BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT Laveau work was still done in the cottage on St. Ann Street. For years, in a back room, old and shrunken, lay-the real, if you like-Marie Laveau, the Widow Paris. Few persons saw her. Some who did were told by Marie II that she was an old woman she had taken in out of pity. Others knew her as "Marie Laveau's mother." Most Negroes had forgotten her and knew only the current Marie.
There was still a constant stream of clients and visitors. New Orleans was growing more American now, and many Creoles were intermarrying with the Anglo-Saxons. The city was becoming cosmopolitan and, in a way, more sophisticated, but some of its color was fading. Those Orleanians who remained fiercely and stubbornly Creole became a minority who secluded themselves from the rest of the population, snubbed the "new society," and refused to live--sometimes even to visit--in the neighborhoods above Canal Street. English was now the language taught in the schools and spoken on the streets. It was the beginning of a new era.
Marie II, however, had no trouble obtaining clients. As many came as had come to her mother, to buy the same
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gris-gris and to listen to the same advice, though all was sold at higher prices.
There were the same rumors, many persons still vowing that she kept a huge snake in her yard-or in her house, or under her bed. There were others who denied the existence of any such reptile. One old man, still living, will take a vow that Marie Laveau was afraid of snakes!
There were the same horror tales and the whispers of human sacrifice; they still persist.
"I lived across the street from her in 1880," Marie Breaux, an old Frenchwoman, will tell you. "She was an evil woman, her. She killed babies that were not wanted by their mothers. She used to hang their bodies up in her chimney like hams and smoke them. Oh, she killed lots of children. They say her armoire was filled with skeletons. Me, I moved out of that neighborhood as soon as I found myself living near a woman like that. I still thank God that I am alive. She was awful!"
At least one living man, a Negro undertaker, claims to have once owned one of these mummies.
"We had it in our family for years," he said. "My father bought it from Marie Laveau for twenty dollars. It was coal black and hard as a stone and people used to come from all over to see it. When I got married my wife couldn't stand the sight of it, so to please her I took it out and threw it in the river. People used to tell her that she would never have a baby with that thing in the house, and she wanted to have children. Now we have five."
White families seem to have sometimes lived across the street from the Laveaus. Miss Annie Ferguson had childhood memories of the carriages before the door of the cottage, of veiled ladies who entered and departed, and of terrifying stories of witchcraft.
"Many a morning my father found little dolls and other peculiar things on our front steps," she said. "I think Marie Laveau didn't like us and wanted us to move. And we did. We didn't like it there any better than she liked having us,
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once we realized what we had across the street from us. I never saw the inside of that house. My mother would have died at the idea of my entering it. But it is true that many society women and prominent men used to go to her for advice. Sometimes they carried home human bones in their pockets. Human bones! It was all so horrible. You never know what people are really like. I remember one other thing. Sometimes a lot of Indians used to sleep in her side yard. They were the kind who sold baskets and herbs in the French Market, you know, and if they missed the last ferry--most of them lived across the river--they'd sleep there. People said Marie Laveau was part Indian and that some of these people were her relatives, but you don't know what to believe. I saw her several times and she looked more Indian than anything else, only she was better looking. But I didn't look at her long. If somebody would say, 'Here comes Marie Laveau!' I'd run inside to my mother. I was that afraid of her."
Miss Ferguson suddenly recalled another fact. "I talked to a colored woman once who went inside that terrible house," she said. "She told me that right in the center of the floor of the front room there was a pan of sugar with drops of fresh blood on top of it!" The old lady concluded with what seems to be proof that her memory was of Marie II: "She was using a false name, too. Lots of people told me her real name was Marie Glapion and that she had taken her mother's name because her mother had been a famous Voodoo queen, too."
The gris-gris sold by Marie II included small bags to be worn for protection or for good luck. These were bits of cloth into which were placed such articles as bits of bone, colored pebbles, goofer dust--dirt from a graveyard--some salt and some ground red pepper. Others were more elaborate, one being a tiny vest woven from horsehair and pierced with two crossed roots. These were sewn to the hem of a skirt or to a garter, for the purpose of warding off evil. George W. Cable reported having seen one containing cat hair and dog hair, mixed with salt and pepper. Still others were made of red flannel and contained a lodestone; these were--and still
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are--considered. very helpful to gamblers. Another sort held gunpowder and red pepper; these were powerful wangas to be thrown into somebody's path to cause them to get into fights.
Descriptions of these charms sometimes sound ridiculous. One such was of a bag made from a shroud of a person who had been buried nine days. Into this was placed, according to reports, a dried, one-eyed toad, a dried lizard, the little finger of a Negro who had committed suicide, the wings of a bat, the eyes of a cat, the liver of an owl and the heart of a rooster. This was--as it certainly deserved to be--an extremely powerful weapon against evil. If it were placed inside the pillow of an enemy, he would die. That is not difficult to believe, either.
Marie II trained many of her people to prepare gris-gris, and it was not unusual for white persons who were unpopular with their servants to find their pillows very uncomfortable. Often someone opening such a pillow, would find that some of the feathers had been arranged in a peculiar fashion--rolled into tight balls or shaped into the form of a rooster and securely tied with twine. This still goes on--and there is never any indication of the pillow having been opened. Lyle Saxon told of opening a pillow for someone, while visiting on a plantation, and finding inside a pecan through which two feathers had been thrust, forming a cross.
Conjure-balls were sold at the Laveau cottage. These were sometimes made of black wax and were supposed to contain a piece of human flesh. Often they were stuck with pins or marked with blood. One of the Laveau instructions was that a conjure-ball be rolled across the lawn or yard of an enemy during the night. This would bring about a death or some other misfortune within the household of the enemy.
Gamblers were advised to take a small piece of chamois, another of red flannel, a shark's tooth, sap from a pine tree and blood from a dove. The blood and sap were mixed together,
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and the amount the gambler wished to win was written upon the chamois with this mixture. The chamois was then covered with red flannel, with the shark's tooth between the two, and sewn together with cat's hair. This was to be worn in the left shoe. Results were assured, but it must have been uncomfortable.
There was a simple way of making a stingy friend spend his money. Marie II advised the client to bathe in a tub half filled with water into which a box of borax, a box of cinnamon and a teacupful of sugar had been added. Upon meeting this miser, the miser would spend every cent he possessed upon the one who had performed such an ablution.
Sometimes even preachers--though they often denounced her from their pulpits--came to Marie II, desperate because of their waning congregations. She would tell them to buy ammonia, sugar and nutmeg and to use this in the water used to scrub the church. For extreme cases she sometimes recommended that whiskey be thrown into the four corners of the church. It has been reported that churches following her advice always showed an increase in attendance.
There were many ways of winning court cases and of swaying judges and juries. Like her mother, Marie II was expert in this. To have a prisoner released she would sometimes ask for the names of the jury, the judge and the prosecuting attorney. These were written on a piece of paper and the paper was placed into a hole chipped in a large block of ice and covered with powdered sugar. Nine candles were arranged around the block of ice. Then Marie and her client would lie on their backs on the floor before the ice and she would rap nine times with her fist upon the floor, saying certain prayers in Creole and in the "unknown tongue."
Often, after listening to the details of the case, she would decide that the best plan was to make the judge ill. To accomplish this she would melt a black candle, place a piece of paper containing the judge's name inside the wax, knead and roll it into a ball, then place the ball in a tub of water. All of the
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night before the day of the trial Marie would sit beside the tub, turning the hall with a stick. The judge would not appear in court the next day.
There was an evil gris-gris she sold to servants who wanted to get even with their master or mistress for some real or fancied wrong. It consisted of saffron, salt, gunpowder and pulverized dog manure. White persons were constantly finding little sacks of black paper containing this mixture in their homes--in dresser drawers, in kitchen cabinets, perhaps secreted inside the piano. More than one debutante, arriving at a ball, found some such repulsive article inside her handbag, when she opened it to powder her nose. Occasionally she might find a little wax doll stuck with pins, but, despite their frequency in fiction about Voodoo, dolls were rarely used in the practices.
The Laveau ways of performing homeopathic magic were endless. Sick people were often brought to the house to receive the benefit of a cure by Marie II. A person bitten by a snake was told to get another live snake of any sort, cut its head off "while it was angry" and to tie this head to the wound. This was to be left attached until sunrise of the following day. Sometimes her practices contained an element of medical truth, embracing the use of roots and herbs that contained genuine curative elements. For sprains and swellings she used hot water containing Epsom salts and rubbed the injured parts with whiskey, chanting prayers and burning candles at the same time, of course. For other ailments she administered castor oil, to the accompaniment of incantations and prayer.
To make a person change his mind black candles were burned half an hour, then were melted. The individual's name was written four times backward and five times forward on a scrap of silk paper, put into the wax. This lump was then thrown under his house. Next, his name was written once on another bit of silk paper and the paper was placed in a cocoanut {sic} together with honey and sugar. This was to "sweeten" him. The cocoanut was rolled from the front to the back door of the house, while the one rolling it repeated
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over and over again, "Your head is as hard as a cocoanut, but you're going to change your mind." When Marie II "worked on" a person, she worked thoroughly.
To get rid of a person his name was written on a small balloon, the balloon was tied to a statue of St. Expédite, and then was released into the air. The person would depart in whatever direction the balloon was carried by the wind.
Marie II was often seen late at night on an unfrequented road outside the city, carrying a plate of food, usually roast chicken, mashed potatoes and green peas, sometimes congris or gumbo. The food was left under a tree. This was called paying off," and is practiced by Voodooiennes of today.
Nowadays all Voodoo practitioners in the United States use Marie Laveau's gris-gris following the teachings of the Widow Paris and her daughter. Strange-looking old women and witch doctors from New York, Chicago and the Pacific Coast came to New Orleans, some of them during the Laveau period, others many years afterward, to study and to carry home the art. In Houston and Harlem and Atlanta the same amulets and fetishes are used and the identical incantations are chanted. Chain order houses sell gris-gris invented by the Laveaus to every nook and corner of North America.
Marie II charged high prices for her services, though the amounts varied according to the wealth of her client. Everything was very businesslike. She had cards printed with her name and address and describing her work. These were distributed with amazing boldness, though she did not term herself a Voodooienne on the cards, but a "Healer."
She accepted no white client for less than ten dollars. This was sufficient to have one's fortune told and to purchase some simple good luck charm. Because of the notoriety she received practically everyone in the city must have visited her at least once. To go see Marie Laveau became one of the things a tourist in New Orleans must do, just as he was supposed to eat once in each of the famous restaurants and attend a performance at the French Opera House.
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Her prices for regular and more serious clients sometimes ran to three or four figures. Businessmen might pay from $50 to $500 for her guidance in certain matters. At least one politician gave her $1,000 when he wanted to be elected a judge. He won the election. There were similar prices for winning the love of a desired man or woman, breaking up a marriage or bringing ruin to a rival either in a love affair or in business. The removal of an enemy by death cost from $500 to $1,000, at least that is what we are told.
There was a charge of ten dollars for powder to sprinkle on the front steps of an enemy's house (this was the most commonly used gris-gris of all) and the same charge for anti-gris-gris powder, which was supposed to counteract the first. It was not unusual for Marie to sell both powders to the two individuals concerned in the same Voodoo feud. More intricate charms were priced accordingly. If the undertaker's father bought that mummified baby for $20 he got a bargain. They are said to have cost at least $100 each.
"I never 'sociates wit' trashy peoples, white or colored," said Adele Brown, who despite her eighty years still peddles vegetables on the streets of New Orleans. "I has a good standin' wit' my friends and I is always careful. Sure, I remembers that Marie Laveau. Man, you talk 'bout a hellcat--she was the worst! I never has went wit' hoodoo, people in my life, but I seen some funny things. Marie Laveau owned half the property 'round Rampart and St. Ann and you know how she made it . . . I hates to think 'bout it.
"She used to give dances in lots of places and they was dancin' for the devil. I don't mind the dancin' and I always said there is a time to dance and a time to refrain from dancin', but one time you got to refrain is when you is mixed up wit' them hoodoo people. I see them people all 'round here now--two-headed doctors and women what walks backward. Old Marie Laveau looked just like the devil herself, and she's settin' on a throne in Hell today. She used to walk 'round this city like she owned every brick in the banquette, her. {p. 105} She walked like a queen, wit' her head in the air and her eyes on the stars and all that jewelry she'd bought wit' other people's blood jinglin' and makin' a noise.
"She killed plenty people. Sure, she did. She could do anything and get by wit' it. She put curses on people to the fourth generation, and you know that's a sin 'cause nobody but God is supposed to do that. It says so in the Bible. She was always breakin' up homes and families, and nobody could stop her. She could call up spirits from the dead. She could make pictures fall off walls. I seen that happen lots of times.
"I used to spit three times and say my prayers every time I seen her. I was a little child then and I didn't know much, but I went to Sunday School and to church and I always has had a feelin' for evil. My ma used to tell me to close my eyes and not look at her, but sometimes I looked. I always been a big Bible reader and a big prayer, and I knowed my Bible and my prayin' was gonna protect me.
"One time when I was small some people want to take me to her house. Me, I didn't want to go, but you know how it is. I got to the gate and I hung back. I was half scared and half curious. I said, 'I ain't goin' in that house. It's full of spirits and I don't want to see 'em,' and they say, 'Ah, come on, Adele!' and start hollerin 'Adele's a scairty-cat' and stuff like that. They dragged me through that gate and the whole yard was full of banana trees and fig trees and the grass was up to my knees. I'd done heared 'bout a snake she kept and I didn't want to go in no further, but they kept pullin' me.
"When I got inside the front door I started shiverin' and shakin' all over. I seen a skeleton of a little child clingin' to the outside of her armoire, and her settin' on the floor, rockin' forward and backward and laughin' and laughin'. Me, I was so scared I run out of that house screamin' at the top of my voice. From that day on I never messed wit' hoodoo people. Sometimes I wakes up in the middle of the night right now and I still sees the skeleton of that poor little child bangin' on the outside of her armoire, and her settin' there, rockin! back and forth and laughin' and laughin'."
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