By this Hat shall you know Them: When they want to computer-animate a small army of comic sidekick Witches in Shrek 3, how do you know that they are Witches? Because they all have pointed hats on top of their heads.
When they want to remind you on Bewitched- week after week- that Samantha is a Witch, how do they do it? By showing a cartoon of her flying through the night on her broom- with a pointed hat on her head. What is the pivotal moment in Wicked when Elphaba stops being a green-skinned outcast-girl and becomes a Witch? When she puts a pointed hat on her head.
How do they indicate the Witches in The Wizard of Oz and HR Pufnstuf, to say nothing of cartoons and comic-books innumerable? They put pointed hats on their heads. What do (to judge) thousands of women get a kick out of doing each year in the West Village (NYC) Halloween Parade? Being Witches- which means apparently, spending a night running around with a pointed hat on their heads.
To put on the Hat is to become a Witch; to take it off is to return to being Just a Person again.
It is not clear how the Hat- the sharpest social signal of Witchcraft- came to be associated with Witches. In The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Katherine Howe notes that hat styles of the early 17th century resemble Witches’ hats, and believes them to be derived from the hennin- the tall, cone-like hats popular in the early medieval period. It is true that 17th century hats can suggest Witches’ hats (generally with a blunter top, or with the point sliced off, to create a flat top); it is reasonable to suppose that they derive from the hennin.
Of course, that does not explain how the 14th and 15th centuries developed the idea of the hennin, or of making a hat by (essentially) wearing a long, pointed cone on top of your head.
To seemingly slip to another topic: a few weeks ago, Tim posted Silken Crossroads here on The Juggler, about the Mummies of the Xinjiang Desert of China (also Xiangjiang), an arid, barren region that lies between Tibet and Mongolia- the site of a remarkable historical mystery.
Here are unearthed the (basically) freeze-dried burials of a small community of people- but not an Asian people. They appear to be European and artifacts about them indicate that they are Celtic Europeans- who buried one another in China some 40000 years ago.
The Celts are known as great travelers, apparently wandering the earth with zeal. The idea that some of them may have made their way into China 40 centuries ago is very incredible- yet here are these graves.
The most remarkable of all is the one who might be called “the Witch-Mummy”- because of what she wears on her head.
My friend (and Juggler reader) Old Gray Mouse, who has studied upon the Xinjiang Mummies for some years now, collected the following picture some time ago (I will leave it to him to explain its provenance and to add his thoughts as to the Mummies’ significance); thanks to Jason, the picture is now safely stored in The Juggler Media Archives as well.
Tim quite rightly cautions in his original piece against determining that this eccentric (and really old) hat is somehow “proof” that the Celts had Shamanic-Priestess-Witches in their communities.
All the same- here is the mummy of a woman laid to her rest, presumably by her Celtic kins-people, 4000 years ago in the Chinese desert- with what looks to our Western-Culture-trained eyes like nothing so much as a Witch’s hat on her head.
Imagine that you are an archaeologist, participating in the excavation of a Celtic burial site, preserved in a dry, barren region of China. As you carefully unearth a grave- this is what you find.
Who was this woman- buried with this hat carefully arranged atop her head?
Fantastic picture: I’m glad we finally got it up. It makes me think of Granny Waetherwax. Is the material sturdy enough to support itself vertically? Or did the cone fall more like burlap would, down her back? Was the hat found in this position in situ?
This is different from what was on display at the exhibit, but wow!
Similar hats seem to commonly denote a connection to spirit in various cultures. Thai Buddhists, Orthodox priests, and Catholic/Episcopal bishops all wear headgear that reaches up to the sky. Monarchs, thought to rule by Divine Right, wore crowns that pointed upward. I wonder if these are all connected.
Still, I have to caution that we are evaluating this picture through out own historical/cultural lens. But it’s tantalizing, isn’t it?
February 2008
Wear Pointy Hats With Your Plaids
On seeing the picture of a witch’s hat in an article (1) on the mummies of Xinjiang along with the Celtic fabrics of their clothing I am thinking that the two go together. I think that these people originated to the west of Urumqui near the Black Sea and some traveled East through Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan (2) to settle near Urumqui and others traveled further West to Romania where there is still a Celtic presence, then on to Hallstatt, Austria where the same plaid fabrics were found on a body preserved in the salt mine there. From Hallstatt they separate and some move on to the Danube area to become the proto-Celts which spread around Europe (but not Britain, 2a). The other group moves on to Northern Greece where they become the “Witches of Thessaly” of which there were apparently two kinds according to Brian Clark: the literary ones which were evil and the real ones (3) which were herbalists and healers who taught medicine and shamanic incubation techniques to the first Greek physicians. (4)
The group in Thessaly moves on to Southern Italy then to Northern Africa (Libya, Algeria, the Atlas mountains where Paganism is still practiced) then to Portugal (Basque area) with a possible side trip to the Canary and/or Azore islands then to Brittainy and finally to England (Cornwall,Wales) at first .(5) All this time they kept their plaid fabrics and I’m trying to decide if both groups kept their pointy hat. I have found no mention of pointy hats in Greece, Italy, Spain etc.
The plaids continue today, of course, but eventually the hat had to go with the growing antipathy towars witches preached by the church. I think the image, however, continued on as a racial memory. (6) Today we see them on Halloween and in the dining hall in Harry Potter movies.
(1) Discover magazine, April 1994, Vol. 15, No.4
(2) Felicitas Goodman talks about the Uzbeki shamaness (shamanka) in her book “Where the Spirits Ride the Wind”, 1990
(2a) Sykes & Oppenheimer
(3) Thesis “The Witches of Thessaly”, Brian Clark
(4) “In the Dark Places of Wisdom”, Kingsley, Peter 1999
(5) “The Roots of Witchcraft”, Harrison, Michael, 1975
(6) “Racial Memory and Instinct: The case of the Honeyguide”, Cochrane, Ev
http://www.maverickscience.com/racial-memory.pdf also Jung, Carl