During class I learned an interesting tidbit of information. Symbols that are currently synonymous with witches— a wooden broom, a pointy hat, a black cat, and black cauldron —have a deep connection to beer brewing centuries ago, and behind it is a dark history.
For many centuries, women, known as alewives, enjoyed success and garnered respect as key drivers of the beer industry. They put up a broom as a store sign for their taverns to indicate that beer was for sale, wore pointy hats to stand out in crowded streets and taverns, often kept cats to protect grain stores from vermin, and brewed their ale in cauldron-like containers.
But the whims of political change were brewing, and alewives became the targets of power-hungry leaders of the Church, who began to take an interest in the profits of selling beer. Consequently, the definition of a "witch" was redefined in order to effectively slander women working in the beer selling market. Prior to the Church's interest in the beer trade, the Church taught that witches were worshipers of the false pagan gods but were not inherently evil. However, in order to effectively reduce the influence of alewives, the Church began to depict witches as slaves of the devil that spread evil by brewing potions and getting unsuspecting people to drink them.
This was also a time of plague and disease, which was used to further incriminate the alewives. Consequently, these women were often tried for witchcraft after which they could be executed or jailed. Some of these women had good standings in society but that was quickly stripped away from them. As the business of alewives dwindled, male dominated and centralized breweries popped up to fill the void. Thus, as result of money and politics, the old symbols of alewives are now associated with evil witches rather than professional home brewers.
As such, it’s important to reflect on the history of witchcraft, as the concept of witches has been formed from centuries of propaganda. And though gender equality has improved significantly over those centuries, we still have a long way to go.
This instance of once respected professionals being framed as witches, has profound comparisons to racecraft. Racecraft, according to Barbara J. Fields and Karen Elise Fields, is the means through which "the practice of racism produces the illusion of race". In other words, racism is not a result of race; race is a result of racism. Similarly, witchcraft is not a result of there being witches, but the result of a desire to systematically incriminate a large group of people. As such, the origins of witchcraft as we know it today serves as an example of how easily it can be for those in a position of control to further strengthen their power by fabricating negative stigmas about a generalized group of people.
It's really interesting to hear that it was the women that brewed the beer. In terms of beer brewing in more recent times, I tend to categorize it as more under the men's jurisdiction. The fact that men, seeking to reap the profits of beer-brewing, depicted the alewives as agents of the Devil serves as one of the many examples in which male-dominated societies demonized women in order to rob them of their power. Midwives also suffered the same fate as the alewives, because male doctors sought to steal their profits. Overall, a great discussion on witchcraft and racecraft!