Ritual Bones in Folk Magic and Traditional Witchcraft

Disclaimer: The use of animal bones in spiritual or magical practices is not encouraged unless the bones have been inherited or scavenged from natural environments such as woods, fields, or beaches. Purchasing bones does not guarantee that they were ethically sourced.

Bones from animal totems are considered powerful tools in folk magic. In many Eurasian cultures, such tools were used in apotropaic and shamanic practices for protection, divination, healing, and communion with the Otherworld. Across East Asia, North America, and parts of Europe, so-called oracle bones were used to interpret messages from spirits or to foretell fate.

For example, in China, people in the Late Shang dynasty (1250–1050 BCE) used oracle bones, such as ox shoulder blades and turtle shells, to foretell the future. Diviners carved the king’s questions about weather, crops, wars, or the royal family onto the bones, then heated them until cracks formed. The cracks were interpreted as messages from the gods or ancestors, and the answers were written on the bones as well. Similarly, in Siberian and Uralic traditions, bones of sacred animals were used for spirit communication, and some believed they granted spiritual powers.

Symbolism of the Skeleton in Shamanism

Most ways bones are used in shamanism and folk magic today can be traced to hunter-gatherer life. For our early ancestors, bones were not mere leftovers but a source of life. Historian of Religions Mircea Eliade explains this in Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, stating that:

“Among hunting peoples, bones represent the final source of life, both human and animal, the source from which the species is reconstituted at will. This is why the bones of game are not broken, but carefully gathered up and disposed of according to custom, that is, buried, placed on platforms or in trees, thrown into the sea, and so on. From this point of view, the burial of animals exactly follows the method used for disposing of human remains. In both cases alike, the “soul” is presumed to reside in the bones, and hence the resurrection of the individual from its bones can be expected.”

Many Siberian shamanic costumes feature iron or metal pieces shaped like bones, sometimes forming a complete skeletal pattern on the costume. While some scholars initially suggested these imitate bird skeletons, research indicates that the skeleton often represents a human skeleton, or sometimes a combination of human and bird bones. The shaman himself may be seen as “wearing his own skeleton,” reenacting a spiritual rebirth or transformation. Shamans are believed to have been spiritually “dismembered” and then reborn, their bodies reconstituted by ancestral spirits in order to navigate the spiritual world.

Beyond the costume, bones are also used in divination and ritual tools. The shoulder blade of a ram, sheep, or seal may serve as an instrument to contact spirits, locate a patient’s soul, or gain knowledge of future events. Similar beliefs and practices regarding bones have been attested from South America to Eastern and Northern Europe, and even in Judeo-Christian and Buddhist traditions.

Bones in Romanian Folk Magic

In Romanian folk magic, bones were powerful talismans for protection and vitality. Skulls and bones from sacred animals such as bulls, oxen, rams, and horses were traditionally placed at the thresholds of houses, along fences, and at crossroads to ward off evil spirits, from mischievous fairies and devils to revenants.

Bones were also used in certain divinatory practices, especially for courtship and marriage. One ritual performed on St. Basil’s Eve involved taking three bones from a jellied meat dish and laying them out, assigning one to the current year, one to the next, and one to the year after that. A dog would then be called, and the bone it chose to take in its mouth would indicate the year in which the person would marry. After ceremonial feasts, such as on Easter, bones from leftovers, especially chicken bones, would be thrown over the house, invoking the hawk to take its share.

Bones were also incorporated into rites of passage for newborns. In parts of Hunedoara, a ritual device called the “wolf’s mouth”, made from a wolf’s jaw and hide, was used to symbolically impart the wolf’s strength and resilience to the child. Similarly, wolf and bear bones or fangs were carried as talismans for good luck and protection.

Yet bones could also carry a darker potency. So-called evil bones, stolen from graves or attained through sacrifice, were used in bindings and love spells to compel or deter a person’s affections. When someone was desperate to influence fate, they would dig up a bone from the dead and throw it in the yard of their desired partner, believing that they would be brought together.

Bones obtained through transgression and used as such are magically contaminated. That’s why folklore advises not to touch ritual bones discarded on roadsides, crossroads, borders, graveyards, and other such liminal places.

Bones in Ritual Practice

Bones can be cast, arranged, or marked to gain guidance from spirits, ancestors, or gods. Their shapes, markings, and orientation are often interpreted as messages about past, present, and future events. However, every witch or diviner often adapts the craft to their own correspondence system.

Beyond divination, bones serve as effigies or vessels for spirit animals and are used to protect the household or mark a sacred site. They may be decorated with symbols, painted with substances like red ochre, wine, natural dyes, or incorporated into ritual tools such as daggers, flutes, staffs, wands, or amulets.

While the use of bones in magical and ritual practices has its roots in hunter-gatherer societies, it is important to recognize that those were very different times. Our ancestors relied on animals for food, clothing, and tools. Many communities held animistic beliefs, so hunting was a ritualized act, and the bones of the game were treated as sacred.

Today, the context is very different. For this reason, bones used in modern magical practice should be sourced ethically by scavenging local woods, fields, or beaches to maintain their sacred integrity and continue the ancestral reverence for life.