The trouble broke out in the family of the minister of the village, Parris by name, who had shortly before had serious difficulties with some of his congregation.[78] His daughter and his niece, girls ten or eleven years old, began to make the same complaints that had been made by the Goodwin children in Boston three years before. The physicians found themselves at a loss, and hence were quite convinced that the ailments were supernatural, and declared that the children were bewitched. An Indian woman named Tituba, a servant in the house, tried some experiments of a somewhat disgusting nature, which she claimed would discover who the witch was that was tormenting them. When the girls knew what she had done, they immediately cried out that Tituba appeared to them, pricking and tormenting them, and straightway fell into convulsions. The woman, alarmed at this, confessed what she had been doing, but stoutly maintained that, though she knew how to find out witches she herself was none. The condition of the children excited much attention, and the more they were investigated the worse they grew, and soon several others were seized with the same symptoms. These all had their fits, and when in them would accuse not only the Indian woman, but also two old half-witted crones in the neighborhood, one of whom was bed-ridden as well as imbecile. The three were committed to prison, where Tituba confessed that she was a witch and accused the others of being her confederates. They soon had company in the jail, as two others, women of character and position, Mistress Cory and Mistress Nurse, were complained of; and when they were brought to examination, all the children “fell into their fits” and insisted that the accused were tormenting them. The women naturally denied this outrageous charge, but in spite of their denial were committed to prison, and with them, so great was the infatuation and panic, a little child of only four years of age, who, as some of the girls insisted, “kept biting them with her little sharp teeth.”