Why are magic ‘witch bottles' used for spells washing up on Texas beaches?

Jace Tunnell, Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at TAMU-CC

Centuries ago, people believed evil spells could be thwarted with witch bottles, glass vessels stuffed with human hair, urine, fingernail clippings, iron nails and other tidbits.

Even now, the eerie bottles wash up on Texas’ Gulf shore, extending from North Padre Island to Matagorda Island.

The Corpus Christi-based Harte Research Institute, which is part of Texas A&M University, shared its latest find last week on Facebook. To be clear, Jace Tunnell, director of community engagement, can’t tell what exactly is in this bottle because he declines to open it.

Over the years, Tunnell has found eight or so of the bottles and never opened one, he told McClatchy News. He has five on his backyard fence that his wife refuses to allow inside the house.

“Folks in certain cultures around the world put vegetation or other objects in a bottle,” the institute wrote on Facebook. “They are counter magical devices whose purpose is to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at their owners.”

It’s not known where the bottles come from, but Tunnell said they likely originated in the Caribbean and South America.

Earlier this year, while counting birds and looking for stranded sea turtles, Tunnell found a massive American eel on Mustang Island.