Searched For new orleans

The voodoo that you do

le grande zombie

a gris gris for love

black cat juju

gator man

horse skull

human skulls

 

 

masks

papa la bas altar

rougarou

statue with mardi gras beads

statue with offerings

voodoo doll instructions

voodoo mask

voodoo museum

voodoo wishing stump

zombie whip

The Voodoo Museum was my consolation prize on my last day in New Orleans. I’d first and foremost planned to visit the Musee Conti Wax Museum before it permanently closed at the end of December, but the timing simply did not work out–we were either doing something else or there wasn’t enough time left in the day for a proper visit. So here it was, the last day of my trip, my very last opportunity, the museum was supposed to be open, and I waited outside. And waited. And waited. And tried to call. And waited. Eventually, someone came to the door and said that the museum probably wouldn’t be opening that day as they were having problems with their electricity. So I suppose it just wasn’t meant to be, although I can’t help but be a bit disappointed about it.

Instead, I set my sights on the Voodoo Museum, a three room museum packed to the gills with altars, gris gris, and just enough information about each thing to pique your curiosity. For $5, we had the run of the place, learning about the difference between Voodoo and Hoodoo (in essence quite similar with some differences–the former led by a voodoo queen and associated with the catholic church, the latter led by a spiritualist bishop in a separate church). That’s right–you read Catholic church. Voodoo as a spiritual practice is often associated with paganism and witchcraft especially as contrasted with white christianity, but Marie Laveau herself was a devout Catholic, ministering to the sick and dying of yellow fever, which plagued the city over the course of her lifetime.

As with all of these niche museums, it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s bunk. For instance, in one section, they claimed that voodoo was a dancing religion, the purpose of which is to become possessed by the spirits via the transforming ecstasy of dancing, and that the musical rhythms call the spirits down which cause the dancers to eat, drink, sing, dance, smoke, and engage in sexual relations, and that a West African word for sex, jass, is the etymology behind “jazz”, which doesn’t actually seem to be true. So does that make the whole thing about voodoo being the “do it if it feels good, the spirits made me do it” religion suspect, or just the last bit? And that thing about Voodoo being Catholic and Hoodoo not…is that applicable to voodoo in general or just Louisiana voodoo or just Louisiana voodoo post Marie Laveau? Based on my limited internet research, it would seem that it was Marie Laveau who intermingled Catholicism and Voodoo and that people have carried on in her stead since, keeping and discarding the aspects that they personally believe properly align with the faith, which would make my previous statement about the difference between Hoodoo and Voodoo also suspect. I would have to do a lot more in-depth reading to make any definitive claims one way or another about the veracity of any information in the museum. The important thing is that now I know where to buy a zombie whip and how to make a proper voodoo doll.

City of the Dead: St Louis Cemetery No 1

rev zombies house of voodoo

rev zombies voodoo shop

The above-ground cemeteries of New Orleans have long-fascinated visitors to the area. Mark Twain famously said that the city of New Orleans has no architecture, save for its cemeteries. Nicolas Cage even bought space for and constructed an enormous whitewashed pyramid for his eventual interment. Thanks to vandals, disrespectful tourists, and ne’er do wells, you actually can no longer visit St Louis Cemetery No. 1 if you don’t have relatives interred there unless you are accompanied by a licensed tour group. I selected Haunted History Tours at random (all the tour groups advertise that they’re the number one tour group, and they all pretty much depart from one voodoo shop or another so it’s impossible to differentiate between them from afar), and fairly shortly into the tour I was sure I had made the correct choice. I’d seen a number of tour groups wandering through the french quarter, and some of them were so large that I’m not certain the people in the back knew what was going on or could even see the thing they were there to hear about before the group made it to the next thing on the list. Our tour group was seven people plus the tour guide, which made it easy to hear and ask questions and get a more personal tour experience. 

We departed from Rev. Zombie’s House of Voodoo (meh, I’ve seriously seen some of the candles for sale in there at Urban Outfitters), and walked up the street toward the cemetery, learning the original sites of the graves so none of us invest in potentially haunted property, and taking a couple of quick detours at Louis Armstrong Park and Basin St. Station to talk about the history of the area, learn about why people and GPS devices get so confused when talking about directions in New Orleans (you’re not going north, south, east, and west in the crescent city–you’re going lakeside, riverside, uptown and downtown), and take one last opportunity to use a restroom since (surprise!) there aren’t any in the cemetery. While we were in Basin St. Station, our tour guide recommended a book, Frenchmen Desire Good Children, about the history of New Orleans and its interesting street naming conventions. Somehow, I got the title mixed up in my head and went back to Basin St. Station later and requested to buy a copy of City of Saints and Bastards, to which the people working there looked quite perplexed and asked me which tour guide recommended that book, again? It turns out once they figured out which book I was actually after, that they were sold out, but they also enthusiastically praised it, and said it’s the book that all New Orleans tour guides study before they take their examinations. I bought it later on Amazon and just very recently started to read it, which I wholeheartedly recommend you not do, because it is the single most racist piece of shit I’ve ever read. I said “What the fuck?!?” more times in the first ten pages than I did throughout the entirety of the series of Twin Peaks, and it wasn’t a perplexed kind of Twin Peaks-y “What the fuck?” but a truly horrified, can’t believe this book came highly recommended, really can’t believe that the author just compared native americans to dogs sort of “WHAT. THE. FUCK.”. I think I would have preferred City of Saints and Bastards to this hot garbage.

tomb of marie laveau

marie laveau tomb

xes on tomb

a cemetery for all

brick tombs

bricked up tomb

broken nameplate

 

But back to the tour. It was interesting to see how differently the city of New Orleans handles burials. We learned that because of the heat inside the tombs, in about a year’s time, there are only bones left in the tomb, which means that they can be reused over and over again, adding more names to the plaque on the front, while the bones intermingle in an area at the bottom. This is why you see double-decker tombs in the cemetery, because if you had multiple family members die less than a year apart, you wouldn’t want to open the tomb until the decomposition process had ended. With two, unless your family was having a really bad year, it’s unlikely you’d have to worry about opening up a tomb that wasn’t…uh…fully baked. We also learned that tomb maintenance is handled by the family or by a trust left by a family for said purpose, which is why some tombs look pristine and others are crumbling. 

Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen of New Orleans, is interred at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, and even though maintenance people keep whitewashing away the Xes people scratch on the sides of the tomb, hoping for her favors even in death, more keep appearing. Evidently, if your wish is granted, you’re supposed to return and circle your Xes and leave her a gift in accordance with the size of the favor–although her tomb has been cleaned, it’s plain to see that not many favors are granted. Some people also believe that Marie Laveau’s bones are not interred within that tomb but are instead elsewhere in the cemetery out of fear of them being stolen, which is why triple Xes are found all over various tombs in the cemetery from people hedging their bets.

 

burial table

city of the dead

crumbling brick tomb

crumbling tomb

escapee

grout

growing its own flowers

homer plessy

life finds a way

lion drawer handle

marble sculpture

marble tomb

 

nicolas cage tomb

 

pink tomb

plant life

 

row of tombs

rusty gate

st louis cemetery

st louis

Visiting this cemetery made me think a bit more about what I’d want for my own body when I die. I’ve joked about being packed into a lipstick tube and launched into space, I’ve suggested that it would be totally fine if I was just tossed into a dumpster, but it is important to really consider the impact not only our lives have on the planet, but also our deaths. The single coffin below ground has to be a thing of the past, as our world population has exploded and there just simply isn’t room. Family crypts are an interesting solution. Maybe I can get in on Nic Cage’s badass pyramid. Either way, right now, I’m seriously in the mood for some brick oven pizza.

A Spirited Encounter At Muriels in Jackson Square

muriels front

muriels seance room

seance room at muriels

masks at muriels

seance room

wooden face

drink in the seance room

me at muriels

us at muriels

If you believe what all of the haunted tours have to tell you, New Orleans is filled with ghosts, vampires, and more than a little magic. Conveniently, of course, these hauntings never stray far from the downtown core, because there are limits to how far tourists are willing to walk. So many rumors and myths swirl around the various hotels and restaurants, peddled by the establishments themselves, any number of contradictory tour guides, and people looking to make a buck from book sales and TV shows. The French Quarter two story mansion that houses Muriel’s, located on the corner of St. Ann and Chartres street, has a multi-storied reputation, most of it fanciful, wishful thinking, or straight from the rear end of a horse carriage. The building is original to the 18th century? Nope. There have been a number of properties built, razed, and burned on that spot dating to the mid 1700s. The property that stands there now was built around 1900. One of the owners, Pierre Jourdan/Joseph Lippardi (depending on who is peddling the story), was a compulsive gambler who lost his beloved home on a hand of poker and subsequently committed suicide on the property? Nope.  When Pierre Jourdan died (not from suicide), the property was left to his son, who was at that time also deceased (update those wills, people!). It’s changed hands a number of times since then but never via gambling or suicide. There are ghosts haunting up the place, especially from that aforementioned suicide? I couldn’t say, but probably not. Especially not from a suicide that didn’t happen.

Here’s the thing: Muriel’s is so cool. They shouldn’t need to make up a story about a ghost and always have a table set for said ghost to draw in traffic. It stands on its own. When you’re sipping a honeysuckle cocktail in their posh red seance room upstairs, you feel like you’re a part of the coolest secret club in town (albeit one that plays “Let’s call the whole thing off” on an endless loop, and I’d like to know who to blame for that one, be they human or ghost). And the food? The meal I ate at Muriel’s was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, and I am a prodigious eater. Between the three of us at dinner, we ordered nine different courses, and each thing was the best thing I’d ever eaten. I was too busy practically weeping with joy at the table to even think about taking pictures of anything. The gulf shrimp and goat cheese crepes were creamy, dreamy perfection. The savory gorgonzola cheesecake was tangy, salty, and the accompanying tart green apple was the perfect complement. The motherf’ing shrimp and grits were divine. And the double cut pork chop with a sugar cane apple glaze? I have dreams about that pork chop.  Sometimes when I’m sitting at an intersection waiting for the light to change, I’ll think about that pork chop and smile. I’m happy to think that somewhere inside of me lies some energy from that pork chop so that in essence, I have become one with that pork chop. I guess you could say that I have been positively haunted by that pork chop. Mmmmm, ghostly pork chop.