The Doll Baby

“Makes a doll baby an’ name it de person dey want.” A Richmond informant gave Hyatt the whole principle in nine words. Make the figure, give it a name, and from then on what happens to the doll happens to the person.

Hyatt heard of doll babies from Virginia to New Orleans. They were stuck with needles, buried in coffins, melted, sewn shut and left at doorways as traps. A few were made to heal. Most were not.

What it is

A doll baby is a small human figure made to stand for one person. Informants made them from cloth, from wax, from candle wax, even from snake hide, and stuffed them with roots, sawdust or other material.

The naming is the work. Hyatt counted the named doll as a kind of hand: an object given its own power, like a mojo shaped as a person.

What Hyatt’s informants said

A Brunswick informant described a wax figure worked with a needle. Stick it in the hand, arm, eye or foot to hurt that part, and “if yo’ wanta kill it, stick dat needle right in de heart” (Hyatt 7998 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1174). He said the same was done with a drawn picture.

In New Orleans a doll was named, kept in a box under a black candle for nine mornings, then laid in a little coffin with nine red beans and buried with the target’s name and a lemon. Its purpose: “that make ’em all upset – that will make ’em wander, see” (Hyatt 2926 · New Orleans, La. · informant 834).

The variations

• Needle and pin dolls. In Richmond a doll was named, filled with needles, pins and roots, sewn up, wrapped with cord tied in a bow and buried (Hyatt 8005 · Richmond, Va. · informant 428).
• The coffin doll. Another New Orleans worker stuck a doll baby with thirteen pins, laid it in a small coffin bored with seventeen holes, dressed it with van-van and wahoo powder and buried it about 25 feet from a cemetery. It was said to kill in 18 months (Hyatt 8009 · New Orleans, La. · informant 819).
• The coffin without a doll. In Waycross they made an image of a coffin, killed a bird or a rabbit, put it inside with the victim’s name and buried it (Hyatt 1804 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1148).
• The no-nature doll. A doll shaped like a person, made from snake hide and stuffed with sawdust and brown sugar, was kept under a bed so that a man would have no nature for his wife (Hyatt 1841 · New Orleans, La. · informant 828).
• The healing doll. One New Orleans worker made a doll baby trimmed with ribbons, tying a knot for each time she had suffered a disease (Hyatt 1049 · New Orleans, La. · informant 877).

The doll baby booby trap

A doll left at a door was dangerous to touch and dangerous to destroy. Hyatt filed one case under the margin title Wrong Remedy. In Wilmington a woman came home to find a fixed doll in her doorway and swept it into the fire. The doll had been fixed for exactly that: “three weeks aftah that, she got burned up” (Hyatt 1048 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 193).

The right remedy, the informant said, was to throw it away or get someone who understood the work to take it up.

In their own words

“long as dat baby lay in de dirt, yo’ll withah away an’ go”

(Hyatt 8005 · Richmond, Va. · informant 428)

“she took de doll and swept de doll in de fiah”

(Hyatt 1048 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 193)

“You see, you takes a doll – you make it like in the shape of a person.”

(Hyatt 2926 · New Orleans, La. · informant 834)

How it’s worked today

Doll baby work is still central to rootwork. Workers sew cloth dolls stuffed with herbs and personal concerns, carve figures from candle wax, and name them before working them.

Pins are still placed at the body part to be affected, and dolls are still buried, burned or kept for long workings. The same method is used for love, healing and protection, as well as for harm. Experienced workers still treat any doll found on their property as a fix to be lifted, never handled carelessly.

Learn the work

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Source: Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork, 5 vols., 1970-1978. Numbers refer to Hyatt’s own item numbers; the town and informant number follow. Written by Hoodoo Witch in our own words, with short quotations from Hyatt’s informants for reference.