Marie Laveau and the New Orleans Doctors

When Hyatt reached New Orleans in 1938, Marie Laveau had been dead for more than fifty years. Her name was still everywhere. Country parents scared children with it: “I’m going to take you to Marie Laveau.” (Hyatt 2774 · New Orleans, La. · informant 834).

Hyatt admitted he made no special effort to collect her story. What he did collect is better than a biography. It is how the workers who came after her talked about her, and about each other.

What Hyatt recorded about her

Hyatt’s own note gives the bare facts. The first Marie Laveau died on 24 June 1881, at about eighty-five. A daughter carried the name after her, and probably others too, because taking the name of a famous predecessor was common practice among doctors (Hyatt 827 · Algiers, La. · informant 1601).

His informants filled in the rest:

• An old Algiers woman said her mother and Marie were friends, that she had been in the house as a child, and that she could still point to it: “Ah kin carry yo’ tuh de same spot of ground where her house wus on” on St. Ann between Rampart and Burgundy (Hyatt 2773 · Algiers, La. · informant 1584).
• The same woman said Marie worked with furnaces, fire and hot pots (Hyatt 2773).
• A New Orleans man said she was “supposed to turn to a witch, manifest away, any kind of ways”. He said pregnant girls went to her and soon lost the child, and that she kept a graveyard of her own (Hyatt, Vol. 2 · New Orleans, La. · informant 819).
• Another woman, who claimed to have gone to school with Marie’s nephew Louis, said she was meant to be the Queen of the Hoodoos (Hyatt, Vol. 2 · Algiers, La. · informant 1589).

Law work and St. Roc

The 819 informant gave the most detailed account of Marie’s court work. A family with a son facing a murder charge would be sent to pray at St. Roc’s graveyard.

She then got the names of the judge and district attorney, fixed a little bag, and, by his account, paid the police ten or fifteen dollars to carry it into the jail. The result was mistrial after mistrial until the judge threw the case out (Hyatt, Vol. 2 · New Orleans, La. · informant 819).

He also described old man Louis, who he said took over after her. Dying at over a hundred, Louis told the informant’s cousin he had to go himself and pay the price for his killing work (Hyatt, Vol. 2 · New Orleans, La. · informant 819).

The hoodoo dance

Marie’s name was tied to the hoodoo dance. The 1584 informant described the dances of her girlhood as good-time dances where the work was done at the same time, with plenty to eat and drink, and raw beef hearts eaten when the aim was harm.

She said the old ways had mostly died out and that the spiritual people held the ground now, except on St. John’s Day, 24 June, at the lake (Hyatt 2773 · Algiers, La. · informant 1584).

The doctors who came after

By the late 1930s the name had become a brand. One Algiers worker owned a book called Marie Laveau and said of her, “dat wus known de bes’ hoodoo had evah been in dis State .” Hyatt noted that Marie Laveau never wrote a book (Hyatt 827 · Algiers, La. · informant 1601).

Another doctor told Hyatt she had learned under Marie Laveau. He later realised she meant a hoodoo manual sold under that name (Hyatt, Vol. 2 · New Orleans, La. · informant 844).

Living workers ranked one another. The 819 informant named Bradley of 221 Roman Street as the best doctor in town. He put Mother Hyde at the top of the spiritual people, with a church in the city, seventeen more in Texas, and hundreds of letters a day (Hyatt 2767 · New Orleans, La. · informant 819).

Madam Murray of Algiers said she had been anointed by Madam Pierre, who was Queen of the Hoodoos right after Marie Laveau (Hyatt, Vol. 2 · Algiers, La. · informant 1589).

In their own words

“Dance in dey petticoat tail an’ dey shimmy tail – dance.”

(Hyatt 2773 · Algiers, La. · informant 1584)

“She supposed tuh be the Queen of the Hoodoos”

(Hyatt, Vol. 2 · Algiers, La. · informant 1589)

“I done kill all I can and they say they want me.”

(Hyatt, Vol. 2 · New Orleans, La. · informant 819)

How it’s worked today

Marie Laveau is now treated as a spirit in her own right. Visitors still go to the Glapion family tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, believed to hold her, to leave offerings and ask favours. Access is now limited to licensed tours.

Many New Orleans and Louisiana practitioners keep her on their altars alongside the saints, and she is honoured on St. John’s Eve, 23 June, with head-washing ceremonies by the bayou.

The practice Hyatt saw, of selling products and manuals under her name, still goes on. So does the old New Orleans habit of workers claiming descent or training from a famous name.

Learn the work

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Source: Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork, 5 vols., 1970-1978. Numbers refer to Hyatt’s own item numbers; the town and informant number follow. Written by Hoodoo Witch in our own words, with short quotations from Hyatt’s informants for reference.