Black magic? Photo sewn in chicken in possible Santeria ritual in Miami

A PARK ranger was shocked to discover an injured chicken, which was found to have some bizarre items sewn into its flesh, including a photograph.

The Miami New Times reports that the ranger thinks the items, which include human hair, drawings of skulls and the photo of three people, are 'religious artifacts' used in a ritual related to the Santeria faith.

The ranger, who asked not to be named, wrote an email detailing what happened after she found the chicken and picked it up.

"Upon inspection I saw he was injured along the knee bone. I didn't have much time and thought he probably wouldn't make it through the night, but he did," she said. "There were 2-3 round open marks on either side of the keel bone plus an odd injury right at the top point of the keel bone. As of today it looked as though the keel bone was protruding out of the chest!"

"My friend the chicken lady [Katha Sheehan] stopped by today to help me take a better look, and we wound up finding the most odd thing. Someone had sewn into this poor live bird some kind of religious artifacts. Unbelievable that this bird was even alive," she wrote.

Trooper, as the chick is now called, is doing well but why these items were sewn into the bird's flesh is still a mystery. As are the identities of the three people in the photograph.

It isn’t uncommon for the slaughtered bodies of animals used in Santeria rituals – commonly chicken and goats – to be found in the Miami area.

Santeria originated in Cuba and Brazil and blends Roman Catholicism with ancient West African traditions and is similar to voodoo.