CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – History shows you can find just about anything on Florida’s beaches. Some things are obvious about what they are, but what a beach walker found Thursday is much more mysterious. (WKMG)
"It was a rather strange doll made out of coconuts," Bruce Robertson described.
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Initially, at Cherie Down Park, Robertson said he was creeped out.
“What was really sort of terrifying or horrifying or interesting was it had actual human teeth,” he remembered.
His pictures also show snakeskin and the item has arms and legs with feathers on them.
Robertson said he dropped it back in the ocean because other beachgoers told him it was a voodoo doll and it should be destroyed, not saved.
But then after some research, Robertson said he changed his feelings and now believes the item represented an African spider god known as Anansi.
"It was the God of slaves that came from Ghana to the Caribbean and they used it for good luck and protection. We were quite relieved to find out it wasn't a voodoo doll," Robertson said of himself and his friends.
News 6 took Robertson's pictures to an African bookstore in Cocoa.
Owner Michelle Davis disagreed with Robertson’s conclusion.
"This right here is creepy," Davis said pointing to the human teeth.
She also believed the doll had human skin on it.
Davis thought it could have all been part of a voodoo ritual.
She said people still believe in voodoo.
"They do it here in Cocoa," Davis said. "They do it all over in Florida, Louisiana, New Orleans. Voodoo is real," she said.
Because the doll is back in the ocean, Robertson is advising the next person who may find it to not be afraid.
“If anybody else finds it, it is not a voodoo doll. It’s really a good luck doll from Africa,” he said.