Bottle Trees

Bottle Trees are prominent features across the South.

Glass ‘bottle trees’ originated in ninth century Kongo during a period when superstitious Central African people believed that a genie or imp could be captured in a bottle. Legend had it that empty glass bottles placed outside, but near, the home could capture roving (usually evil) spirits at night, and the spirit would be destroyed the next day in the sunshine. One could then cork the bottles and throw them into the river to wash away the evil spirits.This practice was taken to Europe and North America by African slaves. Thomas Atwood, in History of the Island of Domi (1791), made particular note of the bottle tree as a protection of the home through an invocation of the dead. Atwood writes of the confidence of the blacks “in the power of the dead, of the sun and the moon—nay, even of sticks, stones and earth from graves hung in bottles in their gardens.”Traditionally the bottles are placed on the branches of a crepe myrtle tree. The image of the myrtle tree recurs in the Old Testament, aligned with the Hebrews’ escape from slavery, their diaspora and the promise of the redemption of their homeland.

Cassandra & Chris, were married in front of a bottle tree, ensuring that their steps on this new journey are cleansed by the ancestors.


Source: https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/06/bottle-trees.html