Schizophrenic Self-Hatred

The Voodoo Queen, Mambo Marie Laveau I, not only created the first, and only kingdom, or queendom, in United States history, but it was a female-led monarchy which became a dynasty when she passed the leadership on to her biological daughter, Marie II. What more, Marie Laveau was a Black female abolitionist, entrepreneur, and spiritual leader! So, why do contemporary ‘Sistas’ seem to hate her so?

Today’s Black Feminist and Womanist movements show great love for Zora Neale Hurston, whose anthropological research work in “Mules and Men,” and literary fiction in “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” listed by many as the ‘greatest of all African-American novels,” were all about Marie Laveau and Afrocreole Voodoo culture, respectively. But, still these same feminists movements tend to ignore Marie Laveau and her dynasty, the House of Laveau, in favor of creating icons of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Park, and even Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. Why is that?

Marie Laveau stood for all of the values today’s African-American female elite claims to respect, yet they do not seem to respect her. With the exception of their support for a couple self-help gurus, including:

Iyanla Vanzant, an inspirational speaker, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, and television personality, who in 2000 was named one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans by Ebony magazine; and author, storyteller, and priestess of the Ifá/Orisha faith, New Orleanian Luisah Teish, with her hugely popular book, Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals.

The only positive fictional representations of the Queens of the House of Laveau, and the New Orleans Afrocreole Voodoo culture, by a woman of African descent are the novels Voodoo Dreams by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and her second novel in the ‘Marie Laveau Voodoo series,’ Voodoo Season, to a lesser degree. And, no mainstream filmic representations have been nearly so nice.

Perhaps that is why, even today in New Orleans, the overwhelming adherents of, participants in, and/or utilizers of the tradition, the faith or even the term “Voodoo,” respectively, happen to be people of European descent. White folks.

Their contribution to the legacy of the Queen and her dynasty has been wide, and diverse. In modern fiction, Marie Laveau has appeared as a character in many novels, and has become an icon of the horror and occult genres. She is feature in New Orleans journalist Robert Tallant’s novel The Voodoo Queen: A Novel and non-fiction novella, Voodoo in New Orleans. In Francine Prose’s 1977 novel entitled Marie Laveau, the Queen is the main character, and is mentioned in Isabel Allende's 2005 work, Zorro.

Reportedly, Laveau figures in works of science fiction including Neil Gaiman's American Gods, in The Arcanum by Thomas Wheeler, and in Midnight Moon by Lori Handeland, among many others. As a character, Marie Laveau has appeared in other genres as well, including children's literature, comic books, and short stories.

But, these portrayals have not always been positive ones. Perhaps taking its cue from early American cinema, Mambo Marie is portrayed as an enemy of both Doctor Strange and Nico Minoru in Marvel Comics, and as a powerful Voodoo witch, and former member of Jean Lafitte's pirate crew, in the Italian comic book, Zagor.

In the book Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris, the author of the Southern Vampire Mysteries series about a telepathic waitress named Sookie Stackhouse who works in a northern Louisiana bar, which has been turned into the hugely popular HBO television show True Blood, Marie Laveau plays a part in a vampire's murder.

Recently, a couple of new, more accurate biographies on the Queen have emerged, including: A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau, by Carolyn Morrow Long; and Martha Ward’s, Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau.

So, why does a woman who wrestled away power, respect, and even the freedom of, and justice for, her kinspeople, from the White power structure during the wrenched period of the Great American Enslavement, not warrant the admiration of more of her female descendants; nor male ones either for that matter?

So, why is Marie Laveau not more admired by more of her female descendants’ feminist organizations when she stood strong against European-American cultural dominance when most male African-American leaders bowed to one degree or another?

Some say it is the fact of Queen Marie’s multi-ethnic heritage, which included African, European and Native American bloodlines, which makes it so hard for many Black women to support her today. That she is too “inaccessible” for some Black women because of her ‘look,’ even thought now most Sistas visit beauty salons all over the country spending great sums of money trying to achieve the same ‘look’ – straight hair, pair skin tone, and prominent cheekbones. And, ironically, Queen Marie was a hairstylist herself, and gained much political leverage by being so.

Others claim that it is the product of American colonial history, with its British colonial bias over that of the French and Spanish Catholic colonial traditions which is the source for the founder of the Voodoo Dynasty’s continued exclusion from the upper levels of Black feminist adoration.

Finally, and most obviously, others point to the House of Laveau’s connection to the African-American ancestral religio-philosophy of Voodoo itself, which has kept the Mambo in the shadows of contemporary Black feminists’ and Womanists’ role-model creation.

Whether due to the on-going, erroneous drumbeat of negative propaganda in American popular culture, religious arguments, and/or the political arguments which vainly attempt to justify the inhumanity of the Great Enslavement here in America, the descendants of enslaved Africans have learned to reject almost anything traditionally, and indigenously, African since well before the end of slavery.

The few exceptions to this all-White interest in the House of Laveau, include Mambo Miriam, leader of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple located directly across the street from Congo Square on Rampart Street, and Ava K. Jones, a noted current leader whose been feature in several television programs on the faith and who has even performed rituals for the New Orleans Saints football team when they needed a victory so badly that they were willing to try almost anything -- once.

Nevertheless, today, as many African-American women’s organizations continue to point fingers all around seeking to explain their generally lack of societal respect, the reality of the situation is that most of these organizations do not have, nor show respect for themselves, their ancestry, or their own cultural worth.

Perhaps one day this will all change, but not until “Da Sistas” learn to respect Mambo Marie Laveau, the House of Laveau’s Voodoo dynasty, and the Afrocreole Voodoo tradition of New Orleans.

Was Voodoo the cause of the Great Katrina Flood

Historically, one of the primary responsibilities of the indigenious African descendant has been the worship of their ancestors. This is true of many so-called “pagan” cultures.

In New Orleans however, where the majority of the population has historically been of African descendents, or “Creoles,” that tradition is called “Voodoo.”

Yet, since the demonization of Voodoo, beginning in the city during the Great Enslavement of African descendants, and later, throughout American popular culture, the majority of the city’s African-American population has turned away from their Voodoo-believing ancestors in shame. Instead, most of the Afrocreole community has long ago turned to Christianity, the faith of their ancestors’ enslavers.

However, New Orleans is still a Voodoo town. In fact, according to Zora Neale Hurston, it remains the Voodoo capital of the United States. And, as such, a certain degree of respect for the tradition is still due. That respect, shown through ancestral worship, has been ignored by the majority, for far too long!

As is tradition as well, the lack of respect of the ancestors comes with punishment. Of all of the natural elements of the city associated with the Voodoo-related saints, or Loas, water is the most plentiful. There is the Great Mississippi River, the huge Lake Ponchartrain, and the country’s southern border, the Gulf of Mexico.

Accordingly, today a great number of New Orleanians believe that their punishment from ignoring the ancestors also came in the form of water – The Great Katrina Flood!

Perhaps now, NOLA residents have learned a lesson from their negative attitudes towards their ancestors – the lesson that, ‘When the Loas are made unhappy, not even the American government can save them!

The Cat’s Play

Often, I wondered why the Kemetians, the ancient Egyptians, relished the feline as an embodiment of God – then, I began noticing the untamed street-cat living in my own backyard.

Slowly at first, then more gradually, I began to see a certain majesty in the cat’s play. “Play” because their lives consist of levels of ‘games.” Games of love, games of war, games of hunting, and games of nurturing, and yes, of course, games of simply ‘play.’

Second only to the chicken’s crow, the cat’s play became, in the New World, the Voodooists’ main accompanist. Zora knew it. So, did Marie, the first and second one. And, some say Sanite’ even introduced them!

Nevertheless, Ramses, Kufu, and even Cleopatra, have watched the cat’s play…

Is it their eyes, so penetrating with stares so intense, which have caused humans to hold them in such esteem: we do tend to either love them or hate them! Or, maybe it is their grace of movement that move us so!

At the core of traditional African dance is the respect of nature: the celebration of the plant and animal worlds. The world’s which human live in, and take, and make – into whatever they will, and finally, more and more, destroy it at their leisure. Could the way forward for humanity really be the way back?

In New Orleans Afrocreole Voodoo the Senegalese Mende, the Bright of Benin’s Dahomean/Yoruba, and the Congolese Angolans come together, over the centuries of the Great Enslavement, to create a gumbo. That gumbo, call Voodoo today, has been called many things in many places, in the New World and Old, but the Cat’s Play remains – whether that cat is a lion, tiger, panther, or just a plain ole street-cat prowling around your backyard.

Dr.John's Stroll

Dr. John’s Stroll

There is a block on a street, unlike any block on any other street, in the historic neighborhood of Carrollton in Uptown New Orleans (NOLA).

Part of a street which more than a century ago, even before Carrollton was part of NOLA, was the main business thoroughfare, is now a major vein linking the old town to Tulane University. Now, it is in the heart of a quiet residential neighborhood; except for this block, on this street, in this neighborhood. This is the block in which the Doctor strolls.

Unlike any block in this neighborhood, from Carrollton’s main named avenue to its famed university, this block is a historic portal to a historic past. This block, with the largest oldest historic tree, which is the street’s namesake, can single-handedly teach us the story of the Native’s joys and pains, the enslaved African’s Voodoo rebellions and games, and the Confederacy’s truths and claims.

In this block, on this street, in this neighborhood, during this stroll, all of these stories, historic and news, come together to create something wonderfully true!

Step by step the pastor of the Church of Gris Gris passes…It is on that block that I see legend strolling by with his – step by step. With a walking-stick in one hand, and the ‘soul of New Orleans’ in the other, this ‘medicine-man’ and this historic block become brothers, again. They show the potential of the brotherhood between man and nature that is NOLA Voodoo, NOLA gumbo, and Crescent City Jazz.

And with every step of his stroll, the Doctor moves forward bringing forth the cries of the Bayou Indians, the cosmic spirituality of the Children of the Spirit (which is Voodoo), and the reunion of them all through the Afro-Creole culture of NOLA cuisine: its gumbo, music, and friendship, with all of peoples it has encountered.

As Dr. John strolls pass the giant oak tree on Oak Street, in the neighborhood of Carrollton, our ancestors stroll right back with him!

So, long live New Orleans, long live Afro-Creole Voodoo, and long live Dr. John, too! Keep strolling Baby☺!!

-- D. Wole' Murray-Ife,,
The Afrocreole Griot