IF THERE IS A LIVING successor to the Voodoo throne it is probably Lala. Her reputation had preceded her.
"Lala is a devil. She wears a shawl over her head to hide her horns," said a colored woman who lives near her. "If I sees her comin' I crosses the street or goes 'round the block to keep from meetin' her. There ain't no tellin' what she will do."
But the first thing Lala said about herself was "I don't do no more bad work. I used to do plenty, I gotta admit, and I still knows how to do it, but I has changed. I has even changed in my looks. I used to be a big woman, but I been messin' wit' the spirits too long. They got me down."
Like all present day Voodooiennes Lala has mingled spiritualism with Voodoo. Physically, she is a poor substitute for the exotic Laveaus. Small, so thin her dark brown skin seems to cling to her bones, with prominent eyes and high cheekbones, Lala is sinister only when she laughs. Then something happens. She flings her head back, closes her eyes, opens a mouth filled with jagged yellow teeth and emits a shrill
{p. 177}
screech that is bloodcurdling. She is very untidy, long grayish underwear always showing below the sleeves of the dirty brown dress she almost always wears, her naked feet thrust into man's shoes, a plaid shawl drawn over her head and pinned beneath her chin with a rusty safety pin. But when the shawl comes off there are no horns.
Her house consists of two rooms, and is inhabited by Lala, her husband Louie, and her sister Adeline. The front room is always crowded with furniture, including a large china closet filled with cheap china and glassware, a sideboard piled with vases, dishes, clothes and old newspapers, a double bed, an upright piano and at least a half dozen chairs. The walls are hung with religious pictures and near the door leading into the other room is a small altar holding candles and a picture, cut from a newspaper and framed, that Lala says is of Marie Laveau. Investigation proved it to be an imaginative pen-and-ink drawing that had accompanied an article on Voodoo published some years ago.
"I ain't as good as she was," Lala confessed. "She was a crack. But I can do lots of things. If the chickens had laid an egg today I could make it walk for you. You know what I done already? I stopped the rope. There was a man gonna be hanged like next week, unless the judge changed his mind. I got me a piece of ice and went to the courthouse and put it under the judge's chair. When that hunk of ice melted the old judge's heart melted, too, and the man was Saved. I is good! You ask them niggers on Orleans Street 'bout somethin' else I done. There was a woman over there what had a great big belly. Somebody had done fed her snail powder in cabbage. I give her silver powder, made from real silver, and I got twenty-nine snails and three frogs out of her. After that she never had no more trouble at all."
Lala punctuated her conversation with the living in the room by making occasional remarks to the many spirits who she says surround her constantly. At times she walked back and forth from the street entrance to the door leading to the back room, spitting on the floor. "Know what I'm doin'?"
{p. 178}
was the explanation. "I'm paying' off. You hear me, Miss Kelly? I'm payin' off!"
"Miss Kelly give me my piano," she said. "You know that piano done already played by itself? I was in bed one night and I heared the strings. I say, 'That you, Miss Kelly? Come on in here. I ain't seared of you.' But them strings just kept on playin' a tune Miss Kelly used to always like. I knowed right then she wanted me to do somethin' for her. I didn't wait at all. I got out my bed and went straight to the graveyard and put some congris under one of her flowerpots. When I went back the next week all that congris was done gone."
Lala held her meeting in the second room, which was more crowded than the first, holding, besides a rickety kitchen stove, a bed, a large table, a trunk and numerous chairs, four dogs, three cats, a parrot in a cage and a pet goose that waddled about as if it owned the establishment. In the yard beyond the back door were chickens, ducks and some pigeons. "I ain't got no more snake," Lala said, apologetically. "You really ought to have one to do hoodoo work, but them mean niggers around here reported me and the policemens come and make me give it to the zoo up at Audubon Park. It sure make me mad. If I still did bad work I would fix 'em. How I gonna work at all wit'out no snake?"
A man entered from the back yard and this proved to be Lala's husband, a quiet, rather docile Negro, who was very cordial and polite. "I had signed Louie up for life," Lala said. "I puts him out all the time and he always comes back. Ain't that so, Louie?"
Louie nodded meekly. Apparently he feared Lala and she was the dominating one of the two. At her direction, he cleaned off the table in the center of the room and instructed everyone present to sit in a certain place at the table. In the middle she placed two white candles and lighted them. Standing at one end, she extended her arms and said, "Now watch me how I does this."
Her finger tips just above the flames, she said, "C'mon, rise up! Do what I says." The flames obeyed and rose higher.
{p. 179}
"Now make live points!" she ordered dramatically. Each flame, though somewhat reluctantly, it seemed, divided itself into exactly five points. Lala took a seat at the head of the table, grinning proudly.
"Now I'll show you something else," she said. "Louie, bring me an egg." She had forgotten her former excuse.
The egg was produced and she placed it in a small jelly glass in an upright position so that one end of the egg rose a fraction of an inch above the rim of the glass. On top of the egg she placed a broom straw in a position pointing away from herself. "Now point to me," she said to the straw. It failed to move. "I knowed it," she said. "That woman next door is snappin' her fingers to keep the spirits away from me. Marie Laveau, help me, darlin'. You knows I is your friend.
"I've had plenty trouble," Lala admitted. "I been pulled in lots of times, but they can't do me nothin'. One time I told a judge to give me his ring and I'd make it walk. When he seen his ring walkin' away he said, 'You is sure a smart woman.' Then he let me go. You see, I been studyin' all my life. I read all them hoodoo, books, Tit Albert and Black Hawk and lots of others. The doctor say I got a abscess on my brain and I knows that's what caused it. Black Hawk is about that Indian spirit, you know, and that's the worst of 'em. It's got white writin' on black paper and it sure is dangerous.
"I tell you what I can do: I can make a person droopy and sleepy by hullin' out a red apple like a cup and puttin' the person's name inside written on a piece of paper. Then I fills it up wit' the stuff I took out the apple and hangs it up in my chimney on a wire. When the smoke reach it the person just can't keep their eyes open, and soon they go to bed and start sleepin'. If I keep the apple there long enough they gonna die.
"If you want to make a man stay wit' a woman one way is to take and light three candles and put 'em on a table. Stick your arm wit' a pin until you draw blood. Mix your blood wit' black ink and write the man's name nine times on a sheet
{p. 180}
of paper. Promise if it work you gonna pay off to Onzoncaire--he's a powerful hoodoo, spirit and he can do anything for you. That's what I done to Louie. He can't never leave me now. But don't forget to pay off. You gets a sheep's head and pours a bottle of whiskey down its mouth. At twelve o'clock take this out on a country road and wear a red nightgown and a red cap on your head, and your bare feets. Put the sheep's head under a oak tree and say, 'Onzoncaire, that's for you.' Then walk home backward. One thing you got to watch is not to walk on no banquette. Always keep in the middle of the road or the street.
"I done a lot for the women in the sportin' houses. I made gem put red powder on one leg and green powder on the other. They got so many men they couldn't handle the business.
"To make people go away you melt a black candle and knead the wax like dough. Write the person's name on a piece of paper four times frontward and five times backward. Roll your wax into a ball and put this paper in the middle of it. Then stick nine pins in the ball. Get on the ferry and go out to the middle of the river and throw it in. Snap your fingers and say, 'St. Expédite, make him go quick!' You know St. Expédite is the saint who gets things done in a hurry and he's awful good for hoodoo work. Has you ever heared people say, 'I'm on needles and pins today'? Well, that's the ball workin'. When they goes away take a piece of poundcake and go to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on North Rampart Street and leave it in front of his statue. Another way to get rid of somebody is to make a stuffed man or woman and put it in a little boat you buy at the ten-cent store. You floats this in the river and asks St. Expédite to help you. When the boat gets to the ocean the person's gonna go away."
Lala turned her head. "You make some coffee, Louie. Me, I always likes some coffee when I'm talking 'bout my work."
While Louie dripped the coffee Lala decided to do a Voodoo dance. "I knows all them real hoodoo dances," she said. {p. 181} She put her hands on her hips and did a shuffling dance which consisted mostly of stepping forward twice, then backward once, some shaking of her bony hips and shoulders, and much rolling of her prominent eyes.
"When Marie Laveau danced she held a big fish up high and she shaked all over," Lala said. "Like this!" She lifted her arms and held an imaginary fish, and her body moved faster with shoulders, hips and eyes rolling in unison. "That is a real hoodoo dance," she said. "Nobody but ale knows how to do it now."
Louie brought the coffee and she tilted her cup and spilled a few drops on the floor. "That for you, Marie Laveau," she said.
"I can run a person crazy," she boasted. "I take the bark off a tree and get me a guinea hen egg. I writes the person's name around the guinea egg nine times and stick it in the hole of the tree I took the bark from. Then I puts back the bark and I makes nine crosses on the outside. After that I pray to that tree once a week for five months. When the person go crazy I gives Tit Albert a soup plate. He's the hoodoo saint that loves soup plates. I buries it under the tree. I used to get paid five hundred dollars for that work.
"If somebody is already crazy and they wants to get back their good sense, I takes a white dove and splits it in half. I sits the crazy man in a chair and puts the two halves of the dove on top his head and holds 'em there until an the blood run down his face. After all the blood run out I wash his face in a white bowl and throw the bowl in the river wit' three nickels. That costs $500, too."
Her coffee finished and Louie vanished into the front room she decided to perform a little ceremony.
"Everybody get down on their knees," she said. She knelt and closed her eyes. "Stars above, saints, everybody, help us to get what we wants," she prayed. "Spirits, give us the power to do all the good work we want to do and the power to do bad work when we gotta do it. Spirits, hear us and help us!"
{p. 182}
She rapped three times on the floor with her right fist. "Spirits," she said, "if you hears us, let there be smoke!" It was a startling fact that at that moment both candles on the table began to smoke.
This excited Lala. "We has the spirits now," she said. "All right, you people has the spirits your way. You is all gonna be big hoodoo people. I can see that." She rose, said, "I'll be back in a minute," and disappeared into the other room.
When she reappeared she was in costume. And what a costume! The skirt had ruffles of every color in the rainbow and some violent enough to dim any rainbow. She wore an equally elaborate blouse and an unidentifiable headdress that had an orange fringe. Behind her came Louie, wearing a red and green costume and carrying two guitars, one of which he handed to Lala.
"We was gypsies last year," she said. "We gonna do a hoodoo dance for you out in the back yard. Louie can play and I'll dance."
Lala chased chickens and ducks away from a spot near the fence that separated her yard from the one next door and instructed Louie to "get the stuff." He brought a china plate, some pink candles, a milk bottle filled with bay rum and an empty pint bottle that had contained gin. The plate was placed on the ground, the candles were stood in the plate and lighted. While Louie sat on a box and strummed on his guitar Lala hopped and danced around the plate, frequently raising one leg and passing it over the candles, then doing the same thing with the other. After she tired she played while Louie danced. Louie hopped like a frog, the gin pint in one hand, the bottle of bay rum in the other. He kept throwing his head back so violently that each time his neck cracked audibly.
Once you gain Lala's confidence she is generous with her secrets, but she does not trust many people. She moves her residence at least three times a year because too many people come to ask her questions. All Negroes of the poorer class
{p. 183}
in New Orleans know of her existence. Most of them agree that she knows more about "hoodoo" than anyone else. Lala credits her knowledge to a Madame Touro. "Madame Touro trained me," she said. "And she was trained by Marie Laveau. That is why I is so good." She knows of only one Marie Laveau, probably Marie II.
Her reputation for being evil persists. "That Lala is the worst creature in the world," said a maid in a large office building in the business section of the city. "She will do any bad thing you can think of. Stay away from Lala. She's dangerous and she's bad."
Of herself, Lala said, "I ain't troublin' nobody if they treat me right, but I can sure go to my end if they do me a trick. It's evil for evil with me. One of my cats got poisoned and died and I knowed the man what done it. I burned a black candle on him and now he's got bronchitis and the doctors done gave up hope on him. Now I don't really do no more bad work, but if people does stuff to you what you does back ain't bad. They got it comin' to 'em. That's the truth."
Lala does possess an apparently endless store of Voodoo knowledge.
"To protect yourself against bein' crossed,"' she said, "get some garlic, sage, thyme, geranium water, dry basile, parsley and five cents of saltpeter. You bathe in this on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Rub your body good with bay rum when you get through, then with verbena essence and jack honeysuckle. Ain't nobody can hurt you then. You is uncrossed and you is gonna stay uncrossed.
"If you want to win a court case put the witnesses' names in a beef tongue and tie the tongue and fold it over. That will keep 'em from speakin'. Take Black Candle tobacco and salt and put it on ice and burn a black candle in front of it. If you wants to keep the judge and the district attorney from sentencin' the person you puts their names in a mixture of nine lumps of sugar, honey, a little strawberry syrup and some Follow-Me-Boy Oil. Mix all this in a plate and fight a
{p. 184}
yellow candle in the middle of it. Then ask the old folks--that's what I calls the spirits sometimes; they is older than us, ain't they?--to help you.
"To make a runaway girl come home all you got to do is burn her clothes in a pan of gasoline wit' some chicken droppin's. To keep your boss from firin' you, write his name on a piece of paper and bury it in your yard wit' a chopped up red candle and a black cat's tail.
"I know an easy gris-gris to send a person straight to the dogs," Lala continued. "You just gotta give him some boiled rat soup to drink. Mix up some vegetables and everything just like a real soup and cook a rat in it. It won't taste bad or nothin', but when that soup gets to workin' on the person he is gonna act like he's crazy and is gonna go straight down to the dogs.
"A good thing is to make cats call spirits. This ain't hard, but you gotta be careful. Kill a black cat in a graveyard at twelve o'clock sharp and take out his guts. Cook the guts in plenty hot lard mixed wit' salt and raw eggs and eat 'em. as soon as they is lukewarm. After that you go back to the graveyard the next Friday night and call that cat. When he starts answerin' you call out names of dead people you knows. Ask anything you want about 'em. Tell the cat you believes in the devil. The best month for this is October; then you is sure to see a spirit when the cat answer your call. And if you ever sees a spirit once you can see 'em all the time. They will talk to you just like human bein's.
"If you wants real power, real evil power, keep after that cat until you gets to talk to the devil himself. When he come you tell him you wants to denounce the world and wants to control his evil spirits. You gotta say you will give up everything for him. Pray to him for six nights so he can be sure you is on his side. Pray to Marie Laveau. She'll help you. Ask the devil to summon her from her throne in Hell and then get her to help you. But let me tell you something: you is gotta keep every promise you make to the devil. He sure will get you if you ever goes back on him. I seen it happen. When he takes you into his service be puts a mark over your bed. From then on you is his, and you can control spirits. You is been blessed by the devil and you is one of his agents on earth."
At this point Lala crossed herself. Asked why, she replied, "I ain't never sold myself to the devil yet. As I told you I don't hardly ever do no bad work. I used to be terrible. I used to take a turtle and eat his heart while he was still alive. That keeps you from harm, for true. I used to boil goat's milk and parsley and grate a silver dime in it and drink that. That is sure good. It really cleans you out, and nobody can hoodoo you wit' anything.
"I can make a man and woman fight by takin' a dirt dauber, cayenne pepper, filé, flaxseed, graveyard dirt and gunpowder and throwin' it against their house. That makes bell in the camp! Then I throw War Powder against the side of the house. That brings a patrol ride.
"To make a marriage you take Saint Joseph's picture and put sand in front of it, write the couple's names in the sand and stand candles around in a circle. Then get a boy doll and a girl doll, tie their hands together wit' a white satin ribbon and put them in the middle. Then pray to Saint Joseph to make this marriage for you. When he make it, pay off by puttin' macaroni and parsley in the sand. See, I can make 'em and I break 'em. That's the way I is!
"Any time you got a woman who is foolin' wit' another man just get some Black Devil Oil from the drugstore, mix it wit' sugar and salt and sprinkle this all over her clothes, I specially her underwear. She ain't gonna mess wit' no man but you after that."
While Lala believes in spirits and swears she converses with them every day she does not like the organized spiritualist churches. "That religion is the bunk," she said. "All religions is all right in a way, but I don't like them people. Me, I is really a Catholic. You seen me cross myself, didn't you? I don't like spiritualist meetin's. I goes to a hoodoo meetin' some fishermen holds every Friday night, and that is different. {p. 186} They got a man named Gould there that burns a candle in a skull. He sure is good. He prays to Marie Laveau and he can call up Black Hawk. He helps me wit' my landlords, I ain't never been put out of no house for not payin' my rent, I'll tell you that."
Lala seemed tired of talking now. She stood up and began to quiver and shake. "The spirits is on me right now," she groaned. "They is right in this room. You all gonna get everything you wants. My power is sure workin'. You hear me, Miss Kelly? Darlin', you gonna help me, ain't you? I knows you is always wit' me." She stamped on the floor three times. "That damn woman next door is still snappin' her fingers," she said, "but it ain't gonna harm me. I knows how to stop her from crossin' me!"
Asked about Madame Cazaunoux and Mrs. Lombardo, she said, "You gotta watch 'em. Them people is sharp!" Voodooiennes do not trust each other.
{p. 187}