Cemeteries get eerie in Big Easy, land of voodoo, ghosts and jazz
October 17, 2004
BY CRAIG GUILLOT
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- On a quiet October night, the back streets of the French Quarter can be an unnerving place. Never mind the thieves or shady characters, the dark underbelly of what is often known as America's most haunted city bears the scars of a brutal history.
Cool breezes blow through the walkways of 18th-Century buildings, the clacking of horse carriages echo off the brick walls and the white facade of the St. Louis Cathedral rises above it all. Throw in paranormal activities, voodoo practitioners and creepy graveyards, and it's enough to send shivers down anyone's spine.
Every October, thousands of travelers descend upon the Crescent City in search of horror and hauntings. Costumed guides lead visitors through crumbling cemeteries, the drumming of voodoo rituals thump through the walls of homes and reported sightings of ghosts come from every crack and crevice in the French Quarter. This is a city that takes no shame in its macabre attractions and history of horror and death.
According to the Historic Voodoo Museum, New Orleans has the highest concentration of voodoo practitioners outside Haiti. It estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city's residents participate in the practice in one form or another. Signs of voodoo, from simple candles to full-fledged altars, can be found in homes, bars, hotels and shops across the city. In places such as Reverend Zombie's and Voodoo Authentica, shelves are stocked with everything from gris-gris bags (custom herbs and oils for specific purposes) and ju-jus (a blessed object to keep evil and negativity away) to candles and incense.
While there is no credible documentation of the introduction of voodoo in North America, most scholars agree that it was first imported to New Orleans with the introduction of the slave trade around 1510. Human labor -- and its cultures -- was imported from French colonies such as Guadeloupe, Martinique and Santo Domingo, as well as Africa. Unable to practice their own rituals out of fear of death, slaves quickly recognized the similarities between their religions and the Catholicism practiced in New Orleans. Substituting the names of their African deities with the names of the saints, they disguised their religions from the general public. Even today, this multifaceted aspect plays an integral part of New Orleans voodoo. Most practitioners are also devout Catholics.
New Orleans voodoo legend Doctor John (a.k.a. Bayou John) was a master drummer and free African who had traveled the world. Described as a large man with a face tattooed with red and blue snakes (the tribal markings of Senegalese royal family), he was sought by blacks and whites alike for his herbal medicines and fortune-telling.
The most famous voodoo queen, Marie Laveau, used a variety of talents to establish herself and gained the respect and confidence of New Orleans elite.
While voodoo is similar to Catholicism and a number of other, more earthly, religions, it has a significant image problem, often being dismissed as primitive or evil due to portrayal in films with human sacrifices and bloodletting rituals. Nevertheless, it's the mysterious image that beckons the curiosity of travelers. And, while local voodoos show disdain that their beliefs are portrayed as evil, many are quick to sell tourists voodoo dolls and potions to conjure up revenge.
Snakes, skeletons, altars and alcohol still play a large part in traditional New Orleans voodoo rituals, a few of which are accessible to intrepid travelers. Along with St. John's Eve (June 23), Halloween night is one of the most important nights of the year for voodoos, a time to honor spirits and ancestors.
Cemeteries convey haunted history
In a place where the dead are honored, it's natural they are sent to their resting places with a celebration. Since the city was first established, prominent musicians and politicians have been sent off to the cemeteries in jazz funerals, joyous occasions in which beers and trombones outnumber tears and flowers.
The roots of these burial rituals are traced back to Africa. It all ends in the cities of the dead where histories of mystery, danger, disease and horror lie encased in massive crypts. Behind the rusty iron gates, the ghost-white tombs lie adorned with crosses and angelic statues that exude both beauty and mystery.
Since the city was founded in 1718, the dead in New Orleans have never been content staying in the ground. Corpses buried on the banks of the muddy Mississippi river once washed into city streets, and those buried within the city often broke from their coffins and rose to the surface during floods and heavy rains.
Even today, heavy flooding can bring up bones in some of the older cemeteries. It wasn't until Mayor Esteban Miro in the 1780s adopted Spanish-style wall vaults that New Orleans finally kept its rotting corpses and skeletons off the streets.
There are more than 40 cemeteries in the New Orleans area, each with its own legends and histories. Nestled in the historic neighborhood of Treme, St. Louis No. 1 (there are two other St. Louis cemeteries) was founded in 1789 and is the city's oldest.
Many historical figures are buried here including Ernest Morial, the city's first black mayor, and Laveau. To this day, many still leave offerings and mark an X on her tomb, evidence of those who have asked for her wishes.
Built in 1872 on what was once the Metairie Race Course, Metairie Cemetery is the first cemetery to be patterned after the park-like cemeteries of the East. There are more than 150 acres of mystifying tombs and statues, many of which take influences from around the world. There's a tomb designed with Egyptian influences, another modeled after a Greek temple and even a memorial to the Louisiana division of the Army of Northern Virginia, which fought in the Civil War.
Set as the filming location for a number of movies, including "Double Jeopardy," "Interview with the Vampire" and "Dracula 2000," Lafayette No. 1 is another of one of the city's best-known cemeteries.
Built on the Livaudais plantation in 1833 and originally established as a cemetery for the City of Lafayette, this was the city's first planned cemetery and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a setting in many Anne Rice novels, and a number of German and Irish yellow fever victims are buried here.
Paranormal powers abound
Doing away with the fear of death altogether, there are some in the city who believe immortality can be achieved through vampirism. Even before Rice brought her vampires to the Big Easy, gothic types had sought New Orleans as a dark sanctuary.
While those aspects of vampirism -- eternal life, creation of vampires through biting on the neck -- portrayed in movies is no more than fiction, Rice's "Interview with the Vampire" efforts have resulted in dozens of dark landmarks, which can be visited on vampire tours.
There is also a group called the Louisiana Area Vampire Association. (It is said some people who are into vampirism go so far as to engage in consensual blood drinking.) Les Temps des Vampires, a vampire ball spawned by Anne Rice fans, draws a wide mix of tourists, fans and "real" vampires.
Even without the children of the night, the French Quarter can be plenty scary, a Halloween natural. With a history of disease, death, war and murder, it's no surprise the place is a paranormal playground littered with horrific tales. One such legend is that of the "Axeman of New Orleans," a serial killer who was reputed to have butchered 13 people with an axe between 1911 and 1919. To this day, it is often disputed whether the killer was found; some believe it was the work of a ghost.
Such stories can be found in every corner of the city from the oak-shaded streets of Uptown to the cobblestone alleys of the French Quarter. The Beauregard-Keyes House, one of the most famous, was the former home of Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard, who took over as commanding officer of the Southern troops at the battle of Shiloh. It is said that at 2 a.m. on moonlit nights, he and his troops materialize in the hallway near the ballroom.
The LaLaurie House, considered one of the most haunted places in the French Quarter, often had trouble keeping residents throughout the 1800s and 1900s due to reported ghostly activities.
It was said Madame LaLaurie, a socialite who lived there in the 1830s, tortured and abused her slaves, but in 1834 when a fire broke out at the residence, firefighters discovered one of the most brutal scenes in the city's history. Slaves had been chained to the wall, tortured, mutilated, disemboweled and decapitated. Madame LaLaurie, reports say, got away.
Ghosts might love the city but they seem to haunt the countryside in even greater numbers.
Few places in the world have received such haunted press as the Myrtles Plantation in the small town of St. Francisville.
Legend says there have been at least 10 suicides and homicides on the property since it was settled in 1796. Paranormal events have been documented there, and the house remains on the Smithsonian Institution's list of most haunted places in the world.
Those who make the two-hour trip upriver and opt to spend the night at the plantation during Halloween might be in for one of the most haunted experiences of their lives.
