A sculpture of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau by artist Ricardo Pustanio stands along Bayou St. John during St. John's Eve along Bayou St. John in New Orleans, Thursday, June 23, 2022. About 100 people dressed in all white, honored Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau and took part in a head-washing ritual in honor of St. John the Baptist's birthday.
- (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Vodou priestess Sallie Ann Glassman makes an offering to a shrine of Marie Laveau before a head washing / Vodou baptism ceremony on St. John's Eve on the pedestrian bridge of Bayou St. John in New Orleans, Sunday, June 23, 2013.
- Advocate staff photo by MATTHEW HINTON
St. Louis Cemetery Number 1 and Marie Laveau's tomb in New Orleans on Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
- (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Tourists stop near the location on St. Ann Street, blue house on left, where Marie Laveau once lived.
- (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Bloody Mary, photographed Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, in the seance parlor at Bloody Mary's Haunted Museum in the French Quarter in New Orleans. (Photo by Scott Threlkeld, The Times-Picayune)
- STAFF PHOTO BY SCOTT THRELKELD
Two very different obituaries tell the tale of Marie Laveau.
3 min to read
Doug MacCash
A sculpture of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau by artist Ricardo Pustanio stands along Bayou St. John during St. John's Eve along Bayou St. John in New Orleans, Thursday, June 23, 2022. About 100 people dressed in all white, honored Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau and took part in a head-washing ritual in honor of St. John the Baptist's birthday.
- (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Vodou priestess Sallie Ann Glassman makes an offering to a shrine of Marie Laveau before a head washing / Vodou baptism ceremony on St. John's Eve on the pedestrian bridge of Bayou St. John in New Orleans, Sunday, June 23, 2013.
- Advocate staff photo by MATTHEW HINTON
Tuesday, Sept. 10, is the birthday of one of New Orleans’ most indelible icons.
Marie Catherine Laveau was born in 1801, two years before the city was purchased by the United States. She was part of a strata of society known by the antiquated term “free people of color.” She was the mother of 15 and may have worked as a hairdresser.
But that may have just been her day job. By reputation, Laveau was the city’s undisputed queen of voodoo, the matriarch of a religious practice that blended African and Native American traditions with the former colony’s prevailing Roman Catholicism.
But defining Laveau’s role and the part that voodoo played in the Crescent City’s 1800s culture depends on who’s telling the tale.
Sorceress or saint?
In pop culture, Laveau is often depicted as a powerful witch, communing with dark metaphysical forces and casting occult spells. But from another point of view, she seems to have been a Christian, herbalist healer, relieving suffering when possible, and administering 19th-century hospice care when not.
This isn’t a recent duality. The difference in perspective dates back to the day Laveau died, 223 years ago.
She was mourned in New Orleans, of course, but Laveau’s reputation was so widespread that she was granted a lavish obituary in The New York Times, which led with Laveau’s more sensational, supernatural reputation.
“Marie Laveau, ‘Queen of the Voudous (an alternative spelling)’ died last Wednesday at the advanced age of 98,” the NYT death announcement read. To the superstitious residents of New Orleans, “Marie appeared as a dealer in the black arts and a person to be dreaded and avoided.”
The Voudous, the New York newspaper said, “were thought to be invested with supernatural powers,” that could be used to strike enemies and attract lovers. According to this account, Laveau and her "cult" were suspected of conducting strange rituals, including “wild, weird dances, all the participants in which were perfectly nude.”
The New York Times conceded that none of this may have been true, but even so, Laveau’s vast command of natural cures, her “more than usual common sense,” and her visionary advice made it seem possible that she possessed occult powers.
The home team's humanist outlook
Back in New Orleans, Laveau’s lengthy obituary in The Daily Picayune (a predecessor of The Times-Picayune) took a more sober, humanist view of her legendary career. The word voodoo doesn’t appear once in her hometown sendoff.
“Marie was very wise,” the unnamed reporter wrote. “She was skillful in the practice of medicine and was acquainted with the valuable healing qualities of indigenous herbs.”
According to the obit, there were “wonderful stories being told of her exploits at the sick bed.” During the devastating yellow fever and cholera epidemics that swept the 19th-century city, “she was always called upon to nurse the sick, and always responded promptly.”
The Daily Picayune obituary writer explained that it was Laveau’s healing expertise that may have led to her witchy reputation among unsophisticated folk. “Her skill and knowledge earned her the friendship and approbation of those sufficiently cultivated,” the reporter wrote, “but the ignorant attributed her success to unnatural means, and held her in constant dread.”
The New York Times concurred that Laveau’s successful implementation of science may have been misunderstood as sorcery. But the newspaper added that Laveau cultivated the fear of voodoo. “She encouraged this idea and delighted to cover her actions with an air of mystery,” the obituary stated.
Celebrity or selflessness?
The contrast between the two interpretations of Laveau’s legacy is fascinating. Both obituary writers expressed their adoration – The New York Times went so far as to call Laveau “one of the most wonderful women who had ever lived.” But their perspectives are yin and yang.
The New York Times obituary is often credited to New Orleans' No. 1 19th-century booster Lafcadio Hearn. Whoever the writer was, he or she seemed to view Laveau as a celebrity, a beautiful, Creole-society bon vivant with a mysterious reputation, entertaining statesmen and the city’s elite in her “quaint mansion.”
Meanwhile, The Daily Picayune painted her as the proprietor of a shelter for the homeless and hungry, earning the respect of the powerful for her selflessness.
“All in all, Marie Laveau was a most wonderful woman. Doing good for the sake of doing good alone,” The Daily Picayune journalist wrote, “she obtained no reward, ofttimes meeting with prejudice and loathing, she was nevertheless contented and did not flag in her work.”
Say happy birthday and sway that hurricane
On Tuesday, a latter-day voodoo practitioner named “Bloody Mary” Millan plans a public birthday party for Laveau, starting at the Haunted Museum at 828 N. Rampart St.at 4:30 p.m., then proceeding to the nearby site of Laveau’s former home at 1022 St. Ann St., where cake will be served.
“Bloody Mary” plans an accompanying ceremony meant to sway the approaching hurricane—should it occur.
Email Doug MacCash at dmaccash@theadvocate.com. Follow him on Instagram atdougmaccash, on Twitter atDoug MacCashand on Facebook atDouglas James MacCash.
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