Chapter 3 Considerations When Killing a Witch: Developments in Exorcistic Attitudes to Witchcraft in Mesopotamia Mesopotamian ideas about witches and witchcraft underwent change over time. Many witchcraft ideas and practices originated in the popular sphere and then entered into the mainstream of urban religion and culture. There, they were re-shaped, in part by their new environment and their increasing importance. In this essay, I shall describe one aspect of this development. More precisely, I shall point to some developments in the interaction of witchcraft and general exorcism ( ¯ aˇ sip¯ utu) and shall exemplify the interaction by noticing the changing treatments of the witch. By ‘changing treatments’ I have in mind the different styles of ritual (that is, symbolic) killing or execution by which the witch was destroyed or eliminated, that is, the different modes of death to which she was subjected. Introduction: Witchcraft and Exorcism The witch originally belonged to the popular level of Mesopotamian culture, and only eventually did s/he become part of the domain of the temple exorcist. To be sure, the witch is usually regarded as an anti-social and illegitimate practitioner of destructive magic, a practitioner whose activities were motivated by malice and evil intent and who was opposed by the ¯ aˇ sipu, an exorcist or incantation-priest. But, earlier, the witch had a different form, and witchcraft and ¯ aˇ sip¯ utu belonged to different social or cultural worlds. Several stages can be identified in the development of Mesopotamian witchcraft; the developmental scheme is similar to one discernible also in Europe. The development in Mesopotamia begins with an early stage of “popular” witchcraft comparable to the archaic shamanistic stage of European witchcraft. 1 In this early popular form, the “witch” probably belonged to a rural, non-urban world. S/he was not of necessity an evil being and took the form of both a ‘white’ and ‘black’ witch. Not infrequently, she helped her fellows by means of magical abilities and medical knowledge; in this popular form, she occasionally exhibited behaviour otherwise associated with ecstatic types of practitioners. For his part, the exorcist ( ¯ aˇ sipu) is well known as a practitioner who confronted the evil forces that threatened human well-being. He was expert at dealing with supernatural forces or beings such as demons. He was a legitimate practitioner of magic, a mainstream ‘white magician’ whose material reflected a belief system bound up with such major gods as Enki/Ea and Asalluh ˘ i. 1 See my “Demonic Image,” pp. 31–39 (= chapter 1 of the present volume) and “Ascent,” pp. 31–32 and 38–39, nn. 39–44 (= chapter 13 of the present volume). 65