Study the past if you would define the future.
—Confucius1
First we must look at the true origins of witchcraft, those hidden in the mists of time. This is a subject that has been written about many times by many authors. This of course may be quite repetitive to those who have been involved in the modern witchcraft movement for several years, but they must bear with us as this book is just as likely to be picked up by those who are making the first steps in the sometimes confusing world of the Neo-Pagan movement. It is our hope that we have given some different viewpoints to its origins that have not been covered before in our own or other literary works.
Witchcraft’s Origins in Shamanism
The first magical practices of mankind came about when the first Homo sapiens began to move east and west from central Asia. Their magic was simple; it revolved around the most basic instinct of mankind, survival. Imagine the scene: In a fire-lit cave a man dresses in deerskin and dons an antlered headdress. He begins to chant; the chant grows into a grunt; the grunt turns into the recognizable "hurnnn" call of the rutting stag. He slowly circles the fire, and out of the darkness come the other male members of the tribe; each grasps tightly a stick as though it was a spear; and at a moment, they lunge on the figure and in frenzy, symbolically killing the stag. By doing this form of magic, they see themselves as successfully procuring meat for the tribe on the following day’s hunt.
A division of sexual roles was noticeable in these societies. It was not sexism, but came out the reality that men were better capable of defending and hunting due to physical build and strength. Men were therefore responsible for defending their communities and providing meat, while women cared for the young and the old. During the hunt, the women of the tribe gathered berries and nuts to supplement the tribe’s diet, and importantly from a magical perspective, had the opportunity to gather herbs for the sick. As we have seen, the male mysteries revolved around their role in the preparation for the hunt. Here we see the female mysteries in the treatment of the sick, and for caring for other women during pregnancy. As they were healing the sick they also found themselves dealing with the spirits that caused the illness. We still see this division between the sexes today in hunter-gatherer communities, such as the aboriginal peoples of Australia. Within this culture you see a strict division between "men’s business" and "women’s business" when it comes to the male and female mysteries. It is this division that was probably responsible for mistrust of the old feminine magical ways during the medieval period and the development of the feminine descriptive word witch.
It is in both male and female forms of magic that we see the roots of what we call Shamanism and its development into what we now call witchcraft. As humanity developed and settled into an agricultural way of life, the tribal magic-worker evolved. It became a family affair with the skills of one generation passed down to the next. Here we see the idea of "hereditary witchcraft" first appearing, but it should be remembered that at this time all trades and skills were passed down through the family. Within the village-tribe specific families would have been responsible for the skills handed down, such as metal working, torch making, farming, etc. This is the origin of such descriptive surnames as "Baker" and "Smith". In a harsh world, specialization, with each member learning specific skills, is more conducive to survival than a strategy in which everyone is "a Jack of all trades but a master of none". The magical worker became the priest and priestess of the village, and although they were not considered more important than any other trade, they were respected. Their roles would have included being responsible for keeping track of the seasons and performing the seasonal rites. This would have involved making offerings to the local gods and spirits for good crops and good hunts. These were important rites in an agricultural society, and to do them the priesthood had to understand the cyclical nature of the seasons and be the keepers of the mysteries of birth, death, and rebirth. They looked after the sick with the herb lore they had accumulated from generation to generation; they were responsible for the banishment of malign spirits, which caused disease. Here again, we can see the underlying reason for the existence of the magical practitioner—survival—but now the need was more important. The roles within the village-tribe had become more specialized, and the death of one of its members would threaten the well being of the whole tribe. Here we see the idea of the witch at its purest, without any of the preconceptions put on it by Christianity and the 20th century.