What does this tactic mean to you or tell you?

Many years ago a group of villagers wanted to bring down a tree, instead of using an ax to chop it down and use much energy, all of the villagers gathered around the tree and cursed at it, spit at it, gave it dirty looks, said despicable words to it, day and night, over and over, until eventually the tree died on it's own. What does this tell you, how do you interpret this?