Tlingit witchcraft accusations
In 1881 officers of the USS Jamestown at Sitka reported people accused of witchcraft (nakws'aati) among the Tlingit, in a period when shamans' accusations could lead to the tying and starving of suspects.
1881 CE · 57.05, -135.33 · status: account
The account
Missionaries and naval officers of the 1880s wrote often of such cases, sometimes stepping in to free those accused, who were often children, orphans or the elderly. Ethnographers such as Frederica de Laguna later described Tlingit ideas of witchcraft and the shaman's role in finding witches. The accounts come mostly from outsiders with their own agendas, and Tlingit communities tell this history in their own terms.
The sceptical view
Missionary sources exaggerated 'heathen' cruelty to justify their work, so numbers and details are uncertain.