~The Voodoo Queen: Marie Laveau & New Orleans Voodoo~

OCEANOS SG

All Hail the Queen ~ Marie Laveau ~

The tale was perhaps a mixture of fact and legend, set in antebellum New Orleans around 1830. A father, a Creole gentleman, was greatly disturbed over the possible future of his son, a young man who stood accused of a murder. The Creole gentleman, a man of some means and influence, had retained the services of prominent attorneys to save his only son. They saw little hope of winning the case, even though they believed the boy was innocent.

Frantic, confused and desparate for help, the Creole gentleman recalled that a local woman was known for her ability to provide supernatural aid to those in hopeless situations. Though skeptical, the father sought out this sorceress. He arrived in haste at her door with no money, but instead offered her ownership of his own house on Rue Ste. Anne in the Vieux Carre (the original site of Old New Orleans -- the "Old Quarter" known as the French Quarter today), if only she could save his son from a certain injustice.

The gentleman told the woman all the facts of his son's case, and the woman listened intently as her calculating mind absorbed all the information. When she promised that the boy would soon be free, the father was shocked, but began to feel somewhat relieved. He bid adieu to the woman who now controlled his son's destiny: the sorceress, Madam Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen.

On the day of the trial, Marie, who was raised as a Roman Catholic, visited the St. Louis Cathedral. She spent the morning in prayer holding three Guinea peppers in her mouth. Then she entered the Cabildo, the seat of government and courthouse adjacent to the Cathedral. Marie persuaded a worker there to give her access to the then empty courtroom. Then the sorceress hid the Guinea peppers under the judge's chair and departed.

Later that day the trial took place. Marie was waiting in Place d'Armes (today Jackson Square) just outside the Cabildo. After some time, the Creole gentleman exited the Cabildo with his son at his side; the young man had been found innocent and released.

As a result Marie Laveau acquired ownership of the Creole's house on Rue Ste. Anne, near Rue Burgundy and Rampart Street. The gentleman, delighted his son was now a free man, had kept his word transferring ownership of his house to Madam Laveau.

Was it witchcraft or earthly influence that saved the life of the accused?

This story, perhaps Marie Laveau's most important case, is documented in several sources. One authority has suggested a rational explanation for Laveau's great success. Supposedly, Marie had approached one of the witnesses to the case, who was a Voodoo believer and who intensely feared Marie Laveau, and told him to testify that this was a case of self-defense, which in truth it probably was. This testimony and the judge's sympathy for the young defendant probably resulted in the release of the accused. (The source of this plausible explanation for Laveau's success is Robert Tallant's historical novel The Voodoo Queen. Tallant, a noted historian on the subject of New Orleans, also discussed Laveau's works in his book Voodoo in New Orleans.)

With this undertaking, winning a seemingly unwinable murder trial, Marie Laveau became instantly renowned within all classes of New Orleans society, including the Creole elite -- aristocratic locals of French and Spanish descent.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

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Voodoo Rising

Some claim Marie Laveau was born in the Vieux Carre in 1796, while others insist she was from Saint Domingue or Hispanola in the Caribbean and born in 1794. Saint Domingue, a former French colony, is today called Haiti. Santo Domingo, a former Spanish possession, was to the east on the same large island named Hispanola by Christopher Columbus. Some say Marie died in her sixties; others say she lived to be 87. These accounts may be confusing her with her daughter, also named Marie, who became a Voodoo priestess as well.

There is a good deal of mystery about Marie Laveau. What is known is that Marie was a "freewoman of color," possibly the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and a slave. She may have been part Native American as well. One source claims she arrived in New Orleans after the slave revolt in Saint Domingue in the Caribbean in 1809. The confusion is not surprising, as there were very strong ties between the development of Voodoo in Haiti and in New Orleans.

Marie was raised as a Roman Catholic, the religion of most French and Spanish at the time. New Orleans had been owned by the French from 1718 to 1762, then by the Spanish until 1803 when it became French again. It was then brought under the American flag through the Louisiana Purchase.

Voodoo had been present in the city before Laveau came upon the scene, but attempts had been made by the authorities to suppress it. In 1782, for example, the Spanish governor Bernardo Galvez forbade the importation of slaves from Martinique because of its people's belief in Voodoo. Additionally, Baron de Carondelet, Spanish governor in New Orleans from 1792 to 1797, fearing the continued spread of Voodoo and also the possibility of slave revolt, disallowed the import of slaves from Santo Domingo. Eventually, a slave revolt would expel European control in Haiti. However, when the Americans came to control New Orleans in 1803, the restriction on slave importation was canceled. Additionally, an influx of free immigrants from Saint Domingue brought 5,000 people, free and slave, to New Orleans from the start of American rule until 1810. Soon, Voodoo began to flourish in American New Orleans.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

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Congo Square

The French and the Spanished placed severe restrictions on Voodoo practice as well as the limited freedoms allowed for slaves in Colonial New Orleans. The slaves, most of whom had just been directly transported from the West Coast of Africa or the Caribbean, suffered extremely harsh treatment. When not working under the lash, they were confined in buildings or in chains. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, conditions for slaves improved to some extent. Slaves were given Sunday as a day off from labor, and they also had other limited free time at night and on some religious holidays.

On Sundays the slaves were allowed to assemble at an open field near Orleans Street and Rampart Street behind the Quarter, an area which over time had many names -- Circus Public Square, Place des Negres, and even Beauregard Square after the Civil War, in honor of P.G.T. Beauregard, a Confederate general from New Orleans. But the locale's most famous title was Congo Plains (meaning the entire grounds), or Congo Square (meaning a smaller, more frequented portion of the field).

At Congo Square the slaves performed many traditional African dances, including the Bamboula, to the beat of primitive drums. They may have even performed some Voodoo rituals as well, including the worship of Damballa, the Snake god. Although some sources claim no Voodoo worship per se was held in Congo Square, it is clear that this area was a place reserved for the free expression of African culture and customs, especially dancing to the music of the drums. And although the historical record is cloudy, it is possible that some aspects of Voodoo ceremonies were performed there.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

OCEANOS SG

Bosswoman of New Orleans

When Marie Laveau was twenty-five she married a freeman of color, Jacques Paris; from all accounts it was a faithful marriage. The couple was married by Pere Antoine, the chaplain of the St. Louis Cathedral. Today, a famous alley running next to the Cathedral named after this priest. Its sister alley on the other side of the church is called Pirates Alley, named after Jean Lafitte and his Baratarian pirates, who helped Andrew Jackson defeat the British in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans.

Following Jacques' death (actually, he was presumed dead after going missing for a long time), the Widow Paris, as Marie was then called, lived with another man named Christophe Glapion. It is uncertain whether she was married to him, but Marie had an incredible number of children -- fifteen. One of her daughters, as previously mentioned, was named Marie as well. In later life the second Marie, a near lookalike, would often be mistaken for her mother. This probably gave rise to the notion that Marie Laveau's magic was so great that she could appear in two places at once, or "bi-locate." In reality, people were seeing the mother and daughter.

Though Marie had used her knowledge of Voodoo to manipulate and acquire power, she was merciful as well. In her youth she helped the American wounded at the Battle of New Orleans. As an mark of how high in society she would climb, Marie was one of the few African-Americans invited to attend the funeral of General Jean Humbert, a hero of the Battle of New Orleans. Humbert, once a French general serving under Napoleon, had become famous for his fight against the British in Ireland. Later he moved to New Orleans, became a personal friend of the Baratarian pirate Jean Lafitte, and served on the staff of General Andrew Jackson, helping to defeat the British at New Orleans in 1815. Furthermore, it was said, Marie was acquainted with the Marquis de Lafayette, the American Revolutionary War hero who had visited New Orleans. And of course, Marie was a friend of Pere Antoine, the Chaplain of the St. Louis Cathedral.

In her later years Marie visited the convicts on death row in the city's jail, bringing them comfort and food. Usually she brought them gumbo -- a traditional New Orleans seafood stew of African origins; it has been suggested she sometimes laced the gumbo with natural medicinal herbs that soothed the convicts' physical and mental pain. Some speculated that at least once, Marie actually drugged the gumbo with a substance which caused the premature death of a prisoner who had a date with the hangman, sparing the victim the trauma of execution.

As another example of Marie's fame, during the Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1850s which devastated the population of New Orleans (and was spectacularly depicted in the old Bette Davis film Jezebel), prominent citizens called upon Marie Laveau to help heal the sick and fight against the plague.

But Marie's chief works were in sorcery, Black Magic and the paranormal. Prominent politicians would seek her help, sometimes asking her to predict their futures. For a fee, Marie could cast and remove spells. She was reputedly good with love potions and curses, too. But one thing she was particularly skilled at was obtaining secret information about prominent locals.

She divined her information not so much through clairvoyance as through a spy network of servants and slaves in New Orleans who feared the Voodoo Queen. Marie had once been a hairdresser and knew how the gentry foolishly liked to talk, even about confidential matters. Society women would chat away with Marie the hairdresser as though she were irrelevant, a mere servant. In reality, these silly aristocrats were feeding Marie vital information which she would use later to her advantage. Men, too, readily succumbed to the beguiling Marie. It is believed by some that Marie Laveau once operated a house of prostitution on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, as a rather prosperous side-business. As she became more powerful, she had her spies listening closely in almost ever prestigious home in the city.

Marie had many clever methods for recruiting new spies. One trick was to secretly place a Voodoo doll near the front door of her victims, usually the house-servants of distinguished New Orleans homes. The victims, upon discovering the Voodoo doll, would be convinced they were being hexed (by some witch other than Marie), and would run to the Voodoo Queen for help. Marie, also referred to by many locals as the "Bosswoman," would offer to dispel the doll's power if in return the victims would agree to spy for her. Thus Marie could covertly gain knowledge of goings-on within the household where the victims of the Voodoo doll labored.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

OCEANOS SG

Voodoo Doctors and Ceremonies

Prior to Marie Laveau's ascendance, there were others who ruled Voodoo believers in New Orleans. Previously there was John Montenet, better known as Dr. John. He was an African Voodoo priest or "doctor" who appeared at the rituals in Congo Square. Dr. John was a freeman of color; he often said he had once been an African prince in Senegal. As he told his story, he had been enslaved by the Spanish, taken to Cuba, and freed by his master for his loyal service. He became a sailor, a world traveler who eventually came to New Orleans to find work at the port. Here he found he developed "magical" powers of influence over people who would pay for his skills. He became a property owner, with a house filled with Voodoo accouterments -- skulls, reptiles, snakes and embalmed scorpions. He became a husband with many "wives" and mistresses with a host of children, perhaps as many as fifty. It was said that he was the owner of slaves as well.

Voodoo had made John Montenet prominent in town and a man of means. In his Voodoo work Dr. John mainly predicted the future, read minds, cast spells and removed curses, cured illness, and concocted and dispensed gris-gris. Until the ascendance of Marie Laveau, Dr. John was perhaps the most famous name in New Orleans Voodoo.

Another Voodoo leader who came after Dr. John was Dr. Yah Yah, also known by his slave name of Washington. Unlike most Voodoo doctors or queens, he was not a free man of color. He was successful and popular until he dispensed a magic elixir which was supposedly a cure for all ailments to a European. The man's physician reported Dr. Yah Yah to the authorities, claiming that the potion was poisonous. As a result, Dr. Yah Yah was later made a field hand by his disgruntled master, who was required to pay a fine for his slave's error.

Another of Marie Laveau's predecessors was the queen called Sanite Dede, who was influential from the time of the Louisiana Purchase until Laveau's ascendance in the 1820s and '30s. Dede was a freewoman of color and a food peddler by trade who sold her wares near the Cabildo next to the Cathedral and in Place d'Armes.

Marie learned from Dr. John and far surpassed him. The Voodoo Queen's most famous undertaking was the annual rituals on the banks of Bayou St. John on June 23, St. John's Eve. In the earlier days of Voodoo, some rituals were transferred from the Congo Plains to a deserted brickyard on Dumaine Street in the Vieux Carre. Voodoo rituals were also held occasionally on the shore of nearby Lake Pontchartrain where Marie had acquired a cottage called Maison Blanche.

Mainly there were four locations for large gatherings of Voodoo worship in Old New Orleans. Foremost among them was Congo Square, although one source claims this location was not used for Voodoo rituals per se, but for socializing and traditional African dancing. The other places were a plot of land on Dumaine Street, the banks of Bayou St. John, and the cottage at the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Additionally, private Voodoo practices were held in homes throughout the city and nearby area. Furthermore, Voodoo dancing was alleged to have been performed at night in the backyard of Marie Laveau's home on Rue Ste. Anne, the house she acquired from the Creole gentleman. She filled the house with the paraphernalia of Voodoo sorcery, including snakes, roosters for sacrifices, and black cats.

Bayou St. John,along whose banks Voodoo rituals were once held.

On placid Bayou St. John which ran (and still runs partly) from Lake Pontchartrain north of the city to the heart of the old town near the Vieux Carre, the multitudes would assemble at night at a place called "the Wishing Spot." Here there was the drinking of the blood of a rooster, and the displaying and worshiping of Marie's giant snake named Zombi. The African drums beat while half-naked dancers twirled around and around. Explicitly sensual acts were performed. The scene was shocking to polite society, but also irresistible. It was said that sometimes Marie Laveau herself would dance fully clothed with a large snake wrapped around her, or she would dance holding a large redfish. Voodoo worshipers believed the snake possessed magical, godlike powers. Though the Voodoo celebrations on the Bayou were spectacular, they were done more for show than as a true religious ritual. The real Voodoo worship seems to have been conducted secretly in private homes.

Many whites attended the rituals as spectators both before and after the Civil War; Voodoo practices reached a high point in the 1850s. Some whites even participated in Voodoo, if only in secret. Voodoo was officially forbidden, but discreetly tolerated.

Once a prominent New Orleans citizen dared to challenge Marie Laveau's authority. J. B. Langrast accused Laveau's followers of committing crimes through the misuse of Voodoo, including theft and even murder. Some detractors over time actually believed, among Laveau's other alleged evil deeds, that she sacrificed abandoned or unwanted children and cooked them, but no substantiated evidence was ever produced of such heinous crimes.

Langrast was quickly counterattacked. Gris-gris bags appeared at his doorstep. Langrast's personality began to change; he became nervous and upset. Eventually, he left town. Voodoo believers felt the gris-gris had driven the Langrast out of his mind; skeptics felt it was merely the power of suggestion, a psychological reaction to the mysterious gris-gris. It could also be argued that Langrast became disturbed by fear of the very real danger of possible physical harm from Laveau's overly zealous followers.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

OCEANOS SG

Gris-Gris

An essential element of Marie's magic was gris-gris. Gris-gris (pronounced "gree-gree") comes from the French word gris which means grey, hence a combination of black (negative) and white (positive) magic. In New Orleans, positive charms were called "juju," and negative were called "mojo" -- terms which emanated from African tribal beliefs. Gris-gris was the most powerful of all charms and also the most expensive, and it could be used for good or ill.

Gris-gris was a potion of herbs and natural or decaying matter, from the mundane to the bizarre, sometimes including powdered brick, ochre, cayenne pepper, fingernail clippings, human hair, and animal skin (usually reptilian) -- all tossed into a small leather bag. Thankfully, this mixture was not ingested, but was worn around the neck from a string, or left near the intended object of the charm. It supposedly brought either good or bad luck, depending on what you believed in. The real power of the gris-gris lay in the psychology of the object of the charm. The power of suggestion, more than anything else, was the real power behind the gris-gris. It was essentially a non-ingested, magical placebo.

Gris-gris lives on today in popular culture. Even nowadays in the New Orleans area, it is not uncommon to hear the expression "to put gris-gris on it," meaning to perform some task so astonishingly well it seems as if magic is being used. Or the expression can be used with a negative meaning, as if a hex were placed on a particular action.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

OCEANOS SG

Zombies and Werewolves

Saint Domingue (Haiti), the western part of the once-Spanish island called Hispanola where Columbus had landed, was a colony of France. It produced coffee and sugar under the sweat and blood of imported African slaves. These slaves were brutally treated, and they kept themselves alive only with the aid of their religion. The Yoruba tribe in western Africa was largely responsible for carrying the belief in Vodu to the new world. (Voodoo was also known as Vodu or Vodun.)

In Saint Domingue, the Voodoo priests ( or "houngans" ) and the paid-priests ( or "bokors" ) had used Voodoo charms and potions as a form of biological warfare against the French who enslaved them, even poisoning their food supply on occassion. The Voodoo priests also drugged slaves who had betrayed the cause of slave revolution with Voodoo concoctions from natural herbs and from animal parts and held them as slaves. This is possibly the origin of the zombie.

The zombie was a resurrected body without a soul -- a social outcast who served the will of the Voodoo master. Supposedly, the zombie was raised from the dead, without free will or a soul. However, one modern theory is that the zombie never really died but was the victim of a drug. This Voodoo concoction is believed to have consisted of carefully selected herbs and animal parts, especially from the puffer fish, which contains a neurotoxin that causes a type of paralysis in the nervous system. The Voodoo priest also knew how to apply an antidote which could "resurrect" the zombie, but keep him dazed enough to be easily controlled. Most people, however, did not have the "magical" knowledge of the Voodoo priest. They believed the zombie was actually the living dead, a soulless body returned from the grave. Historically, Voodoo priests used to induce zombiism as a punishment for criminals; additionally, bokors could make someone into a zombie for a fee.

This belief of zombies weaved its way to New Orleans from Haiti as well, although zombies were not known in the Yoruba tribe in Africa. The belief in actual zombies was not as strong in New Orleans as in Haiti, but the term Zombi was certainly used in rituals, as evidenced by Marie Laveau's snake whose name (spoken in a Caribbean French patois) was Li Grand Zombi.

Another supernatural creature, the werewolf, was believed in only intermittently in Haiti, and was never widely accepted in New Orleans. However, the Cajuns (or more correctly Acadians, Frenchmen who were expelled from Nova Scotia in the 18th century by the British and settled in the bayous of Louisiana) did believe in the loup-garous -- a type of wolfman. This bayou lycanthropy apparently had no relation to Voodoo per se, although a form of Voodoo called "Hoodoo" worked its way into the bayou. This was more of a belief in herbal magic than a religion. Basically, the Voodoo of Africa and Haiti was an animist spirit-based religion, while Hoodoo was a non-religious, herbal based practice. New Orleans Voodoo was a mixture of the two.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

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Marie Laveau's Legacy

In the later years of her life, Marie Laveau gradually moved away from pure Voodooism. Some of her critics claimed she was in league with the Devil (or "Papa La Bas" as the Devil was also known in New Orleans Voodoo, from the French word meaning "down" or "low," an obvious allusion to hell). Yet she had once been a devout Catholic, and over time she began to incorporate Roman Catholic elements into her Voodooism. Statues of the Saints, the belief in the Virgin Mary, and Holy Water were now mixed in with the snake, the Zombies, and the gris-gris. Eventually, Marie Laveau would give up on Voodoo altogether and return completely to the Roman Catholic religion.

In 1869, past the age of 70, Marie Laveau was replaced as Voodoo Queen by a woman named Malvina Latour. Supposedly, Marie was voted out by the Voodoo worshipers at a meeting near Maison Blanche on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Sadly, her followers had determined Marie had grown too old to be in charge. Marie spent the rest of her life as a devout Roman Catholic and dedicated much time and effort visiting the prisoners in the local jail as an act of charity; she even helped build prayer altars for them in their jail cells, it was said.

Malvina Latour could not, however, maintain cohesion within the Voodoo belief, and soon she was challenged by rival queens and Voodoo doctors who acquired their own followers. The most notable of the successor Voodoo doctors was James Alexander, who operated from Orleans Street at the back of the French Quarter. None of the subsequent queens and doctors who followed Marie Laveau could inspire or manipulate Voodoo worshipers to the degree of unifying the faith. As a result, Voodoo in New Orleans began its irretrievable decline. In 1881 Marie Leveau died, and she was buried in St. Louis Cemetery Number 1 down on Basin Street.

Today when one speaks of the Voodoo Queen in New Orleans, typically only one name comes to mind -- Marie Laveau.

The Voodoo Queen stills lives on today in New Orleans, if only in legend. Her grave is visited by the faithful and the curious year-round. Many come to her tomb and place small offerings there, like beans, food or various Voodoo items. Many make chalk marks on the face of her stone tomb, in the sign of an X or a cross.

Still others believe that Marie Laveau's spirit rises on St. John's Eve, June 23, and holds court over a spectacular Voodoo ritual. (See "Ghosts of New Orleans" for more details.) Needless to say, there is debate as to whether an actual ghost of the Voodoo Queen exists. But of the sorceress herself, one thing is absolutely certain -- of all the practitioners of the Voodoo faith, no one in New Orleans was ever more renowned or more influential or more powerful than Marie Laveau.

Sources and further reading:

Great Characters of New Orleans, Mel Leavitt; Fabulous New Orleans, Lyle Saxon; The Voodoo Queen, Robert Tallant; A Short History of New Orleans, Mel Leavitt; Black New Orleans, John Blassingame; The French Quarter, Herbert Asbury; Gumbo Ya Ya, compiled by Lyle Saxon, et. al. ; Voodoo In New Orleans, Robert Tallant; Voodoo: Past and Present, Ron Bodin; Voodoo: Opposing Viewpoints, Don Nardo and Erik Belgum.

Note: A good source book for traditional Louisiana charms is Gumbo Ya Ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales which was written under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, Louisiana Writers' Project, 1945. Another good source for Voodoo recipes is Voodoo: Past and Present by Ron Bodin. Most of the examples cited in this article can be found in these two sources.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

OCEANOS SG

There are many words and phrases peculiar to the belief in Voodoo. Here are but a few of the more significant ones.

Gran Met, Olorun, or Grand Master.

These are terms for the highest god in the religion of the West African tribe Yoruba. This belief in Gran Met continued in Saint Domingue (Haiti), where Voodoo was transformed and spread to New Orleans. There are lesser spirit gods in Haitian Voodoo as well, called Obatala and Oduduwa. Obatala formed the earth and created humans, and fought with Oduduwa, who also sought to create worlds. Obatala lost the struggle, but was eventually asked to rule over the earth with his former adversary. The Yoruba celebrated the peaceful settlement between the two gods. Additionally, there are lesser spirits called "orisa" who were once human but became holy and immortal spirits upon death; they are the counterpart to saints in Christianity. Ogun is the most powerful of the orisas; he is the spirit of iron and war. He is also invoked to aid in hunting. A "loa" is also a spirit in Voodoo; loas can carry messages from humans to the gods, it is said.

Bokor, Houngan and Mambo.

In Haitian Voodoo, the bokor is a Voodoo priest who performs magic for pay. The houngan (a male priest) and the mambo (a female priest) are skilled in Voodoo magic as well, but accept no pay. In New Orleans Voodoo, the female Voodoo queen accepted pay and was more powerful than her male counterpart, the Voodoo doctor, who was also paid.

Mojo and Juju.

In New Orleans Voodoo, mojo was a negative and juju was a positive form of spell or hex. This was similar to the difference between Black and White Magic. Gris-Gris, meaning "grey" in French, could be either mojo or juju.

Zombie or Zombi.

These were the living dead, soulless beings brought back to life by the Voodoo priest in Haitian Voodoo. Or perhaps they were persons under the influence of a natural herb narcotic who were subjected first to a simulated death, then to more natural drugs which turned them into semi-conscious beings, hence zombies. Primarily the zombie was known in Haitian Voodoo.

Li Grand Zombi, Maison Blanche, Bayou St. John, St. John's Eve.

Li Grand Zombi was the name of Marie Laveau's snake who was worshipped at Voodoo rituals. Maison Blanche was the name of Laveau's cottage near Lake Pontchartrain. Bayou St. John was the site of the natural waterway in New Orleans where Marie held her spectacular Voodoo rituals. St. John's Eve, June 23, was the day the biggest Voodoo gatherings were held where even members of "polite society" were invited including reporters, prominent citizens, and the police. It is also the day that some believers claim the ghost of Marie Laveau rises from the dead.

Dambala.

This was the loa or spirit god of the snake, popular in New Orleans Voodoo.

Voudou, Vodu, Vodun.

The magic that Marie Laveau performed was based on an ancient religion from a distant land. What we today call Voodoo and think of as mere superstition was actually an animist religion called Vodu or Voudou, originating in West Africa with the Yoruba tribe and on the Caribbean island Saint Domingue. It had arrived in New Orleans during the French colonial period with the slave trade. In 1718, Nouvelle Orleans was founded by the Quebecois explorer Bienville, and from those early days this belief in spirits and the power of nature had been the strength of the enslaved. Eventually, even the Europeans and the Creoles in New Orleans (natives of European origin, French and Spanish) came to fear Voodoo. The leaders in Voodoo were the male doctors (like Dr. John) and the female queens who eventually reigned supreme in New Orleans.

All Voodoo is said to have roots in the West African spirit-based, snake-worshiping, animist faith called "Vodu" (possibly from the Dahomey tribe); Vodu was a term which meant "the gods." Animism was a belief in spirits who lived in nature and resided in natural objects, such as in trees.

Santeria.

This is a form of Voodoo which incorporates elements of Catholicism and comes from Cuba. Other Caribbean islands have developed their own form of beliefs. Obeah is Voodoo from Jamaica, while Shango is Voodoo from Trinidad.

Charm, chicken bones, coffin.

A Voodoo charm is possessed by a spirit and has special powers; such a charm can be positive or negative. Chicken bones were used in Black Magic to summon forth evil spirits. A small replica of a coffin or casket could also be used to summon evil spirits.

Souls.
In Voodoo a person has two souls, the gros bon ange and the ti bon ange. The first soul, gros, is the energy or force which gives life to a person, implanted at birth, withdrawing at death; it is universal in all humans. It seems to function as in reincarnation for it returns to the Gran Met at death to a soul reservoir from which newly born humans obtain fresh souls.

The latter soul, ti, operates during a person's life, sometimes leaving the body during sleep. The ti bon ange relates to the concept of personality and is specific to that individual. It seems to have the ability to perform "out-of-body experiences" (OBE). Such OBE's can supposedly occur during Voodoo rituals.

Perhaps a belief in these souls relates to the concept of the subconscious and the collective subconscious -- this is, however, merely speculation.

* The above Excerpts are taken from the Internet without any edits mainly for informational purposes only. ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ will not be responsible for any of its contents, misuses or abuses using the information presented.

OCEANOS SG

Merry Meet To All,

Well for those who are interested to know more about Gris Gris Bag, Mojo Bag or JuJu bag can read up on the 1st page of my PoWeRfuL ChArMs ~*~ MOJO BAG ~*~... I did received some pm pertaining to it with regards to this thread which is very brief & perhaps gave a very vague impression to all which may lead to misunderstanding as this is only about Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau & New Orleans Voodoo Tradition, There are other Tradition which is Santeria & as i said previously i am quite familliar with these kinda Voodoo practice... Thanks for your enquires... Hope to hear from you soon.

Blessed Be,
Oceanos