I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you. Why was she doing that? And I heard a screeching and gibberish coming from her mouth. She were swaying like a dumb beast over that fire!
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris describes to Abigail the scene he witnessed in the woods, leading him to infer that the girls were engaging in witchcraft. Parris dehumanizes Tituba, his black slave from Barbados, by describing her in a racist animal simile as "swaying like a dumb beast."