{"collection":"African","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/afr/vno/vno25.htm","path":"afr/vno/vno25.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/afr/vno/vno25.htm","text":"IN FEBRUARY, 1944, the Reverend Thomas Byron, who described himself as a Voodoo doctor, was charged by Federal officers in New Orleans with failure to register for military service in World War II. The reverend, known to Negroes as \"Father Byron,\" claimed he could cure illness, heal cripples, bring love into lonely lives, and that his one aim in life was to help humanity and to give advice to \"troubled people in this troubled world.\"\nFather Byron, a very dark and serious-looking young man, wore the costume of a Catholic priest and operated a small establishment in South Rampart Street. On its plate glass window was printed the following:\n| PUBLIC CONSULTANT | PUBLIC STENOGRAPHER | \n| Personal Advice | Magazines and Novelties | \nFather Byron did not depend upon his Voodoo talents alone to make a living. He also operated a small magazine stand, did typing for anyone in the locality, and sold such \"novelties\" as beauty preparations, patented medicines and\n{p. 213}\nother articles, which included candles, incense and the milder types of gris-gris.\nWhether you seek money, health or love, the Voodoo doctors of New Orleans have always been ready to obtain it for you--for a price. There have been many famous ones of comparatively recent date, who have caused sensations in the Negro world and pierced white consciousness sufficiently to win the attention of the newspapers, sometimes to attract the police.\nDoctor Cat was one of the most prominent of recent decades. This wizard, whose real name was Joseph M. McKay, and who was by profession a dentist, seems to have been one of the most ambitious in the sect's history.\nFor Doctor Cat did not confine his operations to such clients as he could attract from the poorer elements of both ram, but like the Laveaus, and their contemporaries, he sought broader fields. An educated, light-colored Negro, Doctor Cat could not have been a serious believer in Voodooism. Doctor Cat wanted money. In 1914 he was operating a mail order business in the city, through which he sold advice, candles and gris-gris to all parts of the United States. He did very well financially. He had his wife's front teeth set with diamonds.\nBut Doctor Cat met the law at last. Federal authorities, armed with charges against him of having used the mails to defraud, appeared--and Doctor Cat left town in a hurry. He was arrested at Birmingham in July, 1914, after a two-months race with the agents.\nDoctor Cat was a pioneer in mail order Voodoo, These businesses now protect themselves well by taking great pains to advertise their products as \"novelties\" and as being designed \"for fun.\" Doctor Cat was much less sophisticated. He advertised himself as being able to \"cure anything\" and as \"the man who can do anything you want done.\"\nTroubles seldom come singly. When Doctor Cat was arrested in Birmingham he was not alone. There was a woman\n{p. 214}\nwith him, a love he had taken there from New Orleans. Thus a Mann Act charge was also brought against him.\nWhen he appeared in court the sorcerer insisted he was 127 years old, though he looked about 27. He went to a Federal penitentiary for two years, his wife divorced him--and nothing more is known of his fate.\nDespite their fear of the law, many Voodoo workers have been bold enough to advertise themselves. Marie Laveau II distributed printed cards, offering her services, and they've been doing it ever since. Back in 1913 Emile Laile, a particularly notorious practitioner, handed out cards that set a new record for frankness. They read as follows:\nEMILE LAILE P. H.\nMeaning Professor of Hoodoo\nAll manner of Hants and Hoodoos removed\nwith neatness and dispatch.\nNo witch doctor is too strong for My power\nReferences exchanged\nSpecial attention to Emergency calls\nOffice, 2928 Orleans Street\nMy Office Hours Any Time\nAll Mail Orders Filled\nProfessor Laile found himself in trouble when he, accepted a fee from a white woman. She marked a fifty cent piece with a pin, then notified the police. The professor went to jail for obtaining money under false pretenses.\nSometimes witch doctors and Voodooiennes get into trouble through greed, charging such exorbitant prices that their clients lose both their fear and their temper and notify the police.\nOne Negro, Willie Link, was arrested in 1925 for charging twenty-five dollars for a small sachet of cheap powder, which he claimed would render any man or woman helpless before the amorous assault of the owner of said sachet. He allowed\n{p. 215}\nhis customers to buy the potent powder on time, five dollars down, five dollars a month, until they had cleared their debt. He was arrested as he took some letters from his mailbox. One of the letters contained a five dollar money order.\nIn 1934 Wanda Carter, a Negress who admitted she was a Voodoo queen, was arrested in her home in uptown New Orleans. In her front room, on a center table, was a white bowl filled with cranberries. Wanda had been selling the berries for fifty cents each and had found many customers. They had special curative powers, she claimed, placed there by herself when she \"blessed\" them. Besides the cranberries, a varied assortment of gris-gris was found in her home.\nIn 1942 Bert Ellis was sentenced to a prison term after charging a man $150 to cure his son of epilepsy. The boy became permanently insane as a result of Ellis's Voodoo treatments. All the people involved in this case were white.\nThe most successful witch doctor of very recent years was Rockford Lewis. News of his activities first reached the newspapers in 1934.\nBorn in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, in 1905, Lewis came to New Orleans when he was fifteen years old. For a time he worked as yard boy and chauffeur for white residents of the city, including Mayor Semmes Walmsley, but later decided to go into the Voodoo business. In 1929 he opened a drugstore in lower Royal Street. Soon he was doing a large mail order business in Voodoo charms and powders and was becoming quite prosperous. Within a few years he had acquired a long, low, very shiny motor car, a liveried chauffeur, a flashy wardrobe and a huge diamond ring. He employed five secretaries and several other assistants.\nArraigned in Federal court in 1934, he denied any knowledge of Voodoo. The Item, after describing him as very black and with little education, quoted his statements as \"I handles medals, sachet bags, lucky beans, lucky medals. Yes, Sir, I believes in luck. I believes in helping people. But mostly I handles 'Save Your Life Rheumatic Oil.' I sells a lot of that.\" {p. 216} The last product had nothing at all to do with Voodoo, Lewis claimed, but was a valuable aid to suffering invented by himself in his own laboratory. One stenographer, called as a witness, testified that the mail orders they had shipped out of town had consisted almost entirely of the Rheumatic Oil.\nC. E. Dunbar, a postoffice inspector, testified that he had sent money to Lewis from several places and had received various Voodoo charms in return. Once he had written Lewis that he wanted to obtain a position as president of a railroad and that the witch doctor had sent him some lucky amulets, perfumes and powders which were to be used in securing this position. Also presented in court was the following circular letter which Lewis had mailed to his clientele:\nDEAR FRIEND:\nI am writing you just to find out if you would like me to do anything for you? I can do any kind of work you want done. Let me help you out of trouble and give you luck and success in anything you undertake to do. I have helped people all over the world just by sending them the stuff to do all the work. Anyone can tell you my hands and tobies are good. Mail $5.00 and I will send the order. Anything you want done costs $5.00, state what you want done. Anybody in the world will tell you I am good.\nNOTICE\nIf you tell your friends to write me I win make a discount for you.\nDoctor Rockford Lewis received a sentence of two years in the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta.\nIn 1936 he returned to New Orleans and reopened his Royal Street business. His boldness in doing this startled even the Voodoo world. For a while, however, he remained content with a local trade, but in 1938 he again began selling his concoctions through the mail. A woman in Ohio wrote the\n{p. 217}\nLouisiana State Board of Health that she had been defrauded of some money through answering the Lewis advertisements, and he was immediately arrested again.\nDoctor Lewis was not so wealthy now. Instead of the luxurious limousine he owned a Ford which he drove himself and in many other ways he showed indications of less prosperity than he had possessed at the time of his first arrest. Yet he was able to employ a clever attorney and somehow he won this case and was set free with a warning. Years after this he told the story of the second arrest.\n\"I was in my laboratory fixin' my rheumatism medicine,\" he said. \"I felt kind of funny, like it was gonna rain or something, and I knew bad luck was comin' my way. Still, when that knock came at my door I answered it myself, not thinkin' much. I opened the door and there was the policeman. And right behind him was other policemen. They come in and searched my house from start to finish, I was mad and I been through too much not to know my rights. I raised a fuss, and they told me about that woman in Ohio. Then they took me to jail. But I made bond and got out. I went and seen my lawyer right away and he say if I give him $1,500 to fix up a politician he know I would be all right. That was all right, but that was just the beginning. It grow and grow until I had given that lawyer and that politician $15,000 instead of $1,500. Of course it could have been worse. I got out of the trouble. The time before, I spent $18,000 and then went to jail for nearly two years.\"\nBut that escape seems to have cleaned out the last of Doctor Rockford Lewis's resources, and nothing has been heard from him in some time. Doctor Freddie Moses, a light Negro, popular on South Rampart Street, particularly in the night clubs and caf\u00e9s, where he spends much money on drinks and the girls, expressed the opinion that Lewis should have done better.\n\"The trouble with Rockford Lewis was he didn't use his brains,\" said Doctor Moses, a much better educated man. \"Voodoo is the smartest racket in the world. Lewis was a\n{p. 218}\nclever man, but he got to thinking nobody could touch him. You can't monkey with the mails because then you get mixed up with the Federal Government--and everybody knows you can't beat Uncle Sam. You have to be careful. If you advertise, everything has to be worded very carefully. People who use Voodoo treatments all over the country know what you're talking about without you having to talk too plainly.\"\nThe doctor fingered his neat mustache and one of his several diamond rings flashed. \"You have to be careful about other things, too. One of them is women. I've fooled with a lot of women, but that's on the side. You can't mix them and your business. Women can't keep their mouths shut, for one thing. Yes, I know more of them practice it than men, but you have to watch them. Once they get angry with you, you're sunk. And they aren't reliable about paying their bills. You have to watch them. I never tell them a secret.\"\nDoctor Moses admitted there would be little chance of making big money from Voodoo without some sort of mail order trade. \"Voodoo is getting more popular every day in other parts of the country,\" he said. \"If you stick to the New Orleans trade there is so much competition that you can't make a lot of money. There are a couple of real smart workers here. Take Professor Graham. That's a man who knows the Voodoo business and who knows how to keep out of trouble at the same time.\" He displayed a card advertising the services of Professor Graham. \"Is there anything there about Voodoo?\" he asked. \"Not a thing. That's the kind of cards workers ought to use. If any police went after Professor Graham they certainly couldn't get anything from this card.\"\nThe card read:\nWhat Do You Think About It?\nI Know About It\nYou can get out of trouble and stay out. Your business place can be made good as anyone's and stay crowded.\n{p. 219}\nYou can get your old job back again. Your love life can be happy.\nWhy Be Despondent In Life?\nYou can gain many Friends, get money and keep your apartments rented. So kindly consider all things are possible and there are wonderful blessings for everybody living. You may see--Prof. Graham--by appointment, only in morning hours.\n\"There is a man with sense,\" said Doctor Moses. \"He doesn't say too little and he doesn't say too much. The people know what he's talking about.\"\n{p. 220}","title":"24. Easy Love and Easy Money","type":"page"}