MARIE LAVEAU Professor chases the history of an 1800s voodoo legend
Researcher Ina Fandrich is fascinated by tales of Marie Laveau's power, both earthly and magical.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
NEW ORLEANS -- Ina Fandrich runs her hand over the front of the tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.
"This is considered graffiti" -- she touches three inch-high black X's scrawled on the white Greek Revival burial chamber -- "and you can get arrested for that," she says.
It's obvious, though, that few take the possibility seriously. The building is covered with the triple-X markings, front, sides and back.
"People get wild," she says, pointing out some of the X's. "Look, they use markers. They use blood -- these were probably done with a sacrificed animal."
Fandrich, an assistant professor in the department of philosophy and religious studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, explains the origin of the X's, sounding like one of the dozens of tour guides who bring groups of people to St. Louis No. 1 daily, though their numbers grow in October before Halloween.
"Originally, you were supposed to take a red brick and make three marks, knock three times [on the tomb] to awaken the spirit, kick the ground three times, then you turn around and you accept that she heard you," she says. "You make three X's and make your wish. Then you come back and circle the X's when she grants your wish."
A legend
The "she" Fandrich refers to is Marie Laveau, the legendary Voodoo Queen of New Orleans and the subject of Fandrich's fascination for more than 15 years. And from the number of X's on Laveau's grave, and the collection of offerings left there, it's obvious Fandrich isn't the only one who has been captivated.
At the base of the tomb are pennies, candles and other items for Laveau.
"There was a toothbrush here not long ago," Fandrich says. "I tracked down the person who left it. He wanted a dentist to fix his teeth. After Sept. 11, there were notes from people asking her help in getting Osama bin Laden."
That a good many people still come to Laveau seeking favors -- her grave is said to be the second most-visited in the United States, trailing only Elvis Presley's -- attests to the power that she commands more than 120 years after her death. And she also attracts researchers such as Fandrich, who have made Laveau their life's work.
"She was considered to be clairvoyant," Fandrich says, enumerating the reasons for Laveau's popularity in 19th-century New Orleans. "And she manifested herself in many places at once. There were miraculous healings attributed to her. She could bring back unfaithful husbands."
It's these stories and the Marie Laveau of legend that have fascinated Fandrich, a native of Germany who first heard of Laveau in 1984 after graduating from the University of Hamburg and coming to Temple University to study comparative religions of the world.
"In my first year at Temple, I came across voodoo for the first time," she says. "I knew all about the civil rights movement, and I danced to jazz and the blues, but I had never heard of voodoo before."
She saw it as an African-derived religion, not a world of magic and superstition that it's usually made out to be. Voodoo and Laveau grabbed her and didn't let go.
Deep into research
"Two years later, I came to New Orleans and wrote a 30-page research paper," she says. "I used it in two classes, and both professors told me I should consider doing my dissertation on her. It took me until 1994 to get approval to make this my dissertation."
What she learned while doing research for the dissertation -- titled "The Mysterious Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux: A Study of Power and Female Leadership in 19th-Century New Orleans" (she adds an "x" to Laveau's name, as the family did) -- made her only more curious.
In the years since, she has continued to search for the real Laveau for a book, "The Power of Marie Laveaux," expected to be published next year by the University of California Press. The search, she says, has not always been an easy one in light of the legends that have grown up around Laveau.
"Prior to my research, I thought she might be more mythical than real," Fandrich says. "And in the book, I deal with both sides of her. How she was created ... how the politics of myth-making created Marie Laveau. She's definitely part of Louisiana folklore as much as she's a historical character. The book tries to look at the real person and at the same time look at the great shadow she cast in myths."
The myths go from Laveau's birth -- Fandrich has found she was a Louisiana Creole for several generations, a free woman of color, not the recent arrival from Haiti of some tales -- to her death.
Even something as basic as what Laveau looked like, or how old she was when she died, challenged Fandrich.
Sifting through accounts
"I've found her described as tall and dark; I've found her described as tall and almost white, as dark and stocky, as almost black. There are almost 20 descriptions. She's a very elusive person."
As for her age, her obituaries -- she was so well-known that The New York Times devoted all of Page 2 to her after her death June 15, 1881 -- were all over the map. She was variously listed as having been born in 1783, 1794 or 1796 in obits. Fandrich's research led her to think Laveau had been born sometime in 1801. And just before last Christmas, she found Laveau's baptismal record (she was a devout Catholic all her life, combining Catholicism and voodoo) that confirmed the birth date. "It was her Christmas gift to me," she says.
Throughout her life, Laveau was a controversial figure, only adding to her mystique. Her first husband, Jacques Paris, disappeared a few years after their marriage, leading to stories that she killed him or used voodoo to make him vanish.
"They found out shortly after they were married that they weren't a good fit. It was not a happy marriage," she says. "My idea is he just disappeared."
Laveau later took up with Louis Christophe Duminy de Glapion -- they couldn't legally marry because she was a free woman of color and he was white (though he spent much of his life passing as a free man of color) -- and they remained together for 30 years.
"The two of them had a very happy relationship," she says. "The stories say they had 15 children. But I could find only five in the archives, and only two of those reached adulthood."
Culture and power
Taken together, it paints a picture of a fairly normal life. But Fandrich says Laveau was an extraordinary woman, for a number of reasons.
"She was a diviner, divination," she says. "She was clairvoyant, that's for sure. She was also talented in herbal healing, that's for sure. And in a city where thousands died of yellow fever and other illnesses every year, that was important."
She also wielded an enormous amount of power in New Orleans, unheard of for a woman of color during those times.
Laveau also made contributions to the cultural and political landscapes in New Orleans.
As an example of the former, Fandrich cites the fact that Laveau was a familiar face at Congo Square, an area on the outskirts of New Orleans where slaves were allowed to gather every Sunday, the only time they could express their culture in song and dance. And, Fandrich says, the weekly dances didn't start until Laveau gave them her blessing.
"She gave African culture validity in this country, which I believe is her greatest contribution," Fandrich says. "She was an activist against a racist system. She fought racism, which took away all the rights of people with any connection to African culture."