Boneghazi
In 2015 and 2016, a controversy occurred on Facebook and Tumblr concerning Ender Darling (born 1990 or 1991[1]), a neopagan witch who took human bones from a cemetery in New Orleans for use in rituals.
Some fellow witches accused Darling of desecrating graves and took issue with the bones' apparent source, Holt Cemetery—a potter's field where most burials are of poor people of color.
Louisiana authorities subpoenaed Darling's Facebook correspondence, surveilled their home, and in January 2016 searched it, seizing 11 bones and 4 teeth.
After two months in jail pending trial, Darling pled guilty to simple burglary and marijuana possession and was sentenced to time served.
[5] The littlefuckinmonster blog was deactivated, but a new account, fuckinheathen, also claiming to be Darling, made a lengthy post titled "No I am not digging up fucking graves jfc".
[2] The name "Bonegate" emerged, later supplanted by "Boneghazi";[2][7]: 22:13 the suffix -ghazi, derived from the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya,[8] denotes an overblown or unimportant scandal.
A friend defended Darling as having been targeted by a modern witch hunt for their beliefs, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and appearance.
They were extradited back to New Orleans two weeks later and jailed on charges of burglary and trafficking in human parts, with a bond set to $8,500 (equivalent to $10,791 in 2023).
[1] On September 9, they pled guilty to burglary from Holt Cemetery and marijuana possession, receiving a five-year suspended sentence for the former and 15 days in prison with credit for time served, meaning that they were released immediately.
A callout post was made for someone literally stealing human bones and offering to sell them, with attached commentary about racism and classism.
Diana Tourjée echoed that analysis in Vice, writing that Tumblr and the Queer Witch Collective both had a tendency to analyze every issue with discourse and identity politics.
[2] Darling left the Queer Witch Collective shortly after the controversy began, but the aftermath badly damaged the group.
In an apology post, the group's founder said that they[b] had never agreed with Darling but that they had perceived "a [person of color] being attacked for their practice, even if it’s something I did not understand or would never do myself."
A new moderation team suggested that white witches stop participating in the discourse, and eventually removed everyone from the group except for themselves, requiring an application to re-join.
[2] According to Cassandra McKenney et al. in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and the Media in the 21st Century, Boneghazi originated the archetype of "the Bone Collecting Witch", one propagated largely by people who share its stereotypical demographics—white, Millennial, usually feminine-presenting, interested in witchcraft, and rebellious.
[14]: 11–12 Boneghazi received renewed interest in 2021, amidst a separate controversy concerning a TikToker with a large collection of bones.
[19]: 29–30 In a 2024 article in the Tulsa Law Review, Cameron Skinner argues for using the LHRPCA as a framework for federal regulation of the trade in human remains.
