The most chilling witchcraft story I've ever read appears in Leslie Marmon
Silko's book CEREMONY and in her collection of stories called STORYTELLER.
I'd love to type the whole story out and send it to folks, but that would be
rude to Leslie's copyright. You can't go wrong reading Ceremony,
particularly not folks who've enjoyed Hillerman and want a different slant
into Native American life. Well, OK, maybe some people could go wrong
reading Ceremony, but if you're reading the book and not enjoying it, look
for the story about witchcraft. It takes up several pages in the book, I
don't remember exactly where, and it's guaranteed to kick you in the teeth.
For that matter, if you manage to go ahead and tackle Silko's monstrously
dark THE ALMANAC OF THE DEAD, you'll be able to compare that book to the
witchcraft story and maybe get a hint of what, exactly, Silko's unconscious
mind had attempted to accomplish. Hell, not to be too cryptic, the
witchcraft story is an origin story, of sorts. Of Europeans. And Almanac of
the Dead is a kind of spell, I think, a spell to get rid of Europeans. I
always did think that we Europeans hit the new world like a plague of Broo,
and this story by Silko seems webbed to accomplish something concrete by
expressing that fact.
- --Rob Heinsoo
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #7