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New Orleans Superstitions
by Lafcadio Hearn
from An American miscellany, vol. II, (1924)
originally published in Harper's weekly, December 25th, 1886
The question "What is Voudooism?" could scarcely be answered to-day by any
resident of New Orleans unfamiliar with the life of the African west coast, or
the superstitions of Hayti, either through study or personal observation. The
old generation of planters in whose day Voudooism had a recognized existence--so
dangerous as a motive power for black insurrection that severe measures were
adopted against it--has
passed away; and the only person I ever
met who had, as a child in his colored nurse's care, the rare experience of
witnessing a Voudoo ceremonial, died some three years ago, at the advanced age
of seventy-six. As a religion--an imported faith--Voudooism in Louisiana
is really dead; the rites of its serpent worship are forgotten; the meaning of
its strange and frenzied chants, whereof some fragments linger as refrains in
negro song, is not now known even to those who remember the words; and the story
of its former existence is only revealed to the folklorists by the multitudinous
débris of African superstition which it has left behind it. These only I propose
to consider now; for what is to-day called Voudooism in New Orleans means, not
an African cultus, but a curious class of negro practices, some possibly derived
from it, and others which bear resemblance to the magic of the Middle Ages. What
could be more mediæval, for instance, than molding a waxen heart, and sticking
pins in it, or melting it slowly before a fire, while charms are being repeated
with the hope that as the waxen heart melts or breaks, the life of some enemy
will depart? What, again, could remind us more of thirteenth-century
superstition than the burning of a certain number of tapers to compel some
absent person's return, with the idea that before the last taper is consumed a
mysterious mesmerism will force the
wanderer to cross rivers and mountains if necessary on his or her way back?
The fear of what are styled "Voudoo charms" is much more widely spread in
Louisiana than any one who had conversed only with educated residents might
suppose; and the most familiar superstition of this class is the belief in what
I might call pillow magic, which is the supposed art of causing wasting
sicknesses or even death by putting certain objects into the pillow of the bed
in which the hated person sleeps. Feather pillows are supposed to be
particularly well adapted to this kind of witchcraft. It is believed that by
secret spells a "Voudoo" can cause some monstrous kind of bird or nondescript
animal to shape itself into being out of the pillow feathers--like the
tupilek of the Esquimau iliseenek (witchcraft.) It grows very slowly,
and by night only; but when completely formed, the person who has been using the
pillow dies. Another practice of pillow witchcraft consists in tearing a living
bird asunder--usually a cock--and putting portions of the wings into the pillow.
A third form of the black-art is confined to putting certain charms or fetiches--consisting
of bones, hair, feathers, rags, strings, or some fantastic combination of these
and other trifling objects--into any sort of a pillow used by the party whom it
is desired to injure. The pure Africanism of this practice needs no comment. Any
exact idea concerning the use of each particular kind of charm I have not been
able to discover; and I doubt whether those who practise such fetichism know the
original African beliefs connected with it. Some say that putting grains of corn
into a child's pillow "prevents it from growing any more"; others declare that a
bit of cloth in a grown person's pillow will cause wasting sickness; but
different parties questioned by me gave each a different signification to the
use of similar charms. Putting an open pair of scissors under the pillow before
going to bed is supposed to insure a pleasant sleep in spite of fetiches; but
the surest way to provide against being "hoodooed," as American residents call
it, is to open one's pillow from time to time. If any charms are found, they
must be first sprinkled with salt, then burned. A Spanish resident told me that
her eldest daughter had been unable to sleep for weeks, owing to a fetich that
had been put into her pillow by a spiteful colored domestic. After the object
had been duly exorcised and burned, all the young lady's restlessness departed.
A friend of mine living in one of the country parishes once found a tow string
in his pillow, into the fibers of which a great number of feather stems had
either been introduced or had introduced themselves. He wished to retain it as a
curiosity, but no sooner did he exhibit it to some acquaintance than it was
denounced as a Voudoo "trick," and my friend was actually compelled to burn it
in the presence of witnesses. Everybody knows or ought to know that feathers in
pillows have a natural tendency to cling and form clots or lumps of more or less
curious form, but the discovery of these in some New Orleans households is
enough to create a panic. They are viewed as incipient Voudoo tupileks.
The sign of the cross is made over them by Catholics, and they are promptly
committed to the flames.
Pillow magic alone, however, is far from being the only recognized form of
maleficent negro witchcraft. Placing charms before the entrance of a house or
room, or throwing them over a wall into a yard, is believed to be a deadly
practice. When a charm is laid before a room door or hall door, oil is often
poured on the floor or pavement in front of the threshold. It is supposed that
whoever crosses an oil line falls into the power of the Voudoos. To
break the oil charm, sand or salt should be strewn upon it. Only a few days
before writing this article a very intelligent Spaniard told me that shortly
after having discharged a dishonest colored servant he found before his bedroom
door one evening a pool of oil with a charm Lying in the middle of it, and a
candle burning near it. The charm contained some bones, feathers, hairs, and
rags--all wrapped together with a string--and a dime. No superstitious person
would have dared to use that dime; but my friend, not being superstitious,
forthwith put it into his pocket.
The presence of that coin I can only attempt to explain by calling attention
to another very interesting superstition connected with New Orleans fetichism.
The negroes believe that in order to make an evil charm operate it is necessary
to sacrifice something. Wine and cake are left occasionally in dark
rooms, or candies are scattered over the sidewalk, by those who want to make
their fetich hurt somebody. If food or sweetmeats are thus thrown away, they
must be abandoned without a parting glance; the witch or wizard must not look
back while engaged in the sacrifice.
Scattering dirt before a door, or making certain figures on the wall of a
house with chalk, or crumbling dry leaves with the fingers and scattering the
fragments before a residence, are also forms of a maleficent conjuring which
sometimes cause serious annoyance. Happily the conjurers are almost as afraid of
the counter-charms as the most superstitious persons are of the conjuring. An
incident which occurred recently in one of the streets of the old quarter known
as "Spanish Town" afforded me ocular proof of the fact. Through malice or
thoughtlessness, or possibly in obedience to secret orders, a young negro girl
had been tearing up some leaves and scattering them on the sidewalk in front of
a cottage occupied by a French family. Just as she had dropped the last leaf the
irate French woman rushed out with a broom and a handful of salt, and began to
sweep away the leaves, after having flung salt both upon them and upon the
little negress. The latter actually screamed with fright, and cried out, "Oh,
pas jeté plis disel après moin, madame! pas bisoin jeté disel après moin; mo pas
pé vini icite encore" (Oh, madam, don't throw any more salt after me; you
needn't throw any more salt after me; I won't come here any more.)
Another strange belief connected with these practices was well illustrated by
a gift made to my friend Professor William Henry by a negro servant for whom he
had done some trifling favor. The gift consisted of a "frizzly hen"--one of
those funny little fowls whose feathers all seem to curl. "Mars'r Henry, you
keep dat frizzly hen, an' ef eny niggers frow eny conjure in your yard,
dat frizzly hen will eat de conjure." Some say, however, that one is
not safe unless he keeps two frizzly hens.
The naughty little negress at whom the salt was thrown seemed to fear the
salt more than the broom pointed at her. But she was not yet fully educated, I
suspect, in regard to superstitions. The negro's terror of a broom is of very
ancient date--it may have an African origin. It was commented upon by Moreau de
Saint-Méry in his work on San Domingo, published in 1196. "What especially
irritates the negro," he wrote, "is to have a broom passed over any part of his
body. He asks at once whether the person imagined that he was dead, and remains
convinced that the act shortens his life." Very similar ideas concerning the
broom linger in New Orleans. To point either end of a broom at a person is
deemed bad luck; and many an ignorant man would instantly knock down or
violently abuse the party who should point a broom at him. Moreover, the broom
is supposed to have mysterious power as a means of getting rid of people. "If
you are pestered by visitors whom you would wish never to see again, sprinkle
salt on the floor after they go, and sweep it out by the same door through which
they have gone, and they will never come back." To use a broom in the evening is
bad luck: balayer le soir, on balaye sa fortune (to sweep in the evening
is to sweep your good luck away), remains a well-quoted proverb.
I do not know of a more mysterious disease than muscular atrophy in certain
forms, yet it is by no means uncommon either in New Orleans or in the other
leading cities of the United States. But in New Orleans, among the colored
people, and among many of the uneducated of other races, the victim of muscular
atrophy is believed to be the victim of Voudooism. A notion is prevalent that
negro witches possess knowledge of a secret poison which may terminate life
instantly or cause a slow "withering away," according as the dose is
administered. A Frenchman under treatment for paralysis informed me that his
misfortune was certainly the work of Voudoos, and that his wife and child had
died through the secret agency of negro wizards. Mental aberration is also said
to be caused by the administration of poisons whereof some few negroes are
alleged to possess the secret. In short, some very superstitious persons of both
races live in perpetual dread of imaginary Voudoos, and fancy that the least
ailment from which they suffer is the work of sorcery. It is very doubtful
whether any knowledge of those animal or vegetable poisons which leave no trace
of their presence in the blood, and which may have been known to some slaves of
African birth, still lingers in Louisiana, wide-spread as is the belief to the
contrary. During the last decade there have been a few convictions of blacks for
the crime of poisoning, but there was nothing at all mysterious or peculiar
about these cases, and the toxic agent was invariably the most vulgar of
all--arsenic, or some arsenious preparation in the shape of rat poison.
II
The story of the frizzly hen brings me to the subject of superstitions
regarding animals. Something of the African, or at least of the San Domingan,
worship of the cock seems to have been transplanted hither by the blacks, and to
linger in New Orleans under various metamorphoses. A negro charm to retain the
affections of a lover consists in tying up the legs of the bird to the head, and
plunging the creature alive into a vessel of gin or other spirits. Tearing the
live bird asunder is another cruel charm, by which some negroes believe that a
sweetheart may become magically fettered to the man who performs the quartering.
Here, as in other parts of the world, the crowing hen is killed, the hooting of
the owl presages death or bad luck, and the crowing of the cock by day presages
the arrival of company. The wren (roitelet) must not be killed: c'est
zozeau bon Dié (it is the good God's bird)--a belief, I think, of European
origin.
It is dangerous to throw hair-combings away instead of burning them, because
birds may weave them into their nests and while the nest remains the person to
whom the hair belonged will have a continual headache. It is bad luck to move a
cat from one house to another; seven years' bad luck to kill a cat; and the girl
who steps, accidentally or otherwise, on a cat's tail need not expect to be
married the same year. The apparition of a white butterfly means good news. The
neighing of a horse before one's door is bad luck. When a fly bothers one very
persistently, one may expect to meet an acquaintance who has been absent many
years.
There are many superstitions about marriage, which seem to have a European
origin, but are not less interesting on that account. "Twice a bridesmaid, never
a bride," is a proverb which needs no comment. The bride must not keep the pins
which fastened her wedding dress. The husband must never take off his wedding
ring: to take it off will insure him bad luck of some kind. If a girl who is
engaged accidentally lets a knife fall, it is a sign that her lover is coming.
Fair or foul weather upon her marriage day augurs a happy or unhappy married
life.
The superstitions connected with death may be all imported, but I have never
been able to find a foreign origin for some of them. It is bad luck to whistle
or hum the air that a band plays at a funeral. If a funeral stops before your
house, it means that the dead wants company. It is bad luck to cross a funeral
procession, or to count the number of carriages in it; if you do count them, you
may expect to die after the expiration of as many weeks as there were carriages
at the funeral. If at the cemetery there be any unusual delay in burying the
dead, caused by any unlooked for circumstances, such as the tomb proving too
small to admit the coffin, it is a sign that the deceased is selecting a
companion from among those present, and one of the mourners must soon die. It is
bad luck to carry a spade through a house. A bed should never be placed with its
foot pointing toward the street door, for corpses leave the house feet foremost.
It is bad luck to travel with a priest; this idea seems to me of Spanish
importation; and I am inclined to attribute a similar origin to the strange
tropical superstition about the banana, which I obtained, nevertheless, from an
Italian. You must not cut a banana, but simply break it with the
fingers, because in cutting it you cut the cross. It does not require a
very powerful imagination to discern in a severed section of the fruit the
ghostly suggestion of a crucifixion.
Some other creole superstitions are equally characterized by naïve beauty.
Never put out with your finger the little red spark that tries to linger on the
wick of a blown-out candle: just so long as it burns, some soul in purgatory
enjoys rest from torment. Shooting-stars are souls escaping from purgatory: if
you can make a good wish three times before the star disappears, the wish will
be granted. When there is sunshine and rain together, a colored nurse will tell
the children, "Gadé! djabe apé batte so femme." (Look! the devil's
beating his wife!)
I will conclude this little paper with selections from a list of
superstitions which I find widely spread, not citing them as of indubitable
creole origin, but simply calling attention to their prevalence in New Orleans,
and leaving the comparative study of them to folklorists.
Turning the foot suddenly in walking means bad or good luck. If the right
foot turns, it is bad luck; if the left, good. This superstition seems African,
according to a statement made by Moreau de Saint-Méry. Some reverse the
conditions, making the turning of the left foot bad luck. It is also bad luck to
walk about the house with one shoe on and one shoe off. or as a creole
acquaintance explained it to me "c'est appeler sa mère ou son père dans le
tombeau" (It is calling one's mother or one's father into the grave). An
itching in the right palm means coming gain; in the left, coming loss.
Never leave a house by a different door from that by which you entered it; it
is "carrying away the good luck of the place." Never live in a house you build
before it has been rented for at least a year. When an aged person repairs his
or her house, he or she is soon to die. Never pass a child through a window; it
stops his growth. Stepping over a child does the same; therefore, whoever takes
such a step inadvertently must step back again to break the evil spell. Never
tilt a rocking-chair when it is empty. Never tell a bad dream before breakfast,
unless you want it "to come true"; and never pare the nails on Monday morning
before taking a cup of coffee. A funny superstition about windows is given me in
this note by a friend: "Il ne faut pas faire passer un enfant par la fenêtre,
car avant un an il y en aura un autre" (A child must not be passed through a
window, for if so passed you will have another child before the lapse of a
year.) This proverb, of course, interests only those who desire small families,
and as a general rule creoles are proud of large families, and show
extraordinary affection toward their children.
If two marriages are celebrated simultaneously, one of the husbands will die.
Marry at the time of the moon's waning and your good luck will wane also. If two
persons think and express the same thought at the same time, one of them will
die before the year passes. To chop up food in a pot with a knife means a
dispute in the house. If you have a ringing in your ears, some person is
speaking badly of you; call out the names of all whom you suspect and when the
ringing stops at the utterance of a certain name, you know who the party is. If
two young girls are combing the hair of a third at the same time, it may be
taken for granted that the youngest of the three will soon die. If you want to
make it stop raining, plant a cross in the middle of the yard and sprinkle it
with salt. The red-fish has the print of St. Peter's fingers on its tail. If
water won't boil in the kettle, there may be a toad or a toad's egg in it. Never
kill a spider in the afternoon or evening, but always kill the spider unlucky
enough to show himself early in the morning, for the old French proverb says:
"Araignée du matin--chagrin;
Araignée du midi--plaisir;
Araignée du soir--espoir"
(A spider seen in the morning is a sign of grief; a spider seen an noon, of
joy; a spider seen in the evening, of hope).
Even from this very brief sketch of New Orleans superstitions the reader may
perceive that the subject is peculiar enough to merit the attention of
experienced folklorists. It might be divided by a competent classifier under
three heads: I. Negro superstitions confined to the black and colored.
population; II. Negro superstitions which have proved contagious, and have
spread among the uneducated classes of whites; III. Superstitions of Latin
origin imported from France, Spain, and Italy. I have not touched much upon
superstitions inherited from English, Irish, or Scotch sources, inasmuch as they
have nothing especially local in their character here. It must be remembered
that the refined classes have no share in these beliefs, and that, with a few
really rational exceptions, the practices of Creole medicine are ignored by
educated persons. The study of Creole superstitions has only an ethnological
value, and that of Creole medicine only a botanical one, in so far as it is
related to empiricism.
All this represents an under side of New Orleans life; and if anything of it
manages to push up to the surface, the curious growth makes itself visible only
by some really pretty blossoms of feminine superstition in regard to weddings or
betrothal rings, or by some dainty sprigs of child-lore, cultivated by those
colored nurses who tell us that the little chickens throw up their heads while
they drink to thank the good God for giving them water.
(End.)
NOTICE: Some material contained in some articles
on this web site were written from an outsider's perspective by
European-Americans. Clearly, some of these authors were racist and derogatory
and this attitude is reflected in their writing. The texts are nonetheless
presented in their entirety because they provide an indispensible accounting of
the customs, beliefs, and practices of the African American south during the
19th century. You are reminded to consider the information you read within the
social and political context of the time in which it was written. The racist and
derogatory attitude reflected in these articles in no way reflects my personal
belief system; the articles are presented for educational and informational
purposes only.
Denise
Alvarado
Articles
Haunted New Orleans
Wish Spell
History of New Orleans Voodoo
Last of the Voudoos
New Orleans Voodoo from the Inside
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