Tag Archives: voodoo

New Month Prosperity

The Story:

“A tradition I grew up seeing was on the first of every month take a handful of cinnamon and blow it out on your doorstep from the palm of your hand. It’s  so  interesting. It was meant for prosperity, to bring prosperity for the new month. I think this is more of a witch spell type thing, I don’t think it’s cautionary really, but it’s just for you to bring abundance and prosperity to your front door, on the first day of the month.”

Reflection:

The informant showed an example of ritual with the historical link to voodoo and magic. The tradition of cinnamon and the first of every month with the blowing action frame this to be a prosperity spell originating from a folk group. Additionally, something I noticed from the information was the acknowledgment of these spells, but they did not participate. It allowed for the informant to talk about how they appeared in their life while also being able to objectively inform me, an outsider, on the origin and the purpose behind these spells. This allowed for a nice insight of folk magic and just how deeply they are rooted within a folk group, even if it is not practiced by every single folk member. In this case, it was not an active ritual, but had enough significance to still be acknowledged by the informant. The timing of this ritual also shows the importance of calendrical rituals in this case and how they can be the backbone behind certain rituals within a folk group. 

Spirit Room

L is 54. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was in the Army in his 20s and now works in private personal security. He studied theology in college. He told me this story about his Haitian great grandmother in person.

“She was a big believer in spirits. When my great grandfather died, she moved out of the room they used to share and left the room exactly how he would like it and she said he would come and visit and stay in his room. You were allowed in the room… if you dared to stay in it. I can’t recall anyone ever staying in the room… (laughs) my uncle Glover actually ran out of the house because he said he saw my great grandfather there and for the next two nights we all slept in cars. No one else ever saw him but we all believed in it though.”

In the Voodoo religion, the spirits of the dead are believed to remain active in the affairs of the living. L said neither he nor his family was worried the great grandfather’s ghost would do anyone harm, they just “didn’t want to mess with it.” For more information, see http://www.haitiobserver.com/blog/after-life-beliefts-in-voodoo-religion.html. 

Hex Chicken

L is 54. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was in the Army in his 20s and now works in private personal security. He studied theology in college. He told me this story about his Haitian great grandmother in person.

“My great grandma Hattie, on my dad’s side, um… she used to practice a form of Haitian voodoo like if she disliked someone in the community… they lived in Turle, Arkansas… she would take chickens and drain their blood and bury the chicken head and curse you, like in the yard and if she wanted you to change your behavior she would do this ritual… mind you we ate the chicken after she used it for the ritual. We called it voodoo… we hardly understood what she said because she had a heavy accent and I didn’t spend a whole lotta time with her because there’s not a lot to do in Turle, Arkansas. She came from Haiti in the 1930s or something and married my great grandfather in Arkansas… they were sharecroppers… so yea… if she had an issue with you she would perform her hex.”

Ritual sacrifice is common in Voodoo and other religions. Cooking and eating the sacrificed animal is also a common practice. For more information on Voodoo with a focus on how the religion has been misconstrued and misrepresented, particularly by Western Media, see FERÈRE, GÉRARD A. “HAITIAN VOODOO: ITS TRUE FACE.” Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 3/4, 1978, pp. 37–47, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40793401. Accessed 25 Apr. 2022.

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.

Papa Legba

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, New York City
Performance Date: 10 March 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Main Piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the interviewer and the informant.

Informant: My grandma showed this to me when I was younger, like 9 or 10. Whenever you feel like you’re stuck, or when there’s no way, you pray to Papa Legba, and he will make the way for you.

Interviewer: Can you describe who Papa Legba is?

Informant: Papa Legba is the lwa of crossroads. Lwa are the spirits that Haitians serve, they’re somewhere between humans and God, but praised higher than angels.

Interviewer: Can you describe the praying process?

Informant: You fill up a mug with water, then you call your spirit guides, like you pray. You then like spin around, start saluting all four directions, like east west north south. Because he’s the lwa of crossroads, he’s gonna listen to you and make the pathway himself.

Interviewer: Do you practice this prayer yourself?

Informant: Not really, because I don’t practice Voodoo. But I don’t think it’s invalid or has no truth to it, like, obviously praying to a higher being when you’re stuck will help you in some way, like it’ll help you clear your mind at least.

Background: My informant, a 20 year old USC student, is of Creole descent and comes from New York, home of a large Haitian community. Even though she doesn’t practice Voodoo, her grandmother was very much connected to the religion and exposed the informant to the culture from a very young age.

Context: The conversation took place at the informant’s apartment in Los Angeles, no other person was present during our talk.

My thoughts: The religion of Voodoo is often misunderstood and misrepresented in the Western media. It’s a practice that I wish to educate myself further on, and learning about this tradition was very helpful. I found particularly interesting how Voodoo has so many various deities and intricate rituals, all different depending on situations. For Papa Legba in particular, the prayer only requires one participant, which is why I think my informant knew a lot about it as it’s pretty easy to learn compared to other prayers.