The vivacious streets bustled with the mellifluous sounds of jazz and the bold rhythms of voodoo. New Orleans was a city on the rise, the clanks of the ornate sleepy wooden houses rising from the swamp, while arts and crafts flourished in a fit of shabby charm as music poured from the saloons of Tremé. The boom of tapping feet and the rustle of clothes swirled in a frenetic daze, the peppermint scent of sazerac flooding the air, the sweet city enraptured in spiritualism. There was nowhere like this. Nowhere so intrinsically connected to music and soul. The stimulation frizzed in the air like the buzz of static. But there was no seduction darker than the voodoo which enraptured the city. At the heart of this empire of cool a voodoo priestess made captive many searching for clarity in this den of alacrity. This is the story of the revered Marie Laveau and her mysterious legend entwined with the city she ruled…
There were few like Marie. By her very nature, she was as much a part of the foundations which built the jubilant city of New Orleans. She was a powerful voodoo priestess of the 19th century. But her story is shrouded in mystery.
But everyone knows her name.
The New Orleans Picayune described her as ‘gifted with beauty and intelligence, she ruled her own race, and made captive of many of the other’. She was a Creole woman who lived by her own set of rules and beliefs, all while surrounded by the political influence and wealth of the white men who tried to bring her down.
But voodoo was a part of this peppy city where the mystical wafted through the streets as the cheroot cigar smoke and the notes emanating from Napoleon House. There was something otherworldly about this city. The indefatigable allure of the ethereal.
Marie was a person of strong convictions and loyal confidentiality. Her power seemed impossible. So impossible some believe she still works her voodoo magic from beyond the grave. But was she really so evil? Was she a part of the brassy, seedy underbelly of a city stranded in vice?
Or was this simply a narrative peddled by the white elite?
The French were the first to settle here, usually young, rich sons of aristocrats looking for a new life of adventure and frivolity in the New World. They became known as ‘Creole’, the hoity-toity finery of the upper-class ruling elite.
Their wild drunken sultriness and insatiable sexual desires led these wanton cretins to the enslaved, the freed once-enslaved, and the natives. Soon, mixed-race children were born. And in 1801, Marie Laveau was one.
She was the illegitimate daughter of a Creole mother and a white father born in the smoky hubbub of New Orleans’ timeless French Quarter. There is much speculation about how Marie became the Voodoo Queen.
Some say she trained under the guidance of Sanité Dédé, New Orleans’ first voodoo queen. Others suspect because of her mixed-race heritage, she was raised with a mix of Christianity and voodoo. Perhaps all are true.
What we do know is that, by 1830, she was one of several voodoo queens in the city. While voodoo was commonly practised in the city, it came with a frightening sinister reputation. But was this simply a ‘white’ narrative?
Marie combined voodoo beliefs and Christian traditions. She used holy water, incense, statues of the saints and Christian prayers to make voodoo and hoodoo, the magic rituals associated with voodoo, acceptable to the upper-class elite.
She had a connection to the spirits and achieved this through dance, music, singing and the use of snakes. She used her voodoo and her great means to spend her days in this city in service to others. She was known to be a generous woman.
She was far more than sticking pins in dolls and raising the dead. The white world dismissed her as an evil oculist revelling in black magic and harbouring devilish power. They even accused her of holding drunken orgies. But to the black community of New Orleans, she was simply a healer.
She quickly rose to prominence as the preeminent Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. She was filled with compassion and guided by her beliefs to help those in her community. She was best known for her public voodoo rituals and ceremonies held at Congo Square, by her day a vibrant community centre for the black people of New Orleans.
Here she attended gatherings, offered advice and sold gris-gris for anyone needing to effect a cure, charm or hex, an amulet originating in Africa believed to protect the wearer from evil or bring luck. She sold magical powders to grant desires or even to destroy one’s enemies…
She conducted private ceremonies behind her cottage on St. Ann Street in the French Quarter, performed exorcisms and offered sacrifices to the spirits. She staged ceremonies in which participants became possessed by loas, voodoo spirits. She even saved several condemned men from the gallows.
For many decades, Marie held a captivated New Orleans spellbound…
Nobody knows the truth about every facet of Marie’s life. Newspapers employed people to sit in trees near her home to spy on her and conjure fabulous lies about her life. One newspaper once branded her ‘the notorious hag who reigns over the ignorant and superstitious’. It’s also said that many people feared her power.
The truth is, there are many myths and legends about what she did and what she was capable of. Many people have tried to find logical explanations for her power, from placebo effects to her position in society. But none of that mattered. In this diverse energetic city, imbued with the life of rhythm and mysticism, it needn’t matter what the truth of Marie was.
She mattered. So many people adored her. She brought hope to so many in the city. They believed in her power. That she could heal the sick. That she could bring comfort and joy. That she could wield power over the white man, a power they couldn’t understand and tried to turn against her, but they failed. In a time of white dominance, racism and segregation, many people turned to Marie because they believed that she was their saviour. For many, she was a saint.
Whether you believe in what she did or not, you can’t fault the impact she had. Her humanitarian work speaks for itself. She was a force for good, if not a force of the mystical. Rich and poor, black and white, sought her out.
We know she gave her last performance in 1875 before announcing her retirement to her home on St. Ann Street. Right at the heart of the city she loved. But she could never leave the voodoo behind. Right up until her death, she visited the poor and the imprisoned to help however she could. And she still gave readings in her home.
We’re not exactly sure when she died, but it’s thought to be around 1881 at the age of 79. She died peacefully in her sleep.
It is always difficult to separate the truth from the fiction when it comes to Marie Laveau. But what we do know is that she is one of the most important and revered figures in the history of New Orleans. In her day, the vivacious streets bustled with the mellifluous sounds of jazz and the bold rhythms of voodoo.
This was a city on the rise, the clanks of the ornate sleepy wooden houses rising from the swamp, while arts and crafts flourished in a fit of shabby charm as music poured from the saloons of Tremé. The boom of the tapping feet and the rustle of the clothes swirled in a frenetic daze, the peppermint scene of sazerac flooding the air, the sweet city enraptured in spiritualism.
There was nowhere like this. Nowhere so intrinsically connected to music and soul. The stimulation frizzed in the air like the buzz of static. But there was no seduction darker than the voodoo which enraptured the city. And at the heart of this empire of cool, a voodoo priestess named Marie Laveau.
We know she was a healer. And we know she was not evil. The white narratives around her were inherently dangerous. She was far more than a voodoo queen making captive many searching for clarity in this den of alacrity.
She performed notable acts of community service, such as nursing yellow fever patients, she posted bail for black women and she visited condemned prisoners to pray with them in their final hours. Are these the acts of a vile, evil woman?
When she died, the newspapers of New Orleans mourned her death and celebrated her life. We will never know every truth of her life. If one thing was for certain, it was that secrets are safe in her hands. Including her own. While many mysteries of her life remain, one thing is for certain:
Her revered story and mysterious legend, entwined with the city she ruled, would not have been possible anywhere but New Orleans.
Writer Lafcadio Hearn once said of Marie Laveau:
“[She is] one of the kindest women who ever lived.”
Toodle-Pip :}{:
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Image Credit
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Laveau
Post Sources
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/marie-lavaus-house-of-voodoo, https://americanhorrorstory.fandom.com/wiki/Marie_Laveau, https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2012/07/marie-laveau.html, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Laveau, https://allthatsinteresting.com/marie-laveau, https://screenrant.com/american-horror-story-coven-marie-laveau-real-history/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laveau, https://www.marie-laveaux.com/, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/marie-laveaus-tomb, https://ghostcitytours.com/new-orleans/marie-laveau/
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