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Marie Laveau
Voodoo
Queen/Faith Healer
Marie Laveau (1794?
-
June 16,
1881?) was an
American practitioner of
voodoo and the most
famous Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Marie Laveau is
somewhat of a poster child for the mixed races that emerge from New Orleans as
she is said to have been a free person of color and part Choctaw. Mam'zelle
Laveau was born to a
wealthy French planter Charles Laveau, and a mother who may have been a mulatto slave, a Caribbean Voodoo practitioner, or a
quadroon mistress.
For such an important figure in American
folklore, very little can be known certainly
about her life. She is supposed to have been born in the
French Quarter of
New Orleans, Louisiana in 1794, the daughter
of a white planter and a black woman. She married Jacques Paris, a free Black,
on
August 4,
1819; her marriage certificate is preserved
in
Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. M. Paris died in
1820 under unexplained circumstances; after
his death, Marie Laveau became a hairdresser who catered to wealthy white
families. She took a lover, Luis Christopher Duminy de Glapion, with whom she
lived until his death in 1835.Of her
magical career, little definite can be said.
She is said to have had a snake called
Zombi. Oral traditions suggest that the
occult part of her magic mixed
Roman Catholic beliefs and
saints with
African spirits and religious concepts. It is also alleged that her feared
magical powers came in fact from a network of informants in the households of
the prominent that she developed while a hairdresser and that she owned her own
brothel. She excelled at obtaining inside information on her wealthy patrons by
apparently instilling fear in their servants whom she "cured" of mysterious
ailments.
.On June 16, 1881, the New Orleans newspapers announced that Marie Laveau
had died. This is noteworthy if only because she continued to be seen in the
town after her supposed demise. It is claimed that one of her daughters by M. Glapion assumed her name and carried on her magical practice after her death.
 She
is buried in
Saint Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans, in
the Glapion family crypt. The tomb continues to attract visitors who draw
three crosses (XXX) on its side, hoping that her spirit will grant them a
wish.
Saint Louis Cemetery is the name of three
Roman Catholic cemeteries in
New Orleans, Louisiana.
The burials are in above ground vaults; most were constructed in the
18th century and
19th century. The above-ground
tombs, required here because the
ground water levels make
burial impractical in New Orleans, are
strongly reminiscent of the tombs of
Père Lachaise cemetery in
Paris. The three cemeteries are relatively
intact following Hurricane Katrina.
From the Mystica
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/l/laveau_marie.html
This article concerns two women who extended one life. The most
famous voodoo queen in North America who were actually two persons—mother and
daughter. They epitomized the sensational appeal of
Vodounism New Orleans during the 19th and
20th centuries. They taught and used the religion’s magical powers to control
one’s lovers, acquaintances, enemies, and sex. Marie Laveau I, the mother, supposedly was born in New Orleans in 1794 and
was considered a free woman of color. Being a mulatto, she was of mixed black,
white and Indian blood. Sometimes she was described as a descendant of French
aristocracy or a daughter of a wealthy white planter. Her marriage to Jacques
Paris, a free man of color from Saint Dominque (Haiti), is recorded as
occurring on August 4, 1819; the records also indicates the Marie Laveau was
an illegitimate daughter of Charles Laveau and Marguerite Darcantrel. Marie
was described as tall and statuesque, with curly black hair, reddish skin and
"good" features (then meaning more white than Negroid). She and Paris lived in
a house, supposedly part of her dowry from Charles Laveau, in the 1900 block
on North Rampart Street.
Paris, being a quadroon—three fourths white, disappeared soon after the
marriage. Perhaps he returned to Saint Dominique, but his death certificate
was filed five years later without any certificate of interment. Then Marie
began addressing herself as the Widow Paris and took up employment as a
hairdresser catering to the wealthy white and Creole women of New Orleans.
This was the beginning of her later powers as Voodooienne. For the women
confessed to Marie their most intimate secrets and fears about their husbands,
their lovers, their estates, their husbands’ mistresses, their business
affairs, and their fears of insanity and of anyone discovering a trace of
Negro blood in their ancestry.
In about 1826, Marie took up with Louis Christopher Duminy de Clapion,
another quadroon from Saint Dominique. They lived in the North Rampart Street
house until his death in 1855 (some claim 1835). Although they never married,
he and Marie had 15 children in rapid succession. She stopped her hairdressing
career to devote all her energies to becoming the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.
Voodoo had been secretly
practiced by blacks around New Orleans since the first boat load of slaves.
New Orleans was more French-Spanish than English-American, and the slaves had
came from the same parts of Africa that had sent blacks to work the French and
Spanish plantations in the Caribbean. After the blacks had won their
independence in Haiti in 1803-1804, the Creole planters brought their slaves
with them to friendlier shores of southern Louisiana, from Saint Dominique and
other West Indian islands. The slaves were avid practitioners of the ancient
religion, and it grew rapidly.
Quickly tales circulated of hidden and secret rituals being held deep in
the bayous, complete with the worship of a snake called Zombi, and orgiastic
dancing, drinking, and lovemaking. Almost a third of the worshippers were
white, desirous of obtaining the "power" to regain a lost lover, to take a new
lover, to eliminate a business partner, or to destroy an enemy. These frequent
meetings frightened the white masters into fear the blacks were planning an
uprising against them. In 1817 the New Orleans Municipal Council passed a
resolution forbidding blacks to gather for dancing or any other purpose except
on Sundays, and only in places designated by the mayor. The accepted spot was
Congo Square on North Rampart Street, now called Beauregard Square. Blacks,
most of them voodooists, met danced and sang overtly worshipping their gods
while seemingly entertaining the whites with their African "gibberish".
By the 1830s there were many voodoo queens in New Orleans, fighting over
control of the Sunday Congo dances and the secret ceremonies out at Lake
Pontchartrain. But when "Mamzelle" Marie Laveau decided to become queen,
contemporaries reported the other queens faded before her, some by crumbling
to her powerful
gris-gris, and some being driven away by
brute force. Marie was always a devote Catholic and added influences of
Catholicism--holy water, incense, statues of the saints, and Christian
prayers--to the already sensational ceremonies of voodooism.
Marie knew the sensation that the rituals at the lake were causing and used
it to further the purposes of the voodoo movement in New Orleans. She invited
the public, press, police, the New Orleans roués, and others thrill-seekers of
the forbidden fun to attend. Charging admission made voodoo profitable for the
first time. Her entrepreneurial efforts went even further by organizing secret
orgies for wealthy white men seeking beautiful black, mulatto and quadroon
women for mistresses. Marie presided over these meetings herself. These
alleged secret meetings enviably became public. Marie also gained control of
the Congo Square Dances by entering before the other dancers and entertaining
the fascinated onlookers with her snake.
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Eventually, Marie Laveau, with all of the secret knowledge which she had
gained from the Creole boudoirs combined with her own considerable knowledge
of spells along with her flair, became the most powerful woman in New Orleans.
Whites of every class sought her help in their various affairs and amours
while blacks saw her as their leader. Judges paid her as much as $1000 to win
an election, other whites paid $10 for an insignificant love powder. She
freely helped most blacks. To visit her for a reading became fashionable.
Almost every New Orleaniian had a story to tell about Marie Laveau by the
beginning of World War II. Some of the stories concerned the mother while
others concerned the daughter who strikingly resembled her mother and
continued the dynasty. While most of the tales are exaggerated, some are more
reliable, particularly those in Voodoo In New Orleans by Robert
Tallant, and Mysterious Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen by Raymond J.
Martinez.
At the age of 70, in 1869, Marie gave her last performance as a voodoo
queen. She announced she was retiring. She went to her Saint Ann Street home,
but she never completely retired. She continued her prison work until 1875,
and died in 1891. Then a similar tall woman with flashing black eyes, with the
ability to control lives, emerged as Marie Laveau II.
Marie Laveau Glapion was born February 2, 1827, one of the 15 children
crowding the Saint Ann Street cottage. It was never known whether her mother,
Marie I, chose the role for her daughter, or whether Marie II chose the role
to follow in her mother’s footsteps for herself. By some accounts she shared
her mother’s features. Others say the pupils of her eyes were half-moon
shaped.
Apparently she lack the warmth and compassion of her mother because
she inspired more fear and subservience than her mother did. Likewise, she
began as a hairdresser, eventually ran a bar and brothel on Bourbon Street between Toulouse and Saint Peter Streets.
Marie continued operations at the "Maison Blanche" (White House), the house
which her mother had built for secret voodoo meetings and liaisons between
white men and black women. Marie II was proclaimed to be a talented procuress,
able to fulfill any man’s desires for a price. Lavish parties were held at the Maison Blanche offered champagne, fine food, wine, music, and naked black
girls dancing for white men, politicians, and high officials. They were never
raided by the police who feared that if
the crossed Marie she might "hoodoo"
them.
June 23rd, the Eve of Saint John’s Day was one of the most important days
in the New Orleans’ voodoo calendar. All the faithful celebrated out at Saint
John Bayou. Saint John’s Day (for John the Baptist) corresponds to the summer
solstice (see
Sabbats) which has been celebrated since
ancient times. But by the time Marie II arrived she had celebrated more than
once.
The
Saint John's Day celebration of 1872 began as a religious ceremony. Marie came
with a
crowd singing. Soon a cauldron was boiling with water from a beer
barrel, into which went salt, black
pepper, a black cat, a black rooster, a
various powders, and a snake sliced in three pieces representing
the Trinity.
With all this boiling the practitioners ate, whether the contents of the
cauldron or not is
not known. Afterwards or during the feast was more singing,
appropriately "Mamzelle Marie ." Then
it was cooling off time at which all
stripped and swam in
the lake. This was followed by a sermon by Marie, then
a
half hour of relaxation, or sexual intercourse. Then
four naked girls put the
contents of the cauldron back
into the beer barrel. Marie gave another sermon,
by
this time it was becoming daylight and all headed for
home.
On June 16, 1881, Marie I, as Widow Paris, died in her Saint Ann Street
house. The reporters painted her in the most glorious terms, a saintly figure
of 98 (actually 87), who nursed the sick, and prayed incessantly with the
diseased and condemned. Reporters called her the recipient "in the fullest
degree" of the "heredity gift of beauty" in the Laveau family, who gained the
notice of Governor Claiborne, French General Humbert, Aaron Burr, and even the
Marquis de Lafayette. Her obituaries claimed she lived a pious life surrounded by her Catholic religion, with no mention of her voodoo past. Even one of her
surviving children, Madame Legendre, claimed her saintly mother never
practiced voodoo and despised the cult.
Strangely, Marie II "died" in the public eye with Marie I seeming to pass
into obscurity. Since the public had made no distinction between mother and
daughter, the death of one ended the career of the other. Marie II still
reigned over the voodoo ceremonies of the blacks and ran the Maison Blanche,
but she never regained high notice in the press. Supposedly she drowned in a
big storm in Lake Pontchartrain in the 1890s, but some people claimed to have
seen her as late as 1918.
Death did not end the power of Marie Laveau, however. Though reportedly
buried in a vault in the family crypt in St. Louis Cemetery, no. 1. The vault
bears the name of Marie Philome Clapion, deceased June 11, 1897. But this
vault still attracts faithful practitioners who still leave gifts of food,
money, and flowers, and ask for Marie's help after turning around three times
and making a cross with red brick on the stone. The cemetery is small but the
tomb seems to come out of nowhere when walking among the other crypts.
In the St. Louis Cemetery, no 2, there is another vault bearing the name of
Marie Laveau. This vault has red crosses on it and is called the "wishing
vault." Young women often come to it to petition when seeking husbands.
Stories have it Marie rests in various cemeteries in the city. Legend also
tells she frequently visits the cemeteries, as well as the French Quarter, and
her voodoo haunts. A.G.H.
Reference
 Guiley, Rosemary Ellen.
The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft
New York: Facts On File, 1989 [ISBN 0-8160-2268-2]
Here
is a list of books about the great Voodoo Queen:
The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux: A Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth Century New Orleans (Studies in African American History and Culture)
 Mysterious Marie Laveau Voodoo Queen and Folk Tales Along the Mississippi
 Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau
More
articles about Marie Laveau:
http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/famouscreoles/marielaveau/marielaveau.htm
http://www.prairieghosts.com/laveau.html Voodoo in New Orleans and the
Lergacy of Marie Laveaux
http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/6157/stl1lav2.html Good photo of
Marie Laveau's tomb
http://www.wendymae.com/voodoo/synopsis.html
The following are some places of interest that any fan of
Marie Laveau must include for a perfect visit to the haunts of this most famous
Voodoo Queen:
1801 Dauphine Street Marie -Laveau's Father's Home
1900 block of North Rampart Street (in Faubourg Marigny) - Dowry
House
1016, 1028, 1022, 1020 St. Ann (originally 152 Rue St. Ann)
St. Louis No. 1, Crypt No. 3 - Alleged Burial Site of Marie
Laveau
723 Rue Dumaine - New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum
729 Bourbon Street - Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo
Source:
http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/marielaveau/marielaveaustomb/
Marie Laveau's
House of Voodoo
If you're planning your visit to New Orleans,
or a local looking for something different to do, this is one of the Haunted
attractions in and around New Orleans! Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo shop is
reportedly on the actual location that was the legendary Voodoo Queen
Marie Laveau II's home. It is also next to the St. Ann Street cottage
where Marie Laveau I actually died.
Local patrons, shop employees, and in-house
psychics say that the ghost of Marie Laveau actually haunts the
building, particularly the reading room. It is not uncommon to have Madm'zelle
Laveaus' ghosts participate in a tarot or palm reading and add her two
cents.
Now, the haunted building is the home of a unique Voodoo museum and shop that
features an authentic Voodoo altar. A definite tourist attraction, Marie
Laveau's House of Voodoo attracts the curious as well as the serious
practitioner of Voodoo and Voudon.
Marie Laveau's
House of Voodoo
739 Bourbon St
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-581-3751
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Sightings of Marie Laveau's Ghost
One alleged Laveau ghost sighting stands out. Tallant (1946, 130-131) relates
the story of an African-American named Elmore Lee Banks, who had an experience
near St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. As Banks recalled, one day in the mid-1930s "an
old woman" came into the drugstore where he was a customer. For some reason she
frightened the proprietor, who "ran like a fool into the back of the store."
Laughing, the woman asked, "Don't you know me?" She became angry when Banks
replied, "No, ma'am," and slapped him. Banks continued: "Then she jump[ed] up in
the air and went whizzing out the door and over the top of the telephone wires.
She passed right over the graveyard wall and disappeared. Then I passed out
cold." He awakened to whiskey being poured down his throat by the proprietor who
told him, "That was Marie Laveau."
Source:
http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/marielaveau/houseofvoodoo/
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The Marie Laveau
image by New Orleans' artist,
Dimitri Fouquet,
of his original oil paintings as featured on Dr. John's
CD Creole Moon .
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Articles
History of New Orleans Voodoo
Last of the Voudoos
New Orleans Superstitions
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