THE MOST IMPORTANT man in the life of Marie II was never her lover. He was Jim Alexander, who called himself "Doctor Jim," in the tradition of a Voodoo witch doctors, and with his arrival in New Orleans Marie faced the first real challenge to her omnipotence.
Doctor Jim was three-quarters Indian, one-quarter Negro, and he liked to pass as a Mexican. He had been practicing in the State of Mississippi for years before moving into the territory dominated by Marie Laveau, and when he came he brought with him much experience in the field, a reputation as a successful healer, and a white wife, who was a fairly well known Voodooienne herself. His powers of healing are said to have been remarkable. According to some persons who remember him, "He was cleverer than Marie Laveau at making' you well when you was sick."
There are no accounts of his activities until the late 1870's, but after that he was a familiar figure in New Orleans. He is said to have made a great deal of money and was more successful at retaining it than Marie. "The truth is that all the Laveaus was heavy gamblers," said Nathan Hobley, a Negro of great age, who now describes himself as a "divine healer." {p. 116} "Doctor Jim bought land. He owned all the property between Gentilly and Spanish Fort."
Old Nathan probably knows more about Jim Alexander than anyone living. He claims that most of the knowledge he now applies in his own practices was learned from that witch doctor at first hand.
"He was tall. and straight and looked like an Indian," Nathan said. "Lots of people called him 'Indian Jim.' He was the only person had enough nerve to buck up against Marie Laveau. She got mad when some of her people started going to Indian Jim instead of her, and first thing she done was to get the law to go and raid his house. When that didn't do no good she put gris-gris on him-the worst kind she had. But it just didn't work. I guess his gris-gris was as strong as hers. Sometimes they'd meet in the street and they'd call each other names and fight. Once it got so bad some people called the police, but Marie Laveau got rid of them. She wanted to fight this out her own way. After that he began to go to some of her meetings and they sort of patched it up. But from then on it was Marie Laveau that lost some of her business. People went to him and she couldn't stop them, so they kind of worked together. She knew more than he did about most kinds of hoodoo and she began teaching him some of her tricks. He never did much besides healing, though. He was better at that than she was.
"You know his real name was Laurinsky Avery. That didn't come out until a long time, when he got into trouble once. He outlived Marie Laveau and he did a big business after she was gone. I remember his wife good. She was the only white Voodoo woman around then so far as I know. She was sure crazy about him and jealous because he had something that got the women. I don't think there was ever nothing like that between him and Marie Laveau. You see she was lots older than he was-and then she had other men at that time."
The Daily Picayune ran a story of the Laveau-Alexander feud during the first years of its existence, titling it:
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TROUBLE AMONG THE VOUDOUS
The Contest is occasioned by a disputed point of faith between Marie Laveau and Dr. Jim, the great physician, who is supposed by his disciples to hold in his hands the issues of life and death. The consequences of this antagonism between the priest and the high priestess is [sic] an unusual shortage of beef hearts and black crepe. Their violent discussions a few nights since demanded the interposition of the police, and a number of them were arrested, nevertheless, it had no effect in allaying the fever of excitement, and the conflict is still waged with vehement antipathy.
Yet some years later the antipathy seems to have been put aside by both Marie and Indian Jim. "I came to New Orleans in 1880," one old colored man said, "and Jim Alexander was always with Marie Laveau then. She was sure smart, but he was just as smart in some ways." He added, "Those troubled in spirit went to Marie Laveau, but they went to Doctor Jim when they was hurtin'."
Nathan Hobley said, "He used to give me money all the time to go with him to cure people. He sure did well. He bought a house on Orleans near Johnson Street. I can see it now. It had a long gallery down the side and the last two rooms was his church. He received his visitors there and him and his wife lived in the other rooms."
Nathan could also remember Papa Sol. "He used to help Indian Jim," he explained. "He was pretty good and sometimes he used to make Marie Laveau mad as a hornet, but he wasn't no good after Jim Alexander died. Couldn't do nothing on his own.
"I remember one time me and Alexander broke up evil spirits across the river in Algiers," said Nathan. "There was a girl over there about twelve years old who was possessed with a devil. One night she was going from room to room with a lamp in her hand, when all of a sudden she began
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whirling like a broke watch spring. Finally she landed on top a table, but a minute later she was whirling again.
"The next day she was in the kitchen and every piece of wood jumped out of the basket by the stove and smashed right through a shut window and went flying out into the yard. This was in 1882, and Algiers and New Orleans was both excited about it. Her father moved her to another house about nine blocks off. That night the piano began to play. It not only played, but it moved itself around the room without nobody touching it.
"They sent for Alexander and he asked me to go with him. When we got to the house he ht three candles and filled a tin bucket with beer. He sent everybody out of the room and then he sprinkled the beer all over the furniture and the floor, in the four corners of the room; he even threw some up at the ceiling. We went over to the first house where the girl had done the whirling and did the same thing. There has never been any evil spirits in Algiers since.
"Doctor Jim always used beer for that kind of treatment. One night spirits was throwing pillows out a window on Claiborne Street and he and me went with the beer and stopped that. You see the evil spirits drank the beer and was satisfied and went away. Both New Orleans and Algiers was full of evil spirits at that time, but we sure did clean 'em out. You don't never hear about things like that now, you know. This place owes a lot to Jim Alexander.
"Of course he held other kinds of services, too. He was one of the best hoodoo dancers I ever saw in my life. He would dance naked with hot coals on his head and the women would go wild. He was wonderful!"
He does seem to have been rather wonderful, but he was not smart enough to keep out of what Negroes sometimes refer to as "police trouble." On several occasions Jim Alexander went to jail, and his dances were constantly being interrupted by the law. He lacked Marie Laveau's skill in handling the police, and his so-called dances had a sex angle that the law didn't like.
{p. 119}
The dance for which he became famous was not quite as Nathan Hobley described it, but it was sufficiently fantastic to attract much attention. It was a bizarre combination of the Calinda and an Indian war dance, performed in tights and with a candle balanced on his head. The Times Democrat, describing a raid by the police in May, 1889, told of discovering ten Negro men lying on the floor, all of them nearly nude, and fifteen white women sitting in chairs placed in a circle about them. In the center, Jim Alexander was executing his dance, wearing "a pair of drawers with a large mesh and a blue sash." Two of the girls present were only seventeen years of age. Also among the attendants was Lou Jackson, a white prostitute, known both for her interest in Voodoo and for an attachment to Doctor Jim.
Alexander also gave dances on barges out on Lake Pontchartrain. He was a good showman. In the yard of his home in Orleans Street was a pool in which he kept two alligators. Witnesses vowed that when he called them by name the alligators rose out of the water and came to him. This was the sort of thing that increased his prestige greatly in the Voodoo world. It was almost as good as the snakes that were supposed to inhabit the Laveau residence.
Doctor Jim came to a sudden and violent end. One Yoy Livaudais, a simple-minded boy in his neighborhood, hit him in the head with a rock. An abscess formed and he died shortly afterward.
It was many years before his estate was settled, and then his supposed wealth was found to have been very much exaggerated. All the witch doctor left his wife was his home and $3,006.50. It was also revealed that his name was neither James Alexander nor Laurinsky Avery, but Charles LaFontaine. Perhaps, as the newspapers suggested, his wife, Clemence, had hoarded some cash, but of owning "all the property between Gentilly and Spanish Fort" there was no trace. What became of the money he made--and it was substantiated that he had made a great deal--remains a mystery.
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