Tag Archives: New Orleans

Cracked Mirrors in New Orleans

Text:

Interviewee: “I’ve just heard that cracked mirrors are bad, and they look scary.”

“Can you tell me about it, please?”

Interviewee: “There’s a lot of mirrors in New Orleans. With lots of, like, strange patterns of glass.

“Why?”

Interviewee: “I mean, New Orleans is a funky place.”

“But, like, what’s the belief around the cracked mirrors?”

Interviewee: “People think that they (the cracked mirrors) can trap, slash, distort your spirit, like, your reflection isn’t fully you.”

“But why are they funky looking?”

Interviewee: “Why is the mirror funky?”

“Yeah.”

Interviewee: “I mean, I guess they’re eerie because of how locals, locals believe in like Louisiana voodoo. They can be seen as portals between the living. You could get stuck inside a mirror. I have no idea why that ties to why they are like different colors and different shapes in New Orleans, but it definitely has to do with the culture.”

Context:

The interviewee was originally born in Mississippi and has an apartment in New Orleans with his family. They go to the city often. He is a white male aged 22-23.

This conversation comes from a discussion about local beliefs in New Orleans, a place known for its strong cultural traditions and spiritual practices. Cracked or decorative mirrors are seen all over New Orleans, so the interviewee is trying to explain ideas they’ve heard about mirrors.

Analysis:

This is an example of belief-based folklore related to mirrors. The idea that cracked mirrors can trap or distort the soul reflects a magic superstition, where an object is believed to have power over a person’s spirit. In places like New Orleans, ideas about spirits and the afterlife are culturally significant, reflecting the culture.

Overall, the “funky” or eerie appearance of the mirrors adds to their perceived power, blending design with spiritual meaning.

Haunted House in New Orleans

Text:

Interviewee: “My mom has a friend who lives in, supposedly, a haunted house in New Orleans, and her grandmother had just died when she was taking a shower, and you know, in the shower, like, when the mist gets fogged up, and you can write stuff? She wrote something like, “I am here.”

“This is your mom’s friend who has a house in New Orleans?”

Interviewee: “Yes. Her mom had just passed. “

“Was she scared?”

Interviewee: “Yeah, she said she jumped out of the shower and ran out of the house.”

“Why would her mom do that?”

Interviewee: “I don’t know.”

Context:

This story comes from a friend’s account of a family friend who lives in a haunted home in New Orleans, a city known for its strong cultural associations with ghosts and the supernatural. The experience is tied to a moment of recent loss, with the woman’s mother having just passed away, which may influence how the event is interpreted. The setting of a “haunted house” adds to the way the experience is understood.

Analysis:

This is an example of a legend within belief-based folklore, especially tied to ghost stories and supernatural experiences. The message “I am here” suggests a spirit communicating through physical means, reflecting a magical superstition in which the spirit world can interact with the physical world.

Ghost Stories in New Orleans

Age: 23
Occupation: Student

Text

When did you see a ghost?

Most unbelievable story that happened was in 2020, there were a couple other related encounters in the same time frame, 2016, 2018, in that range.

Briefly describe the experience?

Our house was built in 1865 in New Orleans, so it was very old and some interesting people had lived there. There was an author who wrote the book The Moviegoer, a troubled photographer as well. It had also been an old farm cottage, so we found cow teeth in the backyard.

This time in particular, the one in 2020, my mom and I were sitting in the front room on the couch, no one is sitting at the piano, and the piano plays two keys, boop boop. We looked at each other and made eye contact. I thought, “Maybe a lizard fell into the piano or something? Maybe something is in the box?” Then it happened again, and we could both see the keys be depressed. I looked at my mom after it and audibly gasped.

How did it make you feel?

Made me feel pretty euphoric, and we kept laughing and going what the hell. It was pretty cool. It’s cool to see something you can’t explain. Didn’t feel fearful. Felt like a nice presence. 

Why did it feel nice?

The piano keys that were played were in the higher register. If the piano keys were lower it may feel me worse, but the auditory element of it wasn’t ominous. Also the history of the house with those that lived there we’re proud of, so my mom would say, “Oh its Walker Percy saying hi.”

Do you believe in ghosts after this happened?

Agnostic toward ghosts. Don’t believe at all in the sense of spooky movie ghosts and looking like a white sheet, but maybe something is out there.

Do you think growing up in NOLA made it more likely for you have a supernatural encounter?

You hear a lot about supernatural experiences, like ghost stories are popular. I had friends who worked in old house restorations and they had a ton of stories about weird movement in light or seeing odd things there.

Tell me about the other related incidents you had discussed:

Children’s piano, little stool, put it in the attic and there were times where we’d hear the baby piano playing in the attic. Consecutive notes that sounded melodic together. It was an actual piano, so more odd than a machine of some kind.

Context

This girl is a friend of mine who grew up in New Orleans, and this is her story. I’d been told it once by her mom, but given this happened to both of them, it belongs to them both. She interprets the story well, which my question led her to analyze a little bit. The story took place in 2020, but she said there were multiple occurrences of strange piano stuff happening in her house.

My analysis

MG is not a very spiritual person, nor is she someone who I believe to be susceptible to psychosis, especially with this being something both her mother and her witnessed simultaneously. I think the odds are strong this both happened, and is unexplainable with the evidence we have from the story. There is value here in that it happened in a historical house, to two individuals at a time, and in a place we think of as being more likely to be haunted, that being New Orleans. I think the most interesting part of the interview is her positive experience with the ghost. I think most people experience the paranormal negatively because it’s something out of the realm of their understanding. She didn’t, and the explanation of the notes being more high pitched causing the experience to be less foreboding makes sense.

Mardi Gras

Text (festival)

“A week-long festival celebrating New Orlean’s culture and heritage.”

Context

My informant has lived in Louisiana for 4 years and attended the Mardi Gras festival two times.

Q: “What exactly is Mardi Gras?”

A: “The celebration originated in New Orleans and people travel from all across the country to celebrate Mardi Gras here in New Orleans. Basically, it’s a week-long festival/series of parades that happens at the beginning of January lasting until Fat Tuesday right before Ash Wednesday.”

Q: “What is the significance of the celebration?”

A: “It’s essentially a ‘last hoorah’ before lent so it’s the last time you indulge, drinking, eating sweets, especially king’s cake, before you give it up for lent.”

Analysis

Mardi Gras is a French phrase meaning “Fat Tuesday” translated into English. This comes from the custom of using up all of the fats in the home before lent in preparation for fasting and abstinence. Important families will create floats and dress up in extravagant glittery costumes driving the float around the city throwing out beads, coconuts, candy, etc. There is jazz music, performers, and people in costumes. New Orleans has a lot of French culture stemming from the Louisiana Purchase which gave the United States new land, including New Orleans. People typically dress up in the Mardi Gras colors of purple, gold, and green. People not coming from “important” New Orleans families will typically just wear comfortable clothes aligning with the Mardi Gras colors and walking shoes as they’ll be outside walking a lot. Different parades are happening throughout the week at different times and the streets are filled with people in celebration. The celebration marks the beginning of Lent, a yearly 40-day fasting period leading up to easter. This is exemplary of the connection between festivals and yearly cycles/the calendar as well as religious folklore. Festivals are often symbolic of cyclical time and the calendar year as Lent is a practice occurring yearly in Christian communities and the festival serves as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Christian practices and beliefs. Larry Danielson, a religious folklorist explores these themes of religious rituals and practices including communal groups participating in religious originating festivals representative of shared belief. Mardi Gras specifically has Catholic roots and people use festivals as a way to come together and provide a more deep appreciation and nuanced understanding of religious tradition.

Marie Laveau

–Informant Info–

Nationality: American

Age: 87

Occupation: Unemployed

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): French

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as JW and the interviewer as K)

Background info: JW is a father and grandfather who was born and raised in New Orleans, moving to Los Angeles to follow his son, whom he now resides with. I was told this story in the evening in a room that JM made “purposefully spooky”

K: So whats the name of the folklore, where did you hear it, and when is it like told?

JW: *laughter* Well miss, it’s a true story about a voodoo queen named Marie Laveau. Everyone just knows it, some say that’s part of her magic still at work, that no one can forget her. *laughter*

K: *laughter* Ok so, whenever you’re ready! Go into as much or as little detail as you want

JW: You sure miss? It gets gruesome

K: Part of the charm of folklore

JW: *laughter* you right you right. Miss Marie Laveau was a voodoo queen *stretches out the word queen for emphasis*. She could do anythin under our God-given sun, even make herself live twice as long *smiles*. She was-she was said to curse those who had wronged her in the most brutal ways. I remember when I was a boy an uh…one of my friends told me that his great somethin grandma was cursed by Miss Laveau. She had stolen something from her shop, so Miss Laveau stole somethin from her…*long pause* her right hand! The one that did the snatchin! *laughter*. That’s the kinda stuff she did, so everyone with half a mind was smart enough not to cross her. It’s said that to this day if you visit her grave, you can get a wish granted if you leave her somethin nice.

Interpretation:
It was really interesting to hear a more well-known bit of folklore be told from an original point of view. What I mean by that is JM is from New Orleans, and although Marie Laveau is known from more popular culture like American Horror Story, this telling was drastically different than the one in the aforementioned television show. I also thought it was important to note the joy in which this story was told to me. JM was laughing regularly as he told me the story, even the more grisly parts of it. He set up the room I was speaking to him in a traditionally scary way, but when it came to the story it was as if he couldn’t contain his joy. The story obviously had lost its scare factor as people get older. He notes being scared by the version his friend told him when he was younger but laughed telling me it.