Nashua Necromancy By Blake Sidewalker

The city of Nashua, in Southern New Hampshire, gets its name from the river, and in antiquated times the people were also called Nashua.  “Nashua” comes from the Abenaki dialect, and roughly translated is a commentary on the way the sun hits the rocks beneath the river.

Also in Abenaki is the word “Skadegamutc” which directly translates to “witch ghost”. An Abenaki sorcerer cheats death by becoming a Skadegamutc roaming the forest, and feeding upon unfortunate passers by.

A few miles Northwest of exit 5 off of 293 is the Gilson Cemetery. During the late seventeenth century this was the site of a massacre. This was also where a Nashua sorcerer practiced his dark arts. People would ask him to make them more powerful. He would do so by filling his clients with dark spirits. That’s why we became friends. 

It's not a secret in Nashua that the Gilson Cemetery is haunted. I noticed signs of necromancy upon my first visit; pillar candles that would have illuminated a weathered old grave if lit. It is not hard to contact a spirit here, but I ensured my success with a tea that I had brewed with a handful of blue lotus and one of yarrow.

The psychoactive properties of the tea enhance any skills with contacting the dead. This can also be aided with cannabis at the sorcerer’s discretion. It’s also important to factor in that most cemeteries close after dark.  Also be cautious about accumulating too many spiritual parasites. This measure consists merely of tossing three silver coins over the left shoulder while exiting the cemetery, and don’t look back; your gaze attracts spirits as much as the sparkle of silver.

It's important to ask the spirits for permission to enter a cemetery. This is done by stamping your left foot three times at the entrance of the site, asking verbally or telepathically to the spirits of the graveyard for permission to enter. You should probably know if the response is negative; there may be an anxious pressure of “wrongness”.

Any time I addressed the sorcerer at Gilson Cemetery, a chill rushed through my body, and my hair stood on end with goosebumps. He knew I was there. The cemetery seemed to offer me a large, dry root from the ground that served me as a staff. I used it in a ritual during a solar eclipse.

I kept coming back to Gilson Cemetery, forming a relationship with the Skadegamutc. After a few years, he entered my body, and I went through a strange ordeal. It was painful but I did gain some kind of power. I had access to situations that I couldn’t even imagine. 

At some point the Skadegamutc influenced my recording of his album. It sounds like something that they use to torture prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, but it’s available on Bandcamp if you look up Skadegamutc under the band Altars of Shaw. If you’ve ever wondered what a forest haunted by centuries of tragedy feels like then you might find it enlightening.