Voodoo and New Orleans are used in many sentences together. It is one of the city’s hugest draws. There is no wonder that living in the area one of my first freelance assignments right out of college was to interview a Voodoo priestess and to visit her temple. At twenty-three, that assignment was very intimidating. I had heard the stories and the folklore from my parents. We were raised to fear it instead of understand it. Ambition outweighed my fears and I sucked it up and embarked on a very interesting adventure.
Since October is the month that glorifies all things that go bump in the night, it is easy to focus on the version of Voodoo that stories and movies portray as an evil sorcery. Movies like Princess and the Frog and The Skeleton Key feed into the frenzy of hexes. Go to the French Quarter and you will find shops that cater to all this; from protection spells to intriguing little dolls everything is up for purchase.
New Orleans built an industry on the powers and mystery of the religion. One of New Orleans main attractions is the gravesite of Voodoo’s most eminent Queen, Marie Laveau. She was rumored to have unbelievable powers and emerged as a great leader in her community. People fear what they do not understand. Which is one of the reasons Voodoo has slid into a horror version of the truth.
With all the hype that surrounds this extremely old religion, it is easy to overlook where it stems from. New Orleans Voodoo is a form of an African-American Religion that was developed by slaves from West Africa. The Creoles in the region, including Laveau, who was a Catholic, synchronized Voodoo with the Catholic culture of South Louisiana.
While the two religions have similar qualities such as a belief in life after death and one supreme being, they differ in many ways. I am a Catholic, and walking into a Voodoo temple feels nothing like walking into a Catholic church. Many of their traditions seem like witchcraft and dark magic. However, most Voodoo practiced was used for healing and protection.
When you walk into the temple you do sense that it is a sacred place to the people who practice there. The alters are places of worship. I did not find an evil sorceress lurking waiting to hex me. I found a very intelligent and kind woman explaining a religion to me: not to be feared, to be understood, just like every religion is to someone who has a different belief system.
So, this Halloween when you are on your Haunted Tours and watching your scary movies, dig a little deeper and you may find something interesting where you once found fear. And, realize not all things that are supposed to terrify us are really terrifying.
