Headless Chickens Return to Broadway: Santeria or Voodoo? What Does It Mean?

Signs of animal sacrifice have again returned to the Upper West Side, and again the evidence is a pair of dead, headless chickens placed on the Broadway Malls section of Manhattan’s longest street.

The most recent brace of beheaded birds was found on the south center median of Broadway and West 91st, just across from Barzini’s grocery store, on the morning of Sept. 23. The neighborhood news blog, West Side Rag, reported the story later that day and questions—and proverbial feathers—have been flying ever since.

Who did this? Why? Why here? Where did the birds come from? Could it be random craziness, animal cruelty, prank, or just as likely somehow connected to a religious sacrifice?

A Broadway Malls Association spokesperson told the Spirit, “These incidents of apparent animal cruelty are abhorrent. BMA has not received any information beyond what was reported in the West Side Rag. We are of course open to cooperating with the authorities should they require our assistance.”

WhenThe Spirit emailed the NYPD, we were told that there were no criminal incidents on file in connection with the birds.

The last reported headless chicken sighting in the neighborhood was back in May, at Broadway and West 89th Street. Before that, the dead fowl were discovered at West 92nd Street.

If it falls in the religious ritual realm, it could be from a practitioner of the Afro-Caribbean religion known as Santeria, or voodoo. The former term largely refers to the religion’s Hispanic side, the voodoo is closer to the African diaspora.

In New York City, Santeria and voodoo have long been common in neighborhoods with a strong Afro-Caribbean heritage, including people from Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Some Mexicans practice Santeria in addition to their own syncretic takes on Catholicism, while many West Indians have some relation with voodoo, especially with the idea of casting spells and fortune-telling via an Obeah man or woman.

Visit any botanica—which used to be in both Hell’s Kitchen and parts of the Upper West Side—and see.

Though live poultry markets no long exist on the UWS, there are still markets in East Harlem on East 117th Street and another at Amsterdam Avenue and 137th Street. More live poultry markets dot the nearby Bronx as, ditto Brooklyn and Queens.

One could write entire books about the history of the Jewish poultry business, which was fiercely competitive and infiltrated by organized crime. (“Fear Bombing Ushers in New Chicken War” read one headline out of Brooklyn in August 1928.)

Today, many poultry markets are run by Muslims, whose halal food regulations resemble kosher law in various ways.

There are other uses for poultry, however, and ritual sacrifice to the spirit world is one of them. In Santeria, the chicken is by far the most common animal offered to the gods.

That leaves the question Why here, now? A few answers, which are not mutually exclusive, suggest themselves.

One, that something bad happened here and the efforts are being made to sate the spirits. Two, that a nearby Santeria practitioner is in some way infirm and can’t travel to a more natural locale, such as Riverside Park. Third, the Broadway Malls chicken man or woman is a migrant or other newcomer unfamiliar with the city’s more established Santeria pathways.

While police say the investigation is ongoing and there have been no arrests, consider a remarkable December 1979 article by Edward Tivnan for the New York Times headlined “The Voodoo New Yorkers Do.” Two passages stand out.

First: “No one can say for sure how many New Yorkers are members of voodoo or Santeria sects, but ‘thousands’ is a common estimate of those in or familiar with the religions; and six‐figure guesses don’t seem to raise any eyebrows (there are, after all, some 200,000 Haitians, 250,000 Dominicans and 90,000 Cubans in the city).”

Second: “An indication of the number of New Yorkers seriously involved in African religion is to be found in the Bronx and Brooklyn, in East Harlem and all over the Upper West Side. Every neighborhood has its little, often shabby, shop, featuring cheap statues of Christ and the Roman Catholic saints. The stores, called botanicas, are the centers for the statues, herbs, beads, potions, and other ritual paraphernalia of voodoo and Santeria.”

The Broadway Malls Association is responsible for the care and plantings in the center dividers that stretch down Broadway for five miles from 60th Street to 168th Street and comprise 10.6 acres of green parkland.

The NYPD had not returned an email seeking comment by presstime.

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