, sociological and anthropological radiography

Abstract

The personalized interdisciplinary approach to the enchantresses and enchanters as “magical agents” is intended to highlight the imagological aspects of their lives and work. Multiple stereotypes have become entrenched in society towards enchantresses and enchanters, many of them more related to people’s imaginations than to concrete historical realities. In Romania’s past, the number of enchantresses and enchanters in each locality was quite high, a fact explained by the lack of professional doctors. This gap in health care based on scientific medicine was filled by the work of “magical agents” – enchantresses and enchanters – who offered the sick both remedies of magical medicine and folk treatments, especially based on healing plants. The craft to charm was viewed with mixed appreciation, being both criticized for manipulating naive people and accepted by simple country folk for whom it had become an indispensable part of their existentialist tradition. Contrary to general perceptions, the women who were bewitched were not exclusively old women, but also young and middle-aged women. Another relevant aspect is that in the case of the Basarabian village of Cornova, in 1931, the number of charmers was quite significant, being rather an exception in the whole Romanian area.