History geek detangling errors in the recent Bones episode

[jenett]

As I said, the history bits irked me a lot more than the Wiccan bits in this, though while I'm at it, I might as well detangle the errors in that.

I'm a relatively recent Bones watcher (I started this summer), and it is, I admit, the show (of the three I watch reliably) that I am most ambivalent about. However, I'm a cheerful cheesy forensic anthropology mystery reader, and I like the character-driven bits (well, I can mostly leave aside the shipping, but the other interactions make me smile.)

The following stuff below the cut is all about the history (and the religious issues and the practice of magic issues) in the "Witch in the Wardrobe" episode and does not mention any regular character interactions, so you can judge for yourself if you want to read spoilers.

[ETA 5/14/12: I've turned off comments on this post (despite the fact there are some awesome ones) because this particular entry is getting persistent spam (to the tune of 15-20 comments a day). I'm experimenting with seeing what disabling comments for a week or two will do.]



The first thing you should know about me, in writing this, is that I did my 10th grade US history research paper on the Salem Witchcraft trials. This is not uncommon: we get at least a paper a year and sometimes two or three or four on the topic at the school I work at. I chose the topic in large part because (in the pre-Internet age), we lived about 40 minute drive from Salem, and I could go to the Essex Institute to play with real documents and do my research. (Which was way fun.)

I did a very good paper, by all accounts: it went onto the State level in History Day competition.

There's some good reasons for why so many people pick this topic.
- The trials are extremely interesting.

- There's *lots* of primary source documentation out there, and it's incredibly easy to get at (and these days, as you'll see below, it's readily accessible online)

- There's also lots and lots of secondary source research out there which presents a range of fascinating theories. (Everything from Boyer and Nissenbaum's socio-economic argument for the trials to the arguments about ergot or some other hallucinogens, to the argument that it was an outlet for suppressed emotion in a very restrictive society.) And of course, there's enough "Oooh, witchcraft!" to make it an enticing topic for teenagers who want to do something a little out there, but still produce a good paper.

This episode
In this episode, they find a skeleton of a woman who they say:
- is old (48 years old, but described in ways that make it clear this is seen as very elderly)
- has isotope markers indicating that she lived in Salem
- was killed by being pressed to death
- sometime in November of 1692
- is identified as being Emily Quimby
- had her skeleton stolen from a cemetery.

All but the second is remarkably implausible to flat-out impossible, for reasons below. (Salem was founded in 1626, so it is in fact plausible for a 48 year old woman to have bone markers indicating that she only lived in that one area.) I'm leaving aside the fact that many of the Salem trials involved people in what is now Danvers, because it's actually not relevant.

We'll come back to the 48 being old problem in a moment.

1)The problem of pressing
Peine forte et dure was an English method - discarded in England 20 years before the Salem Trials though the last actual use was in 1741 - designed to get the accused to make a plea of either guilty or not guilty. The idea was that they put you on your back on the ground, with a board on your chest, and kept piling large stones on until you made your plea. Or died. Of course, once you make a plea, you are either guilty (and all your property was likely forfeit) or you went to trial (where you stood a decent chance or being found guilty). It was not, directly, a form of punishment, except in as much as you did it to make people do something you wanted. (Torture is, however, an excellent description.)

Only one person died from pressing in Salem: Giles Corey, an 80 year old farmer.

He was pressed for two days before dying on September 19th, 1692. Folklore has long suggested that he refused to plea to protect his property and pass it down to his heirs (his wife had also been charged as a witch, and was hanged on September 22) but Wikipedia tells me that more recent historians note that he made a will in jail, and was protesting the trials and methods themselves, as much as anything else. (Either way, the property did pass to their sons-in-law.)

I've been a Giles Corey fan for a long time. There's nothing else like his protest - for whatever reason he did it (and both reasons go far beyond his own life) - in New England history, nothing else like the strength of will to take incredible pain and misery for two days, saying nothing other than "More weight".

So I said very nasty words at this episode for inventing whole cloth someone else who was pressed to death, and *especially* since there's no necessary reason for it in the story that they couldn't have worked around.

2) The problem of timing
I actually picked up on this one very quickly, because elisem showed me the Salem-related episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" on Monday, because she thought I'd be amused by it. (Pssst: Elise, I was right: the nice colonial house she visits is in fact the Rebecca Nurse homestead.)

One thing that reminded me of, though, is that September 22nd, 1692, is the last date of deliberate deaths in Salem. But the show keeps mentioning this theoretical woman's death on November 1692. By then, the court had adjourned, and no more convictions (or hearings) took place.

There were 19 hangings, the death of Giles Corey, and the deaths of at least 5 and maybe as many as 18 others either in jail or as a direct result of their jail time. (Records vary, also how you define 'as a direct result'). You can see the names here: http://salem.essexcountyma.net/salem_witchcraft.htm .

3) The problem of the name
Emily is not a common Puritan name. In fact, it doesn't become common as a name in English until the 18th century, as a nickname for Aemilia. More to the point, the Early Massachusetts birth, death, and marriage records are online, and "Emily Quimby" doesn't appear anywhere. (You can see for yourself here: http://ma-vitalrecords.org/VRSI_Q1.shtml). Not only that, but I checked all the other vaguely similar last names. (I didn't do a rigorous search, but I also didn't spot any Emilys while I was scanning the last names).

It's worth noting that Quinby, or Quenby or Quimby or whatever alternate spelling you want wasn't exactly a common name in the 1600s, either. The earliest reference I spotted was a Lidia Quinby, born in Salisbury in 1657 (her parents married right around then too). (This would have made her 35 in 1692). And she was born in Salisbury, nearly up into Maine, more than a day's ride from Salem/Danvers. All the others were 1700s or later.

4) The problem with the skeleton
There's two problems with this skeleton. First, a number of the bodies from those convicted in the trials were buried in a shallow grave. Some were retrieved by the families, and buried on family land. This does not reliably lead to being able to find enough of the small bones of the body to create a fully re-articulated skeleton three hundred years later. Or a skull with hair (I'd buy the long bones and skull, but that bit of Massachusetts has lots of rivers, periodic floods, frost heaves, and other things that can disrupt bones. And hair.)

The memorials in the Burying Ground at Salem are mostly cenotaphs, without actual bones buried (because they've become lost over the years). But even without that, it's a relatively common site for potential vandalism, and it's hard to imagine that people wouldn't notice and publicise that the skeleton had disappeared.

5) The problem of age
I also disliked that the show played into a really common misassumption about age and earlier historical periods. Here, we must digress into a brief bit of statistics.

The average life expectancy includes everyone who is born and then dies (as people do) for a given time range. This means that eras with high infant mortality tend to have a pretty low life expectancy. Plimoth Plantation (which is a re-creation of early colonial life in the 1600s, though south of Boston) has a lovely page on this particular myth here: http://www.plimoth.org/discover/myth/dead-at-40.php

They point out several things. First, the average life expectancy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s was actually in the 60s (compared to either London or the Chesapeake colonies.) Fewer people than London (hence fewer things like cholera or infections getting passed along), and fewer insect vectors than the south. If you made it to adulthood, you would likely live into your 70s or later. (And in other places, into your 60s.)

This is also born out by looking at the ages of the convicted and executed in the trials:
Bridget Bishop: 60
Sarah Good: 35
Rebecca Nurse: 71
Susannah Martin: 71
Sarah Wildes: 65
Elizabeth Howe : 55
Martha Carrier: Probably born around 1660, so 32
John Willard : in his 20s. (He's principled, too)
Rev. George Burroughs : 42
George Jacobs, Sr: 70
John Proctor: 60
Mary Eastey: 58
Martha Corey: about 70
Ann Pudeator: in her 70s
Samuel Wardwell: 49
Mary Parker : 55
Alice Parker: unknown - there's several people with similar names in the area.
Wilmot Redd: (birth date given as early 1600s) Probably in her 70s or 80s, therefore.
Margaret Scott: 77
and Giles Corey: 80

Of these 20 people, we have
1 unknown age
1 in their 20s (and something of a special case)
2 in their 30s
2 in their 40s
3 in their 50s
2 in their 60s
8 in their 70s
and 1 in his 80s

So, yeah. I'm not buying that "48 was elderly" bit. At all. It's pretty clear that most of the older people on this list were also in decent health - they were still actively participating in farm life, which is not exactly easy going.

They also mention that the skeleton shows signs of kyphosis (often called 'dowager's hump' historically) which generally occurs due to osteoporosis. Not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but Salem and surrounding areas actually had a decent chance of limiting this - hardy cows and other dairy animals do well there, and dairy would have been relatively widely available to people working on farms. Not a total surety, but a lot more so than, say, the middle of London. I'd buy it a lot more easily in someone in their 60s or 70s than someone in their later 40s.

[ETA: since this got brought up in comments on 1/5/11: like I said, I'm not a doctor. I have done some pretty extensive reading into colonial Boston in particular, however - due to an entirely unrelated project, actually - and the evidence does suggest that most people were significantly active and in good health with good mobility well into their 60s if they lived to that age in the first place. As I said, I'd buy it much more in someone in their 60s or 70s than late 40s. I'm open to evidence to the contrary that I can check out, however.]

ETA: The question of witches
I didn't add this bit originally, because I always forget that other people forget this one, but there is no evidence that *anyone* in the Salem Trials was actually a witch of any kind. (There's some plausibility about Tituba, but even that is sort of shaky evidence).

Many of those who were decried and executed had, up until that point, been pillars of their local church, and in ways that weren't just 'going along to make nice'. It's pretty clear from various records they took their Christianity seriously, and in a way compatible with the Puritan heritage of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Those who didn't, tended to move to Connecticut, or sometimes Rhode Island, in the 17th century.)
[end addition]

The problem of religious depiction
Ok. I do not expect mainstream TV to get my religion (or things reasonably close) to my religion right. Gods know they rarely get Catholicism right, and that's a lot more common.

Plus, Jason and commentors over at his blog, The Wild Hunt, have done an excellent job of basic commentary. (Note that if you want to avoid regular character storyline spoilers, you should avoid Jason's post, and especially the comments.)

But since we're here, the basic issues:

What they're describing as Wicca is not Wicca.
Much more clearly some other form of witchcraft, and there's no particular indication it's even *religious* witchcraft (unless I've missed a mention of a deity name in the two times I've now watched it.) There's also no functional ritual altar.

The coven they show is all women - which is really not Wiccan in a traditional sense of the term. (If you want a good guideline, go read my intro-to-religion posts. Part 2 is the most relevant here). There are all female groups out there, but they generally use other approaches to both magic and ritual.

Now, going in sequence:

What the heck is this 'waning moon' ceremony?
Full moon, yes. New moon, yes. Sabbat, yes. Waning moon? One can do rituals at any particular point they're relevant - but waning moon doesn't make sense.

Privacy:
Also, what kind of Craft group gives out info to private rituals without better checks than that? (Public rituals, yes. Private ones, no.)

The difficulty of ritual names
I actually found it really interesting that this episode also brought out issues of names among regular characters: when you count it up, the majority of characters go by something other than what their legal name would suggest, or than their parents or teachers almost certainly called them.

Me, my legal name is getting less and less use all the time - these days, at work, and in legal settings, and that's about it. That said, Jenett, while starting as a public Craft name, is not a particularly weird name (it's arguably got a better history of widespread historical use in England than Jennifer does until the early 70s).

But I also agree with the various comments on Jason's blog about the affected speech. Ugh. No. (Though it was sort of nice to see the witches portrayed as adults with hair/skin/clothing cues that indicated they were reasonably self-sustaining in the terms of the modern world.)

Amber
The amber *is* a common magical item in many sections of the Craft: amber is considered to have particular energetic properties because it's a fossil of a living creation (resin), rather than being pure mineral. The episode glosses over this, but I figured it'd be nice to mention. (I have a fair collection of it myself, though I mostly wear it when I want to reinforce being in priestess-mindset but the formal ritual jewelry isn't appropriate for whatever reason.)

Speaking of jewelry: Jason mentions it being weird to have them all with the same necklace. Eh on that one: initiates in my tradition all get the same pendant as part of a recognition that they're part of the tradition. Most of us don't wear it outside of circle or circumstances where that connection is particularly relevant, though. I'd only consider it weirdly cultish if you *had* to wear it.

The magical systems they're talking about?
Are... funky. Not just that they're implausible, but they're implausible in ways that don't make sense in common magical theory. They are a bit more common in some of the older English and southern European folklore. But they're not in common practice, and the specifics are still really funky.

The ritual itself
Makes no sense as a 'sending someone on'. What it *does* make sense as is an expiation ritual - burning an effigy of someone you've wronged shows up in a lot of folk traditions. (It's not the only reason you might burn an effigy or representation, though.) This actually fits with the episode, but they totally gloss over it.

I kept going "But *why* do they care about bat bones?"
It's not that I entirely oppose the idea of animal parts in the right circumstances (which for me includes the ethical acquisition of same). But in good magical theory, the stuff you use has some direct relationship to what you're trying to accomplish. Bats just don't fit here. (Neither does the 'dressing up a skeleton in a wedding dress' while we're at it.) Is it too much to ask for some basic magical theory?

And in what religion are they integral?

Yes, witches often use ritual knives. But.
Most commonly, these are not used to actually cut anything - they're used to represent the will and intention. Some people use sharp blades, but a lot of people don't.

Basically, there's a huge mismatch between the group's "We are goodness and peacefulness and light and bunnies and rainbows" language, and using sharp blades. Generally, the rainbow bunny types go for dull blades (or no blades at all), while the folk witches tend to go for useful physical tools for things like harvesting herbs or inscribing candles, but don't talk about the universe as a kind and loving place. (Traditional Wicca and its immediate offshoots are much closer to the latter, but use two different kinds of knives: one for energy work only that's straight and usually double-edged, and a curved blade, usually smaller, for herbs/candles/other physical tasks.)

Rye flour
I agree with Jason's comments about the rye flour not being common in witchcraft practice.

However, I'll note that I've been at group rituals a few times that used wheat flour to draw an outside circle on the grass (i.e. to give some visual distinction). That said, flour is not a great medium: if it gets wet, it turns into paste, which is a pain. Cornmeal is better. (Salt theoretically works, but is lousy for plants) There's no particular reason you couldn't use rye instead of wheat, but also no particular reason you would.

But on the ergot poisoning? It's not a "You take some, you have hallucinations" thing. It's a "You eat a little bit of rye flour containing the mold (which requires some specific growing and harvest conditions) over a longish period of time, and you have all sorts of continuing symptoms." You are not killing someone one night, and having clear and articulate conversations in the FBI office a few days later. More at Wikipedia.

[Side note, since we hit this point in the episode: that is a *lousy* fake 17th century engraving. The artistic lines are all wrong.]

"Ancient Wiccan Symbol"
Wicca is not ancient in its current form. And the pentagram goes *way* back, to the Greeks. Wikipedia is a good start in this case.

Wiccans do not consume any form of consciousness altering substance
Pah. Classic ritual practice includes wine. Also, most of us drink caffine and chocolate. And other alcohol in moderation. Some smoke. Enough said.

(Those of us who take the mind-altering stuff seriously pay attention to what we're consuming and why. We just do it intentionally, including the caffeine and chocolate.)

Research sources
Now, ok, I started this one with a head start, because I know about a number of resources. But I managed to write up this commentary over the course of about 90 minutes, including rewatching the episode. It's not like the resources aren't widely available out there. (And about 25 minutes of that time were skimming the Vital Records of Early Massachusetts files.)

But information about the Salem Trials is especially easy to find on the web these days: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm is an excellent place to start. The rest of this was mostly just putting the relevant names into Google.

Comments

[ethaisa]

*applause*

I was ranting about the history last night, too. (Giles Cory, remarkable man. why erase him?*froth*) What especially annoyed me was that they put forth one of the characters as being fan-boy eager to show off actually supposedly knowing stuff about the trials. Not so much.

I do watch the show; usually its the scientific glosses that get gnarly.

[aedifica]

(Thanks for specifying which kind of spoilers--I care much more about avoiding character-interaction spoilers than episode-specific ones.)

I remember Giles Corey and knew he was the only one who died of pressing, but I don't think I would have caught the rest of the Salem-specific stuff. The Wiccan stuff I would have just sputtered at Nate about. :-) Thanks for writing this up, I did enjoy reading it!

(And hey, I have a somewhat appropriate icon to use here. Keyword "religious studies." *grin*)

[jenett]

I figured the specification of spoilers would be handy to you. (There are major character spoilers in the episode, and I look forward to discussing them with you when you catch up.)

[elf]

I had to post about it, & included a link roundup.

I'd forgotten "ancient wiccan symbol." It was just so ridiculous that it wouldn't stick in my head. (Can't, of course, say "ancient witchcraft symbol;" must remind the public that we're talking about a religion, not evilmajik.)

And the "consciousness-altering substance" line made us giggle. A lot. Aside from the wine, caffeine, chocolate, sugar and nicotine that are fairly common among Wiccans, there's the ones on Prozac or Wellbutrin and such. Which, um. Have as their sole purpose, "alter your consciousness."

The History!Fail gets its own special category, 'cos Bones is supposed to be a "Science!" show, dammit. And, um. Any show about a marginalized group is going to get extra attention from that group, and it's not like "history of Salem witch trials" is an obscure and rare hobby among modern witches.

It's like inventing someone who died on the Titanic... while the general public doesn't know whether a certain person was, or was not, on the ship, the passenger lists are not secrets. They'd've been better off claiming that she was pressed to death by upset neighbors who performed an illegal mock-trial of their own; *that* might've stayed out of the official records. (Still wouldn't quite cover the name problems. Dammit, should've done a bit of research & given her an ordinary name for the period.) Feh.

I don't do much history, so my only thoughts about it on watching the episode were, "umm, don't we have a complete list of the people killed in those trials? And there was only one pressing, and it was that guy? Something's off, here."

[jenett]

I like your idea of being pressed to death by upset neighbors - change the name, and edit the age comments a bit, and it's a lot more plausible (and makes a better story, including the fact that bones would likely have been better preserved.) Would have solved the timing problem, too.

The age bit still bugs me, though, because Reichs should know better: even if she's mostly used to working out of North Carolina and Quebec, she certainly knows better than to confuse life-expectancy-at-birth with "My, you're over 40, you're ancient!"

[dulcinbradbury]

I'm actually fairly sympathetic to inventing a person even if you're aware of the official record. Real people DO still have families, and, I remember the upset over Titanic having a crewmember commit suicide. The family was Not Pleased. But... I'd have been happier if they'd stuck with some reasonable facts as to the rest of the plot, as well as less faux-wiccan bullshit.

[jenett]

I wouldn't have minded inventing another random accused. It's inventing another person for a unique event in New England history (the pressing to death) that bothers me a lot.

Also inventing someone with a fairly implausible name for the time period. It's not like there aren't other easy options.

[aedifica]

Indeed, I think they must have a policy of not using real historical people--I just got up to the mummy episode and they made up the mummy, too.

[walk_of_the_fallen]

Thank you, thank you! The show really aggravated me, so very non-history AND lousy science. I mean, crap, it wasn't even good story-telling in my opinion.

Don't these ninnies have hired consultants to spot the stupid for them??

[elf]

This was written by Kathy Reichs--so of course the science was perfect and didn't need checking!

[majoline]

The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure that anyone who had American English in a US high school in 11/12th grades knows at least enough to look at your list and go, "Hey didn't I get tested on that at least once?"

Because the bare bones history looks pretty familiar from having studies of the Crucible and somesuch.

It's just there's only a certain point of history!fail before something is so ridiculous it becomes unwatchable unless there's a drinking game involved.

[seryn]

I don't know very much history, so almost all that stuff went over my head during the viewing. It did seem like a huge leap to get "Salem" from where they started with the body in the cabinet. Though maybe if you're actually on that coast, it doesn't seem completely random like it does from California. Crushing death might as well be Serbian refugee or bizarre Pacific Islander body ornamentation gone horribly wrong. To me getting "Salem witch" from that was like finding a body in San Diego and saying it's Montezuma. Because all ancient corpses in California are from Mexican royalty and "everyone knows that". It seemed really random that anyone would run across anything from Salem (but not Oregon) since it's like 3000 miles away from my reality.

The whole "rye flour is where we get LSD" aspect irked me. If I need an effing prescription to buy bread flour, I'm going to be very angry at people for perpetuating a rural legend.

And finally, Booth is (seemingly) constantly going off on Bones for not respecting his religion, for talking back to priests and not treating Christianity as factual. He seems willing to accept that it is not relevant to her life, but never does he let her get by with disrespect in front of people from his faith. So where does he get off interrupting another religion's ceremony? I was extremely offended by that. Not Oklahoma City offended, but I would like to see the fictional FBI storm a mainstream church instead next time.

[jenett]

As far as I can tell, the leap went: pressing was only used in Salem, other research determines that this body is a) 300 years old (which is a relatively trivial test result if you've got their lab) and b) has the appropriate isotopes for Salem (which is a less trivial test, but they've used that one before, and it does exist).

The thing is, the *only* pressing death in the colonies that's documented was Giles Corey. So, of course, if you see that, you think Salem. Except that, historically, the only pressing death was Giles Corey, not some woman in her late 40s with weakened bones. Which is why I wish they'd gone somewhere else with that in the first place.

And in terms of distance - Salem (or Boston) down the eastern seaboard is a drive, but it's not an impossible one: maybe 8-10 hours, depending on traffic. People do it for long weekend trips, a fair number of people do that stretch for a week's visit at an office in NYC or DC. I consider that the least implausible bit of the episode in a lot of ways.

[silveradept]

Ah, thank you for that run-down. I'll say that it looked plausible enough for the average, know-nothing viewer. This must be one of those cases where Joel and Mike are invoked. After, that is, we ask the writers of the show to do some basic research first.

[zephre]

I don't watch the show, but I loved this post, great commentary and some really intriguing history.

[jenett]

Thanks! It's a fascinating (and well-documented) time, so it's a particularly good place to go wandering around in if you're at all curious about history.

[ofmonstrouswords]

LOVE your post, Jenett. I've seen Bones about once, and I liked what I saw because I'm a geek for forensic anthropology. But I have no TV, and have to watch things on DVD or online.

So, I hadn't seen this particular episode, but I do like your rebuttal to it and it makes me want to watch the episode so I can see where they went wrong. :)

Also, I learned quite a bit about the Salem Witch Trials, which is cool, because my knowledge up till now consisted of The Crucible by Arthur Miller.

It does boggle my mind that TV shows don't do the proper research. In this day and age, there's no excuse. Sometimes I want to send the writers emails with a link to Let Me Google That For You. *roll eyes*

-Morag

[(Anonymous)]

Point out historical inaccuacy, fine. Mention liberty taken with religious rituals that the average person won't know different about. But holy crap did you knit pick the hell out of this episode. You kyphosis remarks are just unfounded, and your entire rant is based on the assumption that they intend to base Bones in reality; they don't. They never have. There's a reason they never actually mention that Angela's dad is from ZZ Top, and that other characters since the first season have been actual notable figures playing someone else, or actors intended to resemble actual figures. Since the first season Bones has been very consistent in resembling, parodying, and mirroring reality, but not copying it. You're taking the show and yourself way too seriously.

[aedifica]

You're very brave to post your attack anonymously, and so many months later that only the original poster would normally see your reply. (I subscribed to comments on this post, which is how I happened to see it. You, on the other hand, might not see this reply, since you posted anonymously. Oh well.)

There are people who enjoy discussing this sort of thing. jenett is one. I'm another. History is fun! Discussing misconceptions of history is fun too! It has nothing to do with taking oneself too seriously (which phrase, by the way, is a classic silencing technique).

"Bones" errors

[(Anonymous)]

Glad to see I'm not the only history geek that gets peeved at the errors in "Bones". As a descendent of Nathaniel Felton, who was a signatory on a letter of support for Rebecca Nurse, I have a vague knowledge of the trials and as soon as they said her injuries came from pressing I was growling at the TV.

And I notice that there have been remarks about Booth being a direct descendent of John Wilkes Booth. There are no known descendents of J. W. Booth.

[(Anonymous)]

A very informative article, but there are some problems with it. The most important one is that the characters name is "Ember," not "Amber."

[jenett]

If you read that section, you'll see I'm not discussing the character, but the material.

It's been several years since I wrote this (or rewatched the episode) but my recollection is that there's a brief mention of the material amber in the episode, and some of the other commentary at the time wondered about that and why it got mentioned. Hence my spending a paragraph or two talking about how it is actually used in a number of witchcraft traditions and how that isn't a bit of "Wait, that's really off" in this episode.

[aislingthebard.livejournal.com]

I lurv your librarigeekiness....this is all excellent, fascinating, accurate commentary. And I feel bad that they did an episode of Bones about witchcraft and all I could think of to say about it was, "Well, they didn't diss us all TOO badly". And Kathy Reichs? I was vastly disappointed...I expected better, since I am reading the Temperance Brennan books from the beginning, and they're GOOD. Some better research sources, eh? She should have asked YOU.

I have my own commentary on this

[theperfumer.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, I think this representation is to some extent something we once again did to ourselves. The characterization was cringe-inducing and it did not come from nowhere.

The name thing bugs me, and I'll get into that elsewhere. Part of owning your own power is taking responsibility to some extent for how you are perceived, and if you're using a Craft name around someone disinclined to accept it, you're misusing the magical key that is your Craft name and you're weakening yourself in interactions with others by coming off like an ass. Obviously with a name like Jennett, that won't happen - it's a good, serviceable choice. Names like Ember, or say Bambi, and scorn will follow, more than once.

As far as any of the materials used, all of them seem probable to me, even the bat bones, but absolutely NONE of them are "essential to Wiccan practice." This comes from years in eclectic practice where you can use literally antyhing. I've cast circles with jellybeans, fired stones at a bobblehead, sacrificed a chocolate bunny and done all sorts of things that might not fall into what the older traditions of Wicca might consider doing.

So the rye flour did not seem too terribly far-fetched to me.

I think that this was meant as a hybrid of Dianic Wicca and American Eclectic Wicca. There is a fair chunk of Wiccans who really do believe in a "make it up as you go" approach that can lead to affectations like those of the characters. I'm on the fence about the approach - clearly, I passionately hate the results that wound up in this piece of fiction, but I also think that ritual should allow for creative approaches, which is a different discussion altogether.

I've written up my own post reacting to the episode that will come out on Monday. Mostly it narrows down what I consider absolutely essential to Wiccan practice. My view is just "Wiccan" and it's American Eclectic-centric: I think that those of Gardnerian or Alexandrian tradition would need a few things different/more than those who are more freestyle.

Re: I have my own commentary on this

[jenett]

On materials: it's not that I think the materials are highly implausible in some use. But I'd have to stretch a whole lot to say they're likely to be *central* to an entire religion's practice without some hint of a mythos or practice that makes that make sense. (Which I can see happening, but the episode did nothing to give us reason to buy - and I don't even think gives people unfamiliar with folk magic traditions much good reasoning for.)

I find the rye flour causing ergot poisoning implausible not on ritual grounds, but on biological ones: it just doesn't work like that, generally, even if they were actively consuming it, which the show doesn't make transparent. (And certainly not on that many people in exactly the same way, because biological stuff affects people at different levels/degrees based on all sorts of factors.)

One of the things about names: with people who need to get me with my legal name, I'm generally quite happy to give it. But I point out that I don't use my legal name anywhere near my Pagan stuff in public senses, and if you want to look at my history in the Pagan community, you need to be looking for Jenett, not Jennifer. I did think the juxtaposition with some of the running character issues name commentary interesting, in the same vein.

(I've mentioned this in the past, but one of the reasons I go by Jenett is that Jennifer by itself is so common that I answer to it *very* badly, and my legal last name is uncommon enough in the US that Jennifer + Lastname stands a decent chance of turning up my home address. If I had a less common first name I liked/felt like me, I might have chosen that, but there are way too many Jennifers in my age range to make that feasible.)

Re: I have my own commentary on this

[theperfumer.livejournal.com]

I think you've told me before about the reason for using "Jennett." It's a perfectly good one - and much more reasoned and considered than the reasons for other name choices I've encountered. I'm not a creature of absolutes, just one of notoriously strong opinions, so I can actually see good reasons for things I might otherwise disagree with. Your name choice is one of them. I'm your age - I remember as a joke yelling "Jennifer" in large crowds to see who looked around.

You're right that the ergot poison is biologically unlikely. They were trying way too hard to tie it in with the Salem hysteria. It might have been more plausible if someone checked the rye flour storage and found a leak in the tupperware with water dripping on it or something.

I wasn't totally dissatisfied with the ep; I do follow the show and one element of it made me really happy. But at this point I'm concerned with how the whole of paganism is coming off. These representations in modern fiction are based on the noises we make, and it looks like we need to do a little refinement.

Re: I have my own commentary on this

[jenett]

It's not even the 'water dripping into the flour' thing - it's the part where you've got to ingest fairly substantial amounts of it over a period of time for ergot poisoning to take effect.

Bread you're eating all the time, day in and day out, yes. But unlikely, as I understand it, even if you're eating stuff from the same batch of tainted rye flour every week or two for ritual in smallish amounts compared to your total diet.

(On Jennifer: I reliably answer better to "Hey, you!" than I do to "Jen!" Because "Hey, you!" is historically, more likely to be for me. Scary, isn't it?)

Re: I have my own commentary on this

[elf]

I can deal with the "essential part of my religion" as verbal shorthand for "our use of these materials is legally, constitutionally protected as part of our religious activities." I expect they're no more "essential" than hymnals are to Christians.

And the rye flour... gah. Just, gah. As jenett says, it doesn't work that way. If you're consuming enough ergot-infested rye to get hallucinations, you're sick. Poisoned. And your whole body *acts* poisoned. Also, not something you can get from getting a pinch of it in your wine--to get enough of it at religious services, they'd have to be eating rye cakes & wine (or, erm, juice, because these witches "don't use consciousness-altering substances") with *every* ritual, several times a week. And not only are they all getting enough for hallucinations, they're getting the *same* hallucination?

The name thing--Insisting on craft names when interrupted at ritual: fine. Icky cops broke into sacred space; make them damn well pay attention to the religious norms of the group. Insisting on craft names at other times: not fine; wingnutty.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Bones is one of my favorite shows, and mostly I was just embarrassed that they made such a shoddy job of it. :-/

[jenett]

Yeah. I'm actually not *hugely* upset by the religious portrayal: there are places it could be a lot better, and I wish they'd do that, but it's actually about on a par with how they've handled some stuff around Catholicism in the past. (And not just this season).

I'm fond of the show, but especially for the characters, but there are times the fact I really like cheesy forensic anthropology mysteries is carrying more of the weight than it really should try to. And when it hits the spots where getting it *right* should have been pretty trivial, I get irked. (Getting religion, a big complex thing, off, is one thing. Getting names, dates, and basic facts that could have been easily checked in final sources, not so much.)