Which woman is a witch? The stereotypic notions about witches in Croatian traditional beliefs

Sažetak

The results of a recent field research showed that the breaking of taboos or social, moral or religious values, causes women to "become'" witches. It all starts with a rumor and gossip about some ugly, unmarried, divorced, promiscuous, old or too pretty women in the village. But they are still not branded as witches until a certain negative incident or misfortunate event occurs. Then those women next-door, who were previously marked as undesirable, are accused for the disaster and the accusers are hence resolved of all responsibility.