Reading the bones was once common in Hoodoo, but there are few who do it these days.

There are two known styles.

The first style uses chicken bones, and each bone has a special meaning — the wing bone for travel, the breast bone for love, and so on. The bones are thrown on a table and they are read much as tea-leaves are, by the pattern made and by the directions they point.

According to a system used by Bantu people throughout Southern Africa; the bones are usually knuckle bones, marked with dots and crosses. The reading of knuckle bones led, quite naturally, to the use of dice in divination, and in America dice reading, especially when performed according to one of the popular 19th century French methods, has more or less replaced reading the bones among African-Americans.