Poppets were believed to be powerful and mystical dolls in New England. Just like voodoo dolls, poppets would resemble those afflicted by witchcraft and be kept in jars as a symbol of being captured.
Bridget Bishop, one of the women executed in the witch trials, was accused of having poppets stuck with pins on her walls by men who worked on her house in 1685. According to the judges, this was a display of "counter-magic" that protected her, but instead these dolls were used against her in her trial as proof of murder against her two husbands.