Archaeological evidence from Kingsley Plantation shows that enslaved African men, women, and children retained African traditions, especially in spirituality and religion. Several blue beads recovered from two slave cabins, including beads found in cabin doorways, suggest the use of personal charms, since in many African cultures beads were believed to have supernatural protective power and evidence from other antebellum plantations indicates that the color blue held spiritual or religious meaning. Other finds point to house charms associated with Ibo and other African practices: an agricultural hoe buried at the back doorway of a cabin in 2006, and in 1968 a hoe, axe blade, and other iron objects placed at the back door of another cabin, apparently to prevent harm from entering the house, along with river pebbles and small cobbles that may have been collected as spiritually charged natural objects. Evidence of animal sacrifice included the remains of a chicken buried beneath the floor of a slave cabin with an unbroken egg, a glass bead, and a piece of iron, as well as a partial deer leg buried in the doorway of an adjacent cabin; such practices in some African cultures marked births and deaths or served as offerings to specific deities, and the chicken may have been an offering to appease earth spirits disturbed during the cabin's initial construction.
