If you lived almost anywhere else in the United States, you might simply sweep the porch and think it was just a prank. But if you live in Louisiana, you'll probably react differently....for a cross of salt, in the vernacular of hoodoo, means trouble.
That is why Mr. and Mrs. Gauthier of New Orleans thought twice before sweeping away the cross of salt that they found on their porch. It is also why neighbors flocked to the Gauthier home to examine it and why the newspapers carried headlines about it. Voodoo and hoodoo has not abandoned New Orleans.
Hoodoo and conjure are emerging from the shadows and into the lives of everyday people. There seems to be more root workers, two-headed doctors, conjurers, Voodooists, and hoodoos more than ever before. People are flocking to related social networking sites hungry for information about taking control of their lives, defending themselves from their enemies, thriving in a recession, and connecting to their dead loved ones. Websites featuring “love doctors”, “rootworkers” and “Spiritual Mothers” offer a variety of psychic and spiritual services and carry the hard to get sticks, stones, roots and bones needed by the multifarious conjurer. Hoodoo no longer belongs to the poor black demographic of the deep South as historically depicted. Practitioners cross all racial, ethnic, political, geographic and socioeconomic line.
So...what is hoodoo? In it's purest form, hoodoo taps into the elemental belief that every living thing has "Spirit." Every rock, tree, root, and stone is connected to a single Divine energy and as such, is Divine energy. The practitioner understands that it is the root that connects and grounds the universal life force; thus, the ultimate power lies within the root.
When enslaved Africans came to the Louisiana delta directly from Africa, they arrived with intact, encyclopedic knowledge of the use of herbs, roots, bones, natural elements and their spiritual qualities. According to Dahomean cosmology, the knowledge of how to utilize the sacred herbs, roots, bones, and other natural elements for controlling and changing one’s destiny was given to them from Papa Legba, who received the knowledge from the "Forest Spirits."
As a result of slavery, tribes and families were separated, religious expression was forbidden and the traditional transmission of the venerable knowledge of the African religion of Vodou and spiritual traditions such as Ju Ju were all but stopped. Tragically, the trauma associated with slavery forced a separation of the magic and religious aspects of Vodou. The response to this psychic disturbance was to adopt and assimilate similar beliefs and practices of the indigenous peoples of North America and European immigrants to fill in the blanks...forming what we call hoodoo today.
***********
It was not until the 1930's that Louisiana Voodoo went underground when New Orleans became a major tourist destination. The slave trade brought the African belief in spirits and when the slaves got to New Orleans it was not long before the African Voodoo and the Roman Catholic Church mixed to become Louisiana Voodoo.
Along came the Voodoo Queens like Marie Laveau who was known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. It is said that before long it became known that Marie Laveau was the strongest ever of the Voodoo Queens and Marie Laveau conducted private rituals behind her house on St Ann's street in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
It was Marie Laveau who encouraged her followers to attend Catholic Mass and it was Marie Laveau who mixed Catholic traditions and beliefs into her Voodoo to make it uniquely Louisiana Voodoo.
Even today devout voodoo followers travel to Marie Laveau's tomb to try to get a favor from the Voodoo Queen herself. Marie Laveau was a devout Catholic up to the time of her death. Ever since her death people have claimed to see Marie Laveau walking through the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Modern Voodoo has taken several directions: Spiritualist Reverends and Mothers who have their own churches, Hoodoos who integrate and work spells and superstitions, elements of European witchcraft and the occult, and traditionalists for whom the practice of Voodoo is a most natural and important part of their daily lives, a positive search for ancient roots and wisdom. The practice of Voodoo involves the search for higher levels of consciousness in the belief that -as indeed all of the ancient scriptures teach - it is we who must open the way towards the Gods. for when we call out from our hearts, the Gods hear and indeed are compelled to respond.
NOTE: there are a myriad of twists and turns when it come to Vodou and Hoodoo....let me suggest the following website - Alyne Pustanio - lots of very good original articles. As well, our moderator Judy (BunkieLA) at the Phantoms and Monsters Wiki is a New Orleans resident and has intimate knowledge of this and other indigenous phenomena...Lon
Louisiana's Folk Magic and Mystic Spiritualism
