This is the story of an Arawak woman called Tituba: how she was kidnapped by the English from South America when she was just a young girl and enslaved. Growing up on a plantation in Barbados, she absorbed multiple cultural influences from her fellow enslaved Africans and her English mistress. Her inner world becomes a confluence of Arawak, West African, and English myths and magic. We follow her as she is taken by a frustrated and angry young Puritan man named Samuel Parris to a new life in Massachusetts. They arrive first in Boston and then move to Salem Village, a small frontier community infested with jealousy and rivalry, and haunted by fear and suspicion.
All music written by Brian O'Connell except "Old Oxford Tune (Psalm 4)" adapted from the Bay Psalm Book, 1698.
Episode 1 Parts:
Part I - Witch Hunt Theme
Part II - Oxford Tune
Part III - Captured and Enslaved
Part IV - The Cunning Tradition
Part V - Parris, Boston, and Salem
Part VI - Witch Hunt Theme (reprise)
Variation on the Oxford Tune
(Music adapted from The Bay Psalm Book, published in Boston in 1698)
Do you know of the coming storm?
The people gone astray
Their sins break free Satan from his chains
Stars fall, moon turns to blood
Fear, greed, and gossip rule the day
Old rivalries reborn
Blame cast upon thy neighbor’s home
The Beast is free to roam
Brian O'Connell - voice, bass guitar, fretless bass, touch guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, keyboards, synthesizers, sintir, percussion
Mike Harmon - drums, cymbals, percussion
Recorded at Studio Vinniechops and Wachusett Recording.
History Book Sources
"Tituba - Reluctant Witch of Salem - Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies"
by Elaine G. Breslaw, New York University Press, 1996
"The Devil's Dominion - Magic and Religion in Early New England"
by Richard Godbeer, Cambridge University Press, 1992