Marie Laveau: Queen of the Voodoos by the Rev
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
news Spring 2002 Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans Marie Laveau: Queen of the Voodoos by the Rev. Melanie Morel Sullivan C rescent City in the 19th century, This article has been adapted from a sermon given by who was born in the author for Black History Month at the Unitarian the at the end of Universalist Church of Chattanooga, TN. The author, the 18th century, who describes herself as a 5th generation white Cre o l e has found lasting f rom New Orleans, is a long-time member of CUUPS, a renown at the f o rmer member of the CUUPS Board and Nominating beginning of the Committee. She presently serves as parish minister in 21st century. The Chattanooga and is president of the UU Christian worldwide web Fellowship. She is also a member of the UUA’s Jubilee contains some 40- Working Group for Anti-Racism. Her Ministerial Record odd websites lists her theology as “pagan-liberal christian-zen- devoted to her — humanist, not always in that orde r. ” and since many people, like myself, view the “All in all Marie Laveau was a wonderful woman. I n t e rnet with its Doing good for the sake of doing good alone, she instant, bodiless, l o n g - d i s t a n c e obtained no re w a rd, ofttimes meeting with pre j u- Marie Laveau dice and loathing; she was nevertheless contented c o m m u n i c a t i o n and did not lag in her work. She had the cause of with words, voices, and pictures as a kind of magic, I the people at heart and was with them in every- am sure she would be pleased and delighted by this thing... Marie’s name will not be forgotten in New d e v e l o p m e n t . Orleans.” [from the obituary of Marie Laveau, Despite her fame to the present day, much of what New Orleans Daily Picayune, June 18, 1881] passes for knowledge about …continued on page 2 The editors of the Daily Picayune could have had lit- tle inkling exactly how prescient those words would from the prez… p rove to be. Like most New Orleanians, black and We Are Not Alone white, I grew up my whole life knowing her name and riginally, I sat down to write a short column some of the stories that circulated about her. Marie for this newsletter about the Spirit of Spring Laveau, both famed and reviled in her lifetime as the and hope for the coming season. I really acknowledged “queen” of Voodoo practice in the O wanted to write that our nation, our UU congrega- tions, and our CUUPS organization have all weath- in this issue… ered the worst of the storm and were pulling out of Marie Laveaul . .1 a time of retrenchment and hibernation and would blossom with the warmth of Spring. I wanted to From the Prez . .1 revel in words of optimism and new energy and In Search of the Goddess . .5 describe CUUPS' educational and pro g r a m m i n g hopes for the rest of 2002. Paganalia . .8 But then came Mission Anaconda and the wave of Rightwatch . .16 Palestinian suicide bombers. Then came news that CUUPS News . .19 …continued on page 15 Marie Laveau has been proven false — which should famous court case, the so-called “Gris Gris Plot,” was come as no surprise, since most of what has been writ- u n c o v e red to much alarm and public hysteria. By ten about her, from her own day until quite re c e n t l y, 1782, the Spanish governor of Louisiana (France had was authored by European-American men with not-so- given up the colony to Spain) banned the import a t i o n hidden agendas of white supre m a c y, racism, and sex- of West Indian slaves, due to the fear of Voodoo, which ism. As has been the case with so many important fig- was quite rightly considered to be an important ele- u res in black history and women’s history, Laveau’s life ment in insurrection, as it had proved to be in Haiti. So and work has been distorted and devalued when it was by the time Marie Laveau was born, Voodoo was not being denied altogether. a l ready well established in New Orleans. Voodoo, which means “life force” or “spirit of life” in the Fon language of West Africa, has also been misre p- resented as black magic or devil worship. It’s a sad and all too familiar story: a strong woman of color fought But whatever their legal o p p ression with the only power available to her — spirituality — and the white men with all the political, standing, we can infer that social, and religious power called her a witch. It is long past time we set the re c o rd straight for this woman and Christophe loved Marie, for this spiritual tradition. In the late 1700s, the enslaved people of the Fre n c h there is evidence in the colony of Saint Domingue, under the charismatic lead- ership of the freed slave (and Voodoo practitioner) Toussaint L’ O u v e rt u re, revolted against their oppre s- historical record that he sors in what has become known as the first Haitian Revolution. During the years before the conflict was attempted to “pass for black” finally resolved with L’ O u v e rt u re ’s victory and Haiti’s declaration of independence in 1804, hundreds of — an ironic reversal of known refugees poured into New Orleans, then also a Fre n c h c o l o n y, founded in 1682. The refugees consisted of F rench planter families and their slaves, as well as a racial patterns in our racist l a rge number of gens libre du couleur, or free people of c o l o r, many of whom were of mixed racial heritage, as society, both then and now. a result of liaisons between planters and African slaves. Historians have long conjectured that Voodoo came to New Orleans during this wave of emigrees fro m Scholars debate whether Marie was born in Saint Saint Domingue, carried not only by the enslaved peo- Domingue, on board ship, or in New Orleans; there is ple, but also by the free black Creoles — and even by also some confusion over the exact year of her birt h , some of the French colonialists themselves. But this is which is variously re p o rted as 1794 or 1795. Baptismal not necessarily the whole story. New Orleans was a re c o rds at St. Louis Cathedral say she was the illegiti- F rench colony as well, and the French were notorious- mate daughter of Charles Laveau, a wealthy planter, ly laissez faire in their treatment of enslaved peoples. and Marguerite D’Arcantel, a free woman of color who H i s t o r i c a l l y, France took a more relaxed attitude was part white, part black, and part Indian. (But even t o w a rd the religious conversion of their slaves, not this is in dispute: recently discovered re c o rds with only tolerating indigenous spiritual and cultural prac- slightly diff e rent spellings of the names seem to show tices, but even subtly encouraging them. In some cases, that both of Marie’s parents might have been free peo- the French were influenced by their slaves, synerg i s t i- ple of color. ) cally adopting some of the customs for themselves, to We do not know anything about Marie’s early life, the great scandal of other European colonial powers. although it is possible that she could have been among Although it can never be said that there was ever such the young girls of both races educated in schools by a thing as “good slavery,” it must also be noted that the F rench did not institute such punitive legal measure s the French Ursuline nuns. Marie next appears in his- as, for example, the English did in Vi rginia, where the torical re c o rds at the time of her marriage, in August m e re owning of a drum by a slave was a capital off e n s e , 1819, when she was in her mid-20s, to either Jacques or as the Spanish did in the Southwest with their or Santiago Paris. (New Orleans having changed hands wholesale massacres of native peoples in the name of f rom France to Spain and back again to France may the Catholic Churc h . account for the confusion; both names are variants of In any case, Voodoo first appeared in re c o rds of the James.) The two are listed on the marriage contract on Louisiana colony as early as 1743, and in 1773, a 2 CUUPS News file in the Notarial Archive as free people of color. It is not clear exactly why or how, but Paris disap- p e a red some time in the early 1800s, and Marie began styling herself as la Veuve Paris, the Widow Paris. (Some traditions have it that Paris was a sailor and was lost at sea; others claim he ran off with another woman.) During this period, Marie became ro m a n t i- cally involved with Christophe Duminy de Glapion, the white son of a French planter.