Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/528

 of all the members of the family, the number of cattle they own, the amount of money they have, and sundry other questions concerning things supposed to be known only to members of the family. If to all these questions satisfactory answers are given, the person whose name is mentioned is accused of witchcraft, and, together with all his family, all in the house, must leave the neighborhood; everything belonging to them, except such articles as can be easily removed, is committed to the flames; they cannot sell their gardens nor rice-fields nor any other possession, since no one will risk the supposed contamination. The accused cannot settle in any adjoining neighborhood, but must go as strangers into some distant province occupied only by others like themselves driven from their homes upon charges of witchcraft. All the accumulations of a lifetime of thrift and economy may at any time be sacrificed to the whims of this blind credulity. This superstition is one of the greatest social evils; indeed, it entails more serious injury than all other beliefs and practices combined. No one receives any benefit from it; it is purely destructive. Hundreds of families are yearly driven from their homes in obedience to the requirements of this degrading prostitution of the human intellect.