Mention to someone that you`re going to New Orleans and you`re likely get a list of restaurant, musical, and shopping ”musts” that would fill three vacations: breakfast at Brennan`s, lunch at Galatoire`s (”No credit cards!”), dinner at Commander`s Palace, oysters at Acme or Felix`s, hurricanes at Pat O`Brien`s, jazz at Preservation Hall, the Neville Brothers at Tipitina`s dancehall, shopping along the Riverwalk, the plantation tours and on and on.
Rick Kogan, The Tribune`s TV critic and ”spiritual leader” of the features department, offered only this bit of advice: Wake up late, get a drink in the courtyard of the St. Ann`s Hotel at 711 Conti St., and head directly for the voodoo museum.
His directions were a bit fuzzy (”It`s somewhere in the French Quarter, off Bourbon Street”) but, considering he had last visited the place 10 years ago to see Muhammad Ali fight Leon Spinks, at least he put us in the ballpark.
Voodoo? Well, my wife and I were in the Big Easy-clearly not a misnomer-a couple of weeks back for the annual convention of the National Association of Television Program Executives, most of whom would sell their souls for an edge in the ratings. They`d try anything for a point boost-voodoo, crystal balls, Geraldo Rivera, ”Green Acres” reruns-so maybe I`d catch a local program director buying a gris-gris concoction to help next fall`s lineup, and I`d have myself a scoop . . . it was worth a shot.
Made for walking
It was gloomy day-foggy and drizzly, but warm-so we postponed the drink at the St. Ann`s, and proceeded down Bourbon Street toward points unknown. Strolling in New Orleans is always a delight (except perhaps during Super Bowl week and Mardi Gras, when strollers risked being stomped to death by revelers) and the window shopping made time pass quickly and easily.
At 739 Bourbon St., we came across Marie Laveau`s House of Voodoo, which didn`t resemble any museum we`d ever seen. But it would do if somehow Rick`s memory had failed him and the voodoo museum had up and moved to Omaha sometime in the last decade-and, indeed, Marie Laveau was a great voodoo queen.
The overwhelming aroma of incense greeted us upon entering the House of Voodoo, as well as the sight of dozens of skinned reptile heads and shelves full of potions, trinkets and spiritual doodads. In a room beyond the store itself was a chair and table set up for spiritual readings, but, aside from the alligator-foot key chains, this particular establishment might as well have been in the Wisconsin Dells.
Still, like almost every other proprietor and salesperson we met in the French Quarter, the folks here were unusually friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, the stuff on the shop`s walls didn`t represent the kinds of souvenirs the kids had requested, and the stuffed alligator heads probably would clash with our Southwestern art back home.
Return empty-handed
So, empty-handed, we returned to Bourbon Street and plunged deeper into the Quarter. Almost magically, we decided simultaneously to turn right at Rue Dumaine and head for Jackson Square to scarf up a load of beignets at Cafe Du Monde.
Instead, voila, there it was, at 724 Domaine: the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, the ”only privately owned-owned voodoo museum in the world.” In Chicago, museums tend to be on the grand scale. Here, they come in all-sized packages. The voodoo museum is very much a part of the Quarter:
compact, time-worn and reeking of character and history.
Here, too, the walls of the outer shop were filled with candles, ju-ju and gris-gris potions, dolls, ve-ve drawings, books and manuscripts. The museum lay beyond.
We were greeted at the entrance by Virginia Lacey, a psychic reader, who introduced us to tour-guide/voodoo-king Joshua Frank. Frank told us that he had lived and worked along Chicago`s North Broadway for quite a while and returned a few years ago to New Orleans, where his daughter is a voodoo priestess known as Black Venus, and she also is associated with the museum.
Frank looked too comfortable to bother, so we decided instead to take the self-guided tour (the whole museum is no larger than most large living rooms) and linger over the impressive collection of photographs, carvings, maps, altars, masks, musical instruments, altars and other historical items associated with ”the world`s seventh largest religion.”
Taking no chances
At this point, you`re probably wondering if we`re taking all this stuff seriously or merely amusing ourselves with a bit of regional hocus-pocus. Well, I`m as superstitious as the next guy and, as a devout horseplayer, I`m not about to pass up a chance to gain an edge at the racetrack, or somehow improve my odds on getting a raise, for that matter . . . so, we picked up a couple of good-luck candles, chatted a while with Virginia and took down the phone number in case we wanted to order some gris-gris to be shipped (even in the spiritual world credit cards are accepted gladly) long distance.
Thanks to the prodding of Travel section editor Larry Townsend, however, I was on the phone a week later to Ann Worley, manager of the museum and ”trartreuse”-in French, a female treater of ailments. As it turned out, the Super Bowl was right around the corner and a horde of reporters had descended on she and museum owner-curator Charles Gandolfo, no doubt trying to uncover if Denver coach Dan Reeves had come in to buy a Joe Montana doll and a set of stickpins.
Worley estimated that of all the people who visit the museum, about half are skeptical tourists who have just stumbled onto the place and the other half are ”practitioners, who believe in the spiritual world.”
Scope of help
Indeed, that week, the museum staff could have custom made a blessing or gris-gris mixture to help one team over the other (spearmint, a lucky hand, roots, among other things), but usually they and ”believers” in countless other similar establishments in south Louisiana cater to those people who seek advice on personal situations and stresses.
As described in the museum`s handy two-page guide, ”Voodoo is an ancient African religion. The word vudu meant spirit or deity. . . . Around 1510, as the slave trade began in the West Indies and particularly in Haiti, voodoo
(known there as voudoun) moved with it. . . .
”The three supernatural forces of voodoo can be recognized in Haiti as:
1. God, the supreme entity who represents destiny; 2. the Loas, who are a cross between the ancient African pantheon of deities and Christian saints and were responsible for every event on Earth; and 3. Ancestors, who were relied on for guidance, protection and favor granting.”
When it moved to the United States and specifically south Louisiana, where it was called hoodoo, the movement was suppressed and it changed from a religion to an illegal, personality-driven cult, practiced by necessity underground in the city or in the swamps and woods of Louisiana.
Now, probably because voodoo is considered a toothless novelty by many, shops like the House of Voodoo and the museum can operate pretty much out in the open, selling potions and trinkets once banned.
Ceremonies held
Worley said that museum staff and Black Venus arrange their own small rituals on the premises, but also conduct various walking, swamp and plantation tours, customized for individuals and groups. She said the locals still have their own ceremonies, which are ”more public,” but many are held in the swamp because the ”drums make quite a bit of racket.”
Much of what the majority of Americans know of voodoo comes from the
”Hollywood, `Angel Heart` garbage that`s entertaining but not the truth,”
Worley said. She and Gandolfo hope to change that image in their own small way.
Saying goodbye to Worley, we could still hear the reporters from Denver in the background trying to find an angle for their stories hidden on the shelves of the museum. That weekend, if the Broncos had overcome a 12 1/2-point spread and beaten-clearly an impossible task-the 49ers in the Super Bowl, believe me, the word voodoo would have come up somewhere.
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The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, 724 Rue Dumaine, New Orleans, La., 70116; 504-523-7685; admission, $3 for adults, students and senior citizens, $2, children, $1 (group discount); guided tours available; credit cards accepted.
