Editing Witchcraft (section)

====North America====
{{main|Witchcraft in North America}}
North America hosts a diverse array of beliefs about witchcraft, some of which have evolved through interactions between cultures.<ref name="Breslaw-2011">{{cite web | url=https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jar254 | doi=10.1093/jahist/jar254 | title=Witchcraft in Early North America | date=2011 | last1=Breslaw | first1=E. G. | journal=Journal of American History | volume=98 | issue=2 | page=504 }}</ref><ref name="Berger-2005">{{cite book |title=Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America |editor-first=Helen A. |editor-last=Berger |year=2005 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0812219715}}</ref>

[[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] peoples such as the [[Cherokee]],<ref name="Kilpatrick">{{Cite book |last=Kilpatrick |first=Alan |title=The Night Has a Naked Soul – Witchcraft and Sorcery Among the Western Cherokee |date=1998 |publisher=[[Syracuse University Press]]}}</ref> [[Hopi]],<ref name="Geertz">{{cite journal |last1=Geertz |first1=Armin W. |title=Hopi Indian Witchcraft and Healing: On Good, Evil, and Gossip |journal=[[American Indian Quarterly]] |date= Summer 2011 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=372–393 |doi=10.1353/aiq.2011.a447052 |pmid=22069814 |issn=0095-182X|oclc=659388380|quote=To the Hopis, witches or evil-hearted persons deliberately try to destroy social harmony by sowing discontent, doubt, and criticism through evil gossip as well as by actively combating medicine men. ... Admitting [he practiced witchcraft] could cost him his life and occult power}}</ref> the [[Navajo]]<ref name="Perrone-1993"/> among others,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Simmons |first1=Marc |title=Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande |date=1980 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0803291164}}</ref> believed in malevolent "witch" figures who could harm their communities by supernatural means; this was often punished harshly, including by execution.<ref>Wall, Leon and William Morgan, ''Navajo-English Dictionary''. Hippocrene Books, New York, 1998. {{ISBN|0781802474}}.</ref> In these communities, [[medicine people]] were healers and protectors against witchcraft.<ref name="Kilpatrick"/><ref name="Geertz"/>

The term "witchcraft" arrived with [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonists]], along with [[European witchcraft|European views on witchcraft]].<ref name="Breslaw-2011" /> This term would be adopted by many Indigenous communities for their own beliefs about harmful magic and harmful supernatural powers. Witch hunts took place among Christian European settlers [[Witchcraft in colonial America|in colonial America]] and the United States, most infamously the [[Salem witch trials]] in Massachusetts. These trials led to the execution of numerous individuals accused of practicing witchcraft. Despite changes in laws and perspectives over time, accusations of witchcraft persisted into the 19th century in some regions, such as Tennessee, where prosecutions occurred as late as 1833. 

Some North American witchcraft beliefs were influenced by beliefs about [[witchcraft in Latin America]], and by [[Witchcraft in Africa|African witchcraft beliefs]] through the slave trade.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Dale Lancaster |last=Wallace |title=Rethinking religion, magic and witchcraft in South Africa: From colonial coherence to postcolonial conundrum |date=January 2015 |journal=Journal for the Study of Religion |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=23–51 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317449743 |access-date=2023-09-15 |via=Acaemdia.edu}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url=https://brill.com/view/journals/mtsr/33/3-4/article-p381_6.xml | doi=10.1163/15700682-12341522 | title=African Witchcraft and Religion among the Yoruba: Translation as Demarcation Practice within a Global Religious History | date=2021 | last1=Bachmann | first1=Judith | journal=Method & Theory in the Study of Religion | volume=33 | issue=3–4 | pages=381–409 | s2cid=240055921 }}</ref><ref name="Berger-2005" /> Native American cultures adopted the term for their own witchcraft beliefs.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6362989/ | pmid=6362989 | date=1983 | last1=Silverblatt | first1=I. | title=The evolution of witchcraft and the meaning of healing in colonial Andean society | journal=Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry | volume=7 | issue=4 | pages=413–427 | doi=10.1007/BF00052240 | s2cid=23596915 }}</ref> [[Neopagan witchcraft]] practices such as [[Wicca]] then emerged in the mid-20th century.<ref name="Breslaw-2011" /><ref name="Berger-2005" />