WHATISAWITCHBOTTLE?

Nearly 200 ceramic and glass jars, jugs, bottles and vials containingbentnailsandpins,bitsoffabric,humanhair, fingernail clippings, and other unusual artifacts, have been reported in England and the United States (Becker 2005; Hoggard 2004). Known as witch bottles, they represent a form of sympathetic magic intended to counter the harmful spell of a suspected witch or to protectahouseholdfromevilandmisfortune.

BURIEDBOTTLES:
THEARCHAEOLOGYOFWITCHCRAFTANDSYMPATHETICMAGIC

WITCHBOTTLESINTHEORALANDWRITTENRECORD

Accounts of witch bottles are common in both England and the United States from the 17th century onward, appearing in witchcraft trial proceedings, printed sermons and essays, and collectionsoffolklore.

The Holywell Witch Bottle, an English example of a 17th century Bellarmine jar that contained60bentpins(MuseumofLondon).

The earliest known examples of witch bottles date to themid16thcenturywhenwitchcraftandmagicwerea part of everyday life (Merrifield 1955, 1987). Historians have generally assumed that belief in witchcraft in both Europe and the United States gradually declined in the 18th century, disappearing with the emergence and spread of the Enlightenment (Becker 1978:2). However, there is evidence to suggest that the practice continued much longer that previously realized, and in some areas isstillaliveandwelleventoday.

DEPARTMENTOFANTHROPOLOGY

M.CHRISMANNING

AMERICANWITCHBOTTLES

HOWDIDTHEYWORK?

Only a handful of examples of witch bottles have been documented in the United States, the earliest dating to the mid18th century. Although there are many parallels, American witch bottles differ from English examples in that they are all glass bottles or vials instead of stoneware jugs. Those that have been identified to date have all been found in the New England or MidAtlantic regions, with the exception of a possible example from Kentucky (Barber 2006; Davis, pers. comm. 2011). Archaeologist Marshall Becker was the first to identify a witch bottle in the United States, later reporting five additional examples that had largely gone unpublished (Becker 1978, 2005). In recent years, two more examples of potential witch bottles have been excavated (Barber 2006; King 1996), although not everyoneisconvincedthattheselatestcasesareindeedwitchbottles(Becker,pers.comm.2011).

In his 1684 sermon against socalled white magic, Increase Mather wondered How persons that shall unbewitch others by putting Urin into a Bottle [. . .] can wholly clear themselves from being witches (Mather 1684:269). Seven years later his son, Cotton Mather, also expressed his disapproval of the Urinary experiment in which the Urine must be bottled with Nails and Pinns, and such Instruments in it as carry a Shew of Torture with them, if it attain its End (Mather 1691, quoted in Godbeer 1992:44).

IncreaseMathersIllustrious Providences(1684).

Witch bottles can be recognized by their unusual contentsgenerally a combination of pins, needles and nails, or less frequently, other sharp objects such as thorns, shards of glass, and splinters of wood. Along with sharp objects, witch bottles usually contain elements conducive to sympathetic or image magic, including human hair, fingernail clippings and urine. On occasion, a heartshaped piece of felt, fabric or leather pierced with pinsandneedleshasalsobeenfound.

ESSINGTONWITCHBOTTLE,TINICUMISLAND,DELAWARECOUNTY,PENNSYLVANIA
The Essington witch bottle was the first example identified in the United States (Becker 1978). It is described as a squat, dark olive green wine bottle dated to 174050, containing six brass pins and tightly sealed with a whittled wood stopper (Becker 1978, 2005). The bottle was found during the excavation of a mid17th century structure occupiedbyanEnglishfamilyduringmuchofthe18thcentury,whenitisbelievedthebottlewasdeposited(Becker 1978). The bottle was found in an inverted position in a small hole dug near the base of a chimney. In addition to thebottle,asherdofblackglazedredwareandthelongboneofabird(possiblyapartridge)werealsofoundinthe feature, directly under the shoulder of the bottle. In addition, Becker (1978, 2005) has suggested that at one time the bottle also contained urine and a felt heart long since decayed or evaporated, although physical evidence is inconclusive.

In the first decades of the 20th century, American folklorists collected numerous accounts of the continued use of witch bottles and similar magical objects. Puckett (1926) recorded a method for curing someone who is conjured. The African American informant described how an afflicted person could get nine needles, nine brass pins, and nine hairs from your own head. Cork these up in a bottle with some of your urine and set the bottle in the back of your fireplace. [. . .] When the bottle bursts, all your ailments will leave you (Puckett 1926:299). Hyatt (1935) recorded a similar account from a German American informant in Adams County, Illinois: We had a neighbor who we thought was bewitching my son. So I took a bottle and got a paper of pins and put them in the bottle, then put my urine in and cork the bottle up and put it down in the cellar in a dark place. And sure enough, that neighbor came to our house withherfaceallfulloflittlepinholes.Andmysongotwellafterthat(Hyatt1935:544).

21STCENTURYADAPTATIONS

From documentary evidence we know how witch bottles were both constructed and used. When someone experienced unexplained illness or misfortune, witchcraft Bellarmine witch bottle and contents, was often suspected. To cure the afflicted, the necessary found in the mud of the Thames River, ingredients were put inside a bottle that was then tightly London(Merrifield1955). sealed and placed in a hot fireplace. As the contents of the bottle simmered, the witch responsible for attacking the unfortunate victim would experience excruciating pain and have trouble urinating. If the bottle exploded (as it often did), the witch would be instantly killed. To induce a slower death, the bottle could be buried, preferably near thehearthwheretheheatofthefirewould continue to warm the contents, thereby amplifyingthepain.

MARKETSTREETWITCHBOTTLE,PITTSBURGH,PENNSYLVANIA
In 1981, during excavations at the Market Street Site in downtown Pittsburgh, an Americanmade, freeblown, aquamarineglassbottlewasexcavatedfromthebottomofabricklinedcistern.Thebottlewastightlysealedwitha cork and contained a murky fluid that might have been urine as well as two fabric shoe insole patterns wrapped up inside a roughly triangular or heartshaped piece of felt pierced with nine brass pins and three needles (Alexandrowicz1986;Becker2005:1920).Thepinshadstampedheads,aprocesspatentedin1824,whichdatesthe bottle to the first half of the 19th century. The presence of the shoe insole patterns is particularly interesting, as there is evidence that shoes served a magical or apotropaic function in both England and the United States (Merrifield 1987). Becker, however, has suggested that the victim of the bewitchment may have had some type of footdisorder,possiblywithbilateralsymptoms,andattemptedtousethesepatternsasameansofcounteractingits effect(Becker2005:19).

EssingtonWitchBottle(top),thewoodstopperandfourpinsfoundinside,andanassociated redwaresherdandbirdbone(bottom)(Becker1978,2005).

In the United States, the English tradition of witch bottles as countermagic appears to have merged with African religious and magical traditions. Hoodoo, a syncretic belief system incorporating elements from both African and European sources, was (and appears to still be) widely practiced in the South, particularly among Black Americans. It appears that conjure bottles took the place of malevolent conjure bags in some areas, particularly those settled by the English (Anderson 2005:61). The contents of conjure bottles are adapted to a wide variety of magical functions and frequently contain typically African elements such as hot red pepper powder, graveyard dirt, and/or goofer dust, plus a piece of paper containing the intended victims name (Yronwode 2000). Furthermore, modern or New Age witchesthose who subscribe to the Wicca faith construct bottle spells in a similar fashion. In the case of both hoodoo and Wicca assemblages, the term witch bottle is not be appropriate and the more general terms of conjurebottle,bottlespellorbottlecharmarepreferable.

LEWESBOTTLE,DELAWARE
In the 1960s, a glass bottle containing pins was excavated at the site of a colonial Dutch fort, from an intrusive pit featurebelievedtobeassociatedwiththedoorwayofamorerecentfarmhouse.Thebottleanditscontentsarenot described in the original report, but Becker (2005) dates the bottle to 170050. Unfortunately, no other details are availableconcerningthisexample,asitwasnotwelldocumentedatthetimeofexcavation.

Databasedonasurveyof187witchbottles,approximatelyhalfof whichhadnoassociatedcontents(Hoggard2004).

AsurveyofEnglishwitchbottlesconducted by Hoggard (2004) reveals that among bottles with known contents (about half of the sample), 90% contained iron pins or nails, suggesting they are a good indicator of this artifact type. In addition, witch bottles are frequently found in an inverted position, buried under or near hearths and chimneys, or under thresholds, walls, and foundations. Merrifield (1955) has also observed that in certain parts of England, witch bottles were regularly deposited in rivers, streams, and ditches as well as in churchyards.

COVELANDSCHARM,PROVIDENCE,RHODEISLAND
A small, hand blown clear glass medicine vial containing six straight pins was recovered from the site of an early 19th century building near Providence, Rhode Island. The vial has been dated to 17801820 and is probably associatedwithanearlierstructurethatoncestoodonthesite(Becker2005:18).

HORNPOINTWITCHBOTTLE,DORCHESTERCOUNTY,MARYLAND
During excavations at a mid19th or early 20th century tenant house site on Marylands Eastern shore, the broken neck of an olive green glass wine bottle dating to the mid18th century was recovered. Part of the stopper still remained in the bottle and a total of 17 nickelplated copper pins, both straight and bent, were stuck into both the insideandoutsidesurfacesofthecork(Becker2005:1718;Morehouse2009).

Bottle charms continue to be made today and provide an interesting comparison to historic witch bottles (Yronwode 2000). In 1988, a small plastic medicine bottle containing a halfpenny, a dime, teeth, a wrapped piece of metal, and a small vial of Written spell found inside a plastic bottle charm recovered from oil was found on the banks of Englands Louisianas Vermilion River (left); modern plastic bottle charm recoveredfromtheThamesRiver(right). Thames River (Powell 2008). In Ontario, Canada, a police officer apprehended a man in possession of a plastic bottle containing urine and razor blades, for protection from bad people (Andrews 2009), while in Louisianamorethanfourdozenbrownplasticprescriptionbottlesfilledwithpowderand writtenspellshavebeenrecoveredfromtheVermilionRiver(Blanchard2004).
LinedrawingoftheMarketStreetWitchBottleanditscontents,includingaheartshapedpieceof feltpiercedwithpinsandneedles,andtwofabricshoeinsolepatterns(Alexandrowicz1986).

REFERENCES

GREATNECKWITCHBOTTLE,VIRGINIABEACH,VIRGINIA

OPENINGANENGLISHWITCHBOTTLE

In 2004, a sealed saltglazed ceramic Bellarmine jug was excavated from a site in Greenwich, London. Because the Greenwich example was recognized as a witch bottle early on, researchers were able to conduct extensive analysis in laboratory conditions, thefirstsuchwitchbottletobestudiedinthisway.

In 1979, a small, narrow, light green glass medicine vial was discovered at the edge of a cliff near the site of a 17th century structure at Virginia Beach. The vial, dated to 16901750, was found buried in an inverted position and containedapproximately25brasspinsandatleastthreeironnailsfusedtogetherbyoxidation.Therealsoappeared to be a light ambercolored film in the lower portion of the vial that was interpreted as human urine but was never testedduetocontaminationduringinitialcleaning(Becker2005:18;Painter1980).

PATUXENTPOINTSITE(18CV271),CALVERTCOUNTY,MARYLAND
During salvage excavations at an early colonial site in Calvert County, Maryland, occupied from 16581680, a pit feature was found to contain the remains of four glass case bottles which appear to have been placed in the pit in an inverted or nearinverted position (King 1996:27). In addition to hundreds of fragments of bottle glass, the pit also contained the remains of three iron nails, a pigs pelvic bone, the lower jaw bone of a possum or raccoon, and an oyster shell and chert flake (both believed to be redeposited prehistoric artifacts). The unique nature of the pit deposit has been noted, andbased on the inverted position of the bottles, the presence of iron nails and two unusual animal bones, as well as the features location near a domestic structureit has been proposed that the artifacts represent the remains of four witch bottles (King 1996:28). As King (1996) admits, however, there is no indication of many of the usual contents of a witch bottle such as pins or other sharp objects, a felt heart, human hair or nail clippings, or urine. As a result, some archaeologists have expressed doubt that these are indeed the remains of witch bottles (Becker, pers. comm. 2011). If the deposit does represent one or more witch bottles, they wouldbetheearliestknownexamplesintheUnitedStates.

Xrays, CTscans,andgas chromatographyanalysisshowed the bottle contained nailsand pins and was partially filled with liquid. Furthermore, the position of the oxidized nails and pins in the neck of the bottle suggested it had been buried in an inverted position. Upon opening the bottle, it was found to include eight bent brass pins, twelve iron nails, ten fingernail clippings from a wellmanicured hand (suggesting higher social status), a piece of heartshaped leather pierced with a bent nail, human hair, navel fluff, and human urine (which chemical analysis showed contained traces of nicotine). There was alsochemicalevidenceofbrimstoneorsulfurinthebottle(Geddes2009;Pitts2009).
XrayimageandpartialcontentsoftheGreenwichWitchBottle(Geddes2009).

Broken bottle neck with straight and bent pins from the Horn Point Witch Bottle, Maryland (left) (Morehouse 2009); line drawing of the Great Neck Witch Bottle and pins from Virginia Beach, Virginia(right)(Painter1980).

ARMSTRONGFARMSTEAD(15FA185),FAYETTECOUNTY,KENTUCKY
SalvageexcavationsattheArmstrongFarmsteadinKentuckyrecoveredasmall,handblownglassmedicinevial, sealedwithacork,withfourstraightpinsinside.Thebottle,whichwasdatedto181050,isassociatedwithasmall structureandisdescribedasveryunique(Barber2006:164).Althoughitisnotidentifiedasapossiblewitch bottleintheofficialreport,anarchaeologistwhoreviewedthereportrecognizedthesimilaritytoknownexamples (Davies,pers.comm.2010;Davis,pers.comm.2011).Furthermore,tenadditionalpinswerefoundbytheentrance toanotherstructureatthesite(Davis,pers.comm.2011).Atleastoneofthepinsfromthesite(althoughnot necessarilyfromtheentrance)waspurposefullybentintoauniquecircularorwhorlshape.Althoughthebentpin appearsinaphotointhereport,nodiscussionofthepinoritslocationappearelsewhereinthereport.Other relevantitemsexcavatedfromthesitethatarenotdiscussedinthereportbutwhichmightindicatethepresenceof folkmagicincludeaCatholicmedallionandapiercedsilvercoin(Davis,pers.comm.2011).

Alexandrowicz,J.Stephen 1986TheMarketStreetWitchBottle,Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania.ProceedingsoftheSymposiumonOhioValleyUrbanandHistoricArchaeologyIV:117 132. Anderson,JeffreyE. 2005ConjureinAfricanAmericanSociety.LouisianaStateUniversityPress,BatonRouge. Andrews,MarkE. 2009Bottlesandblades.BritishArchaeology108(September/October).Electronicdocument,http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba108/letters.shtml, accessedApril19,2011. Barber,JenniferL. 2006PhaseIIandIIIArchaeologicalExcavationsattheArmstrongFarmstead(15Fa185),FayetteCounty,Kentucky.ReportonfilewithCultural ResourceAnalysts,Inc.,Lexington,Kentucky. Becker,MarshallJ. 1978AnEighteenthCenturyWitchBottleinDelawareCounty,Pennsylvania.PennsylvaniaArchaeologist48(12):111. 2005AnUpdateonColonialWitchBottles.PennsylvaniaArchaeologist75(2):1223. Blanchard,Kevin 2004BottlesofhoodootakenfromVermilionRiver.TheAdvocate(BatonRouge,Louisiana),September3. Geddes,Linda 2009Londonsmagicalhistoryuncorkedfromwitchbottle.NewScientist(June4).Electronicdocument,http://www.newscientist.com/article/ dn17245londonsmagicalhistoryuncorkedfromwitchbottle.html,accessedSeptember15,2009. Godbeer,Richard 1992TheDevilsDominion:MagicandReligioninEarlyNewEngland.CambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork. Hoggard,Brian 2004Thearchaeologyofcounterwitchcraftandpopularmagic.InBeyondtheWitchTrials:WitchcraftandMagicinEnlightenmentEurope,editedby Owen DaviesandWillemdeBlecourt,pp.167186.ManchesterUniversityPress,NewYork. Hyatt,HarryMiddleton 1935FolkLorefromAdamsCounty,Illinois.AlmaEganHyattFoundation,NewYork. King,JuliaA. 1996ThePatuxentPointSite.InLivingandDyingonthe17thCenturyPatuxentFrontier,JuliaA.KingandDouglasH.Ubelaker,editors,pp.1546. MarylandHistoricalTrustPress,Crownsville. Mather,Increase 1684AnEssayfortheRecordingofIllustriousProvidences. Merrifield,Ralph 1955WitchbottlesandMagicalJugs.FolkLore66(March):195207. 1987TheArchaeologyofRitualandMagic.NewAmsterdam,NewYork. Morehouse,Rebecca 2009WitchBottle.JeffersonPattersonPark&Museum,MarylandDepartmentofPlanning.Electronicdocument,http://www.jefpat.org/ CuratorsChoiceArchive/2009CuratorsChoice/Aug2009WitchBottle.html,accessedApril17,2011. Painter,Floyd 1980AnEarly18thCenturyWitchBottle.Chesopiean18(6):6271. Pitts,Mike 2009UrinetoNavelFluff:TheFirstCompleteWitchBottle.BritishArchaeology107(July/August).Electronicdocument,http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ ba107/news.shtml,accessedSeptember15,2009. Powell,Nicky 2008TheHolywellwitchbottle.MuseumofLondon.Electronicdocument,http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/News/Archive/News08/ witchbottle.htm,accessedApril19,2011. Puckett,NewbellNiles 1926FolkBeliefsoftheSouthernNegro.UniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,ChapelHill. Yronwode,Catherine 2000WitchBottles:HoodooandBritish.TheArcaneArchive.Electronicdocument,http://www.arcanearchive.org/occultism/magic/folk/ hoodoo/witchbottleshoodooandbritish1.php,accessedMarch14,2011.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Suspected witch bottle and associated artifacts from the Patuxent Point Site, Maryland (left) (King 1996); glass medicine vial containing four straight pins, and an unusual whorled pin, both excavatedfromtheArmstrongFarmstead,Kentucky(right)(Barber2006).

I am indebted to the following individuals: Dr. Mark Groover, Dr. Colleen Boyd and Dr. Ron Hicks, for serving on my thesis committee; Dr. MarshallBecker,forhisinsightfulcorrespondenceonAmericanwitchbottles;DanDavis,forfirstrecognizingtheArmstrongwitchbottleand providing important details on the find; Kevin CupkaHead and Dr. Owen Davies, who helped track down the Armstrong Farmstead site report;andfellowresearchersBrianHoggardandMeganSpringate,fortheircontinuedprofessionalsupportandencouragement.