SOURCE: "The Salem Village Cataclysm: Origins and Impact of a Witch Hunt, 1689–92," in A Search for Power: The "Weaker Sex" in Seventeenth-Century New England, University of Illinois Press, pp. 383–417.

In the following excerpt, Koehler discusses the issues of empowerment and non-traditional behavior in examining why a disproportionate number of the accused witches and their accusers were female.

An Epidemic of Witchcraft

… The Salem Village witch mania began easily enough, when several young girls experimented with fortune-telling and read occult works. In late January 1692, these girls began creeping under chairs and into holes, uttering "foolish, ridiculous speeches," assuming odd postures, and, on occasion, writhing in agony. Their antics soon became full-fledged hysterical fits. Their tongues extended out to "a fearful length," like those of hanged persons; their necks cracked; blood "gushed plentifully out of their Mouths." A local physician named William Griggs, unable to explain the girls' behavior in...