“High on believing” a con
“A [true] Witch Story” (from 1899) that still resonates.
In 1899, The Newton Enterprise tells us “A Witch Story” that’s apparently true and seems to have some relevance to current events. Chris Detter claimed to be a witch doctor and “represented himself to [Martin Smith] that his sister, an inmate of his house, was bewitched.” After treating her for some time, Detter claimed that “the whole house and every crack in the house was full of witches and that the only way to get rid of them and cure the patient was to burn the house.”
“Smith and his family has such implicit confidence in the witch doctor that the house was set on fire and burned down. During the burning the doctor stood by with a big stick to kill the witches as they came out. But after the fire he claimed that they had escaped up the chimney. Smith had a large fat hog and the doctor claimed that the witches had taken refuge in the hog, but that they could be driven out by hitting the hog between the eyes. Acting on the doctor’s instructions Smith took a big stick of wood and hit the hog on the head while the doctor held the hog’s mouth open with a large butcher knife to enable the witches to escape. The first lick was not hard enough and the doctor called for a harder lick. The next blow killed the hog. Then the doctor said that certain portions of the hog, if eaten by any…
