Shamanism or Witchcraft? The Táltos Before the Tribunals

Abstract

The author examines thirty-five táltos (twenty-four women, nine men, one boy and two girls) appearing in the documents of eighteenth-century Hungarian witch trials in the peculiar narrative context of legal proceedings (indictments and testimonies of the accused and the witnesses). The táltos, just like those who were accused of witchcraft, could fulfil in the local system of witchcraft conflicts a negative or a positive role according to their actual position: that of the witch or the witch-doctor. The author confronts their communal roles with the popular beliefs that have surrounded the táltos and with their own conviction of their supernatural capacities. She also examines whether they truly experienced these visions or were merely acting, using their táltos-fame for publicity, fraud and finding money. She also re-examines the allegedly shamanistic motifs, and all those opinions in the witchcraft research, which consider the táltos, as the heirs of the pagan Hungarian shaman.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) /ERC grant agreement № 324214.