New Orleans, Louisiana

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Lore & Background

During the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to the 19th century, West and Central Africans were forcibly transplanted to the Americas, where their traditional religions syncretized with Christianity and other non-African influences to develop new traditions, such as Haitian Vodou or Cuban Santería. In Louisiana, a tradition commonly termed Voodoo emerged and survived into the early 20th century, at which point it died out, although some vernacular traditions persevered as Hoodoo. After the 1960s, the New Orleans tourist industry increasingly used references to Voodoo to attract visitors, while a Voodoo revival took place, the practitioners of which often drew heavily on other African diasporic religions. In the late 20th century there was a revival of Louisiana Voodoo, creating a tradition that "more closely resembles" Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santería than the 19th-century Louisiana Voodoo that is described in historical accounts. Author Jeffery Anderson deemed the link between the historical tradition and the revivalist practices to be "quite tenuous", stating that "today's New Orleans Voodoo" is "an emerging faith inspired by and seeking to reconstruct the older religion".

In Their Own Story

In 1990 the African American priestess Miriam Chamani established the Voodoo Spiritual Temple in the French Quarter, which venerated deities from Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santería. A Ukrainian-Jewish American initiate of Haitian Vodou, Sallie Ann Glassman, launched another group, La Source Ancienne, in the Bywater neighborhood; she also operated the Island of Salvation Botanica store. The most publicly prominent of the new Voodoo practitioners was Ava Kay Jones, a Louisiana Creole woman who had been initiated into both Haitian Vodou and Orisha-Vodu, a U.S.-based derivative of Santería. Scholar Carolyn Long believed that these groups reflected a "Voodoo revival" rather than a direct continuation of 18th and 19th century traditions; she noted that this new Voodoo typically resembled Haitian Vodou or Santería more than the 19th-century Louisiana Voodoo. In August 1995, Voodoo practitioners held a ritual in the Bywater area of New Orleans to try to drive away crack cocaine abuse, burglaries, prostitution, and assaults, while in 2001 the Voodoo priestess Ava Kay Jones performed a rite to drive harmful spirits away from the New Orleans Saints football team in the hope of improving their performance.

Reader's Guide

New Orleans serves as a critical location for understanding the Voodoo revival of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The revival has drawn many of its deities from Haitian Vodou, where these divinities are called lwa. Among the lwa commonly venerated are Erzulie Freda, Ezili la Flambo, Ogoun, Mara, and Papa Legba. These can be divided into separate nanchon (nations), such as the Rada and the Petwo. Glassman's New Orleans temple for instance has separate altars to the Rada and Petwo lwa. In the 21st century, Louisiana Voodoo has been characterized as a system of ancestor worship, with communicating with the ancestors being an important part of its practice. Writing in the 2010s, the Voodoo practitioner and poet Brenda Marie Osbey described a belief in "a somewhat distant but single deity" being part of the religion. In its early 21st century form, Louisiana Voodoo accords particular respect to elders. Osbey described the religion as being "entirely within the sphere of women, whom we call Mothers."

Did You Know?

• In 2014, Newsweek reported a claim that there had been between 2,500 and 3,000 practitioners in New Orleans at the start of the 21st century, but following Hurricane Katrina that number was down to under 300.
• Sallie Ann Glassman, a Ukrainian-Jewish American initiate of Haitian Vodou, launched the group La Source Ancienne and also produced her own New Orleans Voodoo Tarot card set for use in divination.
• Some 21st-century practitioners of Louisiana Voodoo do sacrifice animals in their rites, subsequently cooking and eating the carcass, but Glassman's group prohibits animal sacrifice in its rites.
• In 2001, Voodoo priestess Ava Kay Jones performed a rite to drive harmful spirits away from the New Orleans Saints football team in the hope of improving their performance.
• The New Orleans Voodoo Spiritual Temple has had its own 'temple snake' in the 21st century, reflecting the historical presence of snakes in Louisiana Voodoo rituals.