Witchcraft holidays in 2023 are marked by the celebration of various significant events in the pagan and witchcraft calendar. These holidays hold great importance for practitioners of witchcraft, Wiccans, and other pagan traditions, as they provide an opportunity for spiritual connection, ritual practices, and the honoring of nature's cycles. One of the most prominent witchcraft holidays in 2023 is Imbolc, celebrated on February 1st or 2nd in the northern hemisphere. Imbolc is a festival that marks the beginning of spring and the lengthening of days. It is associated with the Celtic goddess Brigid and is a time for purification, creativity, and the welcome of new beginnings. The spring equinox, also known as Ostara, is another significant witchcraft holiday observed around March 20th.
The spring equinox, also known as Ostara, is another significant witchcraft holiday observed around March 20th. Ostara celebrates the arrival of spring and the balance between light and dark. During this time, witches and pagans may engage in rituals, spells, and symbolic activities that honor the fertility and renewal of the earth.
Solomon Hotema: Witch Hunter
Oklahoma has been the home of many different types of individuals, both those who abide by the law, as well as those who defy rules and regulations and become a law unto themselves. Notable examples of those who have enforced or defended the law include Deputy U.S. Marshals’ Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas, and Chris Madsen, known as the Three Guardsmen; Samuel Sixkiller, Captain of the United States Indian Police in Muskogee (Indian Territory), and Bass Reeves, one of the earliest black deputy U.S. marshals to serve in Oklahoma Territory. Conversely, other Oklahoma residents that have claimed notoriety based on a legacy of crime include: Belle Starr, the ‘Bandit Queen,’ Bill Dalton, outlaw and co-leader of the infamous Wild Bunch, and Charles Arthur ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, gangster and bank robber. One Oklahoman who served on both sides of the law in the Choctaw Nation as a minister, lawyer and a judge, and then as an enforcer who decided to take the law into his own hands to help rid the state of witches, was Solomon Hotema.
Solomon E. Hotema was a full blood Choctaw Indian born in 1854 near Grant, in the Choctaw Nation. His father, John Hotema, “was for forty-five years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, a captain of light-horsemen,” a Choctaw group formed to settle disputes and enforce tribal laws, “and a firm believer in witchcraft.”[i] Solomon was educated at a local school, and later attended the Old Spencer Academy located at Spencerville in northern Kiamichi County. In 1878, along with thirty-four other Choctaws, Hotema was given a scholarship to attend Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, “which had been founded by Lutheran pastors in 1842.”[ii] While at Roanoke, Solomon learned about the law and then worked as a clerk for Wilson N. Jones, who had been appointed the principal chief of the Choctaw Nation. Hotema aided the Choctaws in many different capacities. He served as a “county judge of Kiamichi County” later named Choctaw County after statehood, from 1884-1886.[iii] In 1887, he was elected to the House of Representatives and then re-elected for the next two years. In 1888, he was placed in office as the county clerk of Kiamichi County. By 1889, Hotema had become not only influential but prosperous, with a successful mercantile business at Grant and a small farm that sustained “a hundred head of cattle and two hundred hogs.”[iv] He also founded the Cold Spring Church, six miles north of Grant, and acted as its pastor.
In 1898, an epidemic of meningitis infected the area in which Hotema resided. Hotema had married Nancy Coleman in 1883, and they had three children. His son Jonah, who was “Solomon’s pride and joy” died from the disease in the spring of 1899.[v] Solomon was devastated by the loss of his child as were the members of the community who had also lost friends and loved ones. Rumors spread “that the epidemic was caused by witches.”[vi] Prayer meetings were held, and finally “a reputed forty-nine-year-old medicine man named Sam Tarnatubby” was consulted on the matter.[vii] He informed Hotema about the cause of the scourge and asserted that the victims of the disease had been bewitched. He also gave Hotema the names of those who had performed witchcraft and were responsible for the deaths of his son and the other innocent individuals who lived near Grant. Solomon had become an ordained Presbyterian minister and decided that it was his Christian duty to rid the region of those who had bedeviled his people. Along with two companions, Sam Frye and Tobias Williams, all fellow Choctaws, Hotema proceeded to go on a murderous rampage, killing Vina Coleman, Mrs. Hull Greenwood, and Alfred Morris, on April 14, 1899, near the church that he had founded. [viii]
A flaw in Hotema’s character which contributed to his murder spree was his unfortunate love of alcohol. He was known to get drunk and thus become combative in nature. Supposedly before killing the alleged witches he “threw back a few stiff ones.”[ix] And even though he had previously been on cordial terms with Vina Coleman, “when under the influence of liquor the extermination of witches seemed to become his ruling passion.”[x] During the melee, a young child and a fifteen-year-old boy, fleeing from the scene were badly wounded.[xi]
After being charged and arrested near present day Antlers, Hotema provided information related to the three murders. He maintained that his actions were based on “the teachings of his particular creed” which had been stressed to him by his father from a very young age.[xii] His confession also indicates that the killings were carried out because of the individuals’ “evil practice of magic among the Indian people.”[xiii] His objective was Biblically based on various scriptures that condemn the practice of witchcraft.[xiv] He had decided that it was his obligation as a devoted Christian minister to eliminate the witches, who by their evil spells had inflicted pain and death on Choctaws, and that “he committed these murders to sacrifice his life for the Lord’s cause and the love of his people.”[xv]
The legal process involving Hotema and his confederates took many interesting turns. First, a change of venue was requested by his attorney and the trial was moved to Paris, Texas. Since he had made a passionate claim that he was indeed a law breaker and that he would gladfully give up his life in the name of the Lord, the jury was left to wonder about the possibility of insanity. After deliberating, the jury found Sam Tarnatubby innocent of being an accessory to the crimes, and Hotema and Fry were both acquitted for the murders of Greenwood and Morris, “based on the jury’s belief that the defendants were insane at the time of the homicides.”[xvi] Since separate indictments had been drawn on each victim, Hotema was then found guilty of killing Vina Coleman and sentenced on February 14, 1902, to death by hanging. Both the defense and prosecuting attorneys were surprised by the verdicts. The defense thought that their client would be acquitted, while “the prosecution expected a hung jury.”[xvii]
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which affirmed the judgment of the lower court. Justice Peckham wrote the opinion for the unanimous Court in Hotema v U.S. (1902). In upholding the lower court’s ruling, Peckham noted that “the court properly laid down the law in regard to the responsibility of the defendant on account of his alleged mental condition.”[xviii] In relation to the death sentence imposed by the lower court, Peckham wrote, “the question whether, upon a consideration of the facts, the extreme penalty of the law should be carried out upon this defendant is not one over which this Court has jurisdiction.”[xix] Thus, the sentence of hanging pronounced by the lower court loomed ahead. However, on October 28 th , 1902, based on a recommendation by Attorney General Philander Chase. Knox, who surmised that the Choctaw leader “honestly believed in witchcraft,” and “that under the load of distress and the influence of liquor there had been a revival of savage instincts for which the Indian should not be held to account with the extreme penalty,” President Theodore Roosevelt commuted Hotema’s sentence to life imprisonment.[xx] After the commutation Hotema was sent to Fort McPherson, the federal prison at Atlanta, Georgia, where he resided until April 23, 1907, when he died of “phthisis pulmonalis, tuberculosis, in other words: the white plague.”[xxi] His attorney, Thomas C. Humphry was partially compensated for his work through the reception of the shotgun that Hotema had used to kill the supposed witches.
The case of Solomon Hotema and his efforts to rid his homeland of witches in the name of religion is not unique and continues to the present day. From the very beginning of Christianity until 1484, there were “probably more than several thousand” witches killed.[xxii] From the 14 th through the 17 th centuries, scholars estimate that there were “40,000 to 100,000” witches executed.[xxiii] Some sources suggest that about 80% of executed witches were female and that most commonly they were “burned at the stake or hanged.”[xxiv] Even in Oklahoma, two years before Hotema administered his brand of justice, Lucy Factor, a Chickasaw, was suspected of “casting magic spells” which caused the death of Mary Gilcrest,[xxv] Her husband and a friend went to Lucy’s home “and shot her to death.”[xxvi] More contemporarily, during a two year period from 1994-1996, “several hundred people were accused of witchcraft in the Northern Province of South Africa, and were lynched by frightened mobs.”[xxvii] A few years later, from 2005 through 2011, in Tanzania, “reports say around 3,000 people were killed after being accused of being witches.”[xxviii] And in 2014, in the same country, “seven villagers were burned alive on suspicion of witchcraft.”[xxix] Hopefully, as time goes on, people will become more educated and less superstitious and realize that just because someone makes an argument that witchcraft contributes to a problem, doesn’t mean that the claim is a fact.
In 1898, an epidemic of meningitis infected the area in which Hotema resided. Hotema had married Nancy Coleman in 1883, and they had three children. His son Jonah, who was “Solomon’s pride and joy” died from the disease in the spring of 1899.[v] Solomon was devastated by the loss of his child as were the members of the community who had also lost friends and loved ones. Rumors spread “that the epidemic was caused by witches.”[vi] Prayer meetings were held, and finally “a reputed forty-nine-year-old medicine man named Sam Tarnatubby” was consulted on the matter.[vii] He informed Hotema about the cause of the scourge and asserted that the victims of the disease had been bewitched. He also gave Hotema the names of those who had performed witchcraft and were responsible for the deaths of his son and the other innocent individuals who lived near Grant. Solomon had become an ordained Presbyterian minister and decided that it was his Christian duty to rid the region of those who had bedeviled his people. Along with two companions, Sam Frye and Tobias Williams, all fellow Choctaws, Hotema proceeded to go on a murderous rampage, killing Vina Coleman, Mrs. Hull Greenwood, and Alfred Morris, on April 14, 1899, near the church that he had founded. [viii]
Beltane is a popular witchcraft holiday that takes place on April 30th or May 1st. It is a celebration of fertility, love, and the coming of summer. Beltane is often marked by bonfires, dancing, and rituals to honor the earth's vitality and the abundance of life. Midsummer, also known as Litha, is celebrated on June 21st and is the summer solstice. It is a time for witches to honor the sun, engage in divination practices, and celebrate the peak of nature's energy and growth. Samhain, observed on October 31st, is perhaps one of the most well-known witchcraft holidays. It is a time to honor the ancestors, communicate with spirits, and acknowledge the thinning of the veil between worlds. Samhain also marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. Winter solstice, or Yule, is celebrated around December 21st and marks the shortest day of the year. It is a time of introspection, reflection, and the welcoming of the return of the sun. Many witches and pagans engage in rituals and celebrations that symbolize rebirth and the hope for new beginnings. These are just a few of the witchcraft holidays that practitioners may observe in 2023. It is important to note that these holidays hold different meanings and traditions for various pagan paths and individuals. The celebration and practice of witchcraft holidays are deeply personal and can vary depending on individual beliefs and practices within the witchcraft community..
Reviews for "Exploring the Enchanting World of Witchcraft Holidays in 2023"
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