Voodoo Doll: Meaning, History, Origins & Common Myths Voodoo Doll: What History Actually Shows Most people picture a voodoo doll as a small human-shaped figure with pins stuck into it to cause pain or harm. That image is familiar, but it does not accurately describe the full history of the object or the religious traditions associated with the word “voodoo.” The history is more complicated. Figures called bocio, made by Fon artists and ritual specialists in what is now Benin, are documented by major museums as empowered objects connected with protection, spiritual power, and other purposes. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, describes bocio as figures associated particularly with…