How a Witch Doctor and a Bald Eagle Saved Daufuskie Island

Tales from the late writer Roger Pinckney, High Priest of Daufuskie Island

Andrew Branning arrives on Daufuskie Island, located between Savannah and Hilton Head Island

Larger-than-life Daufuskie Island author and historian Roger Pinckney, a Lowcountry legend, passed away last week. He wrote more than 10 books, including “Blue Roots: African American Folk Magic of the Gullah People.”

He was known as a storyteller, and many of his stories were centered around his beloved Daufuskie, which he visited for the first time over 60 years ago. Pinckney was raised in Beaufort, and it was his father, the Beaufort County coroner and dock-builder, who introduced his son to this remote island he eventually called home.

I met him by chance several years ago. My fascination with the island began in 2015 when I first read Pat Conroy’s The Water is Wide, about his experiences teaching on an island with no bridge to Hilton Head or anywhere.