Voodoo Value | Being

The second lines are a signature of New Orleans culture – presented at various occasions, including funerals. But there may be an often-overlooked connection between the ceremonial pre-burial procession, characterised by dancing while a brass band plays an anthem called the funeral dirge, and some of the misunderstood religions on the earth.

“It’s voodoo on display,” says Cinnamon Black, a tour guide on the Historic Voodoo Museum in New Orleans. “Spirituality and music move people. It takes you to another level, physically and mentally.”

A black is what is known as a “nee voodoo”: a one that, like a priestess, has been trained on this religious practice. Voodoo originated within the West African city of Benin and later took shape in Haiti through the transatlantic slave trade. Black was initiated into this within the Crescent City. “It’s a way of life in New Orleans,” he says. “It shows in the food, music and culture.”

The complexity of voodoo dates back to its most famous figure, Marie Laveau. Born in 1801, Laveau was a free Creole healer and herbalist from Louisiana who was also a practitioner of root work, or Hoodoo, a type of spiritual folk magic. She provided services in her home and at New Orleans’ famous Congo Square, where enslaved and free people from West Africa and the Caribbean colonies of Martinique and Saint-Domingue, now generally known as Haiti, could gather on Sundays to bop and play drums.

“She had clients coming from all over the country for spiritual readings and healing practices, so there was a commercial aspect to voodoo that made it an integral part of New Orleans culture in the 19th century,” says Dr. Richard Turner. ., professor of African American religious history on the University of Iowa. “The commercialization of voodoo today is an element of the stereotyping of this religion. It’s related to the tourism industry – this concept that voodoo is about sticking pins in dolls and cursing people, when in truth it is a healing religious tradition.

Mischaracterizations of voodoo, that are rooted within the worship of assorted deities and connections to ancestors and the spirits of the dead, date back to the late 18th century. “One of the reasons voodoo is demonized is that it was a religious tradition that revitalized the Haitian Revolution,” Turner explains, “which defeated Napoleon’s armies and forced French plantation owners to flee to New Orleans. Haiti became the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere ruled by former slaves, an example the United States did not want to repeat.”

When a series of municipal laws were passed within the nineteenth century restricting the gathering of slaves, voodoo became an underground religion shrouded in mysticism – slightly than the empowering spiritual practice it was intended to be.

“Voodoo means and,” explains priestess Miriam, who founded the Voodoo Spiritual Temple in 1990 together with her late husband, priest Oswan Chamani. “What people now consider the practice of voodoo is superficial. They have never been able to understand the deeper emotional transformation that the people of Haiti went through to form the perfect plan, stand up and put it into action.” This is at the center of the work of Black, Priestess Miriam, and other practitioners – corresponding to Sen Elias, owner of the Crescent City Conjure hoodie shop.

“These practices teach that when you face opposition to yourself or your family, you must take action, but ultimately it is for the greater good,” Elias says.

This can take many forms: placing red brick dust under doors to make sure prosperity; using oils or charm bags (generally known as gris-gris) to manifest an intention; or hunt down a priest or priestess for spiritual consultation, as you’d see a counselor for guidance. “We read, we believe in meditation, we believe in prayer, and we believe that we have a sixth sense and the ability to talk to something higher than ourselves and that we can receive messages,” Elias explains.

While persistent misconceptions concerning the “dark” nature of voodoo still result in unsavory requests (“People always call me when they’re mad at someone and want to know how to get rid of them without going to jail,” Black jokes), most are on the lookout for answers: “People bring their secrets through your door to see how you can help them through a crisis,” Priestess Miriam says.

It was a voodoo priestess who helped Turner process his mother’s transformation when she fell right into a coma in the summertime of 1997. “She gave me a reading. She prayed in every corner of my house, using holy incense from the Bible. And I created an ancestor altar in my house for my mother because voodoo practitioners strongly believe in respect for elders and that ancestors influence our happiness in life,’ he says. “I found it very touching at a time when I was grieving.”

Although Turner ultimately didn’t turn out to be a practitioner, his temporary personal encounter illustrates a truth Black hopes to convey about an ancient religion that also commands public curiosity. “Voodoo, you don’t choose it,” Black says. “It chooses you.”