Marie Laveau

Welcome to put gris-gris on it... Almost nothing written or recorded about Marie Laveau can be cited as fact. Everything that is known about her comes from local legend, hearsay and oral tradition. But not a child grew up in New Orleans without knowing and fearing the great Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau. It is accepted that she was born in 1794 in Vieux Carre. Her father, Charles Laveau, is said to have been a wealthy white planter and her mother, Darcantel Marguerite, a mulatto with a strain of Indian blood. Marie herself is described as being mulatto, quadroon, and sometimes just as "yellow". She was a tall statuesque woman, with "curling black hair, `good` features, dark skin that had a distinct reddish cast, and fierce black eyes." She married Jacques Paris, a free man of color, on August 4, 1819. Because the ceremony was performed in St. Louis Cathedral, her contract of marriage can still be found in the files there. At the time of her marriage, there is no evidence that either she or Jacques were practicing Voodoo. Marie and Jacques had both been raised Roman Catholic and she still practiced it devoutly, attending a daily worship at St. Louis Cathedral. Only a short while after the wedding, Jacques disappeared and Marie began calling herself the Widow Paris. A record of his death did not appear until several years after he had been gone. It was after the strange death of Jacques that Marie became a professional hairdresser and began visiting the homes of wealthy white women. This is probably how Marie got her start in practicing Voodoo. Women historically have confided things to their hairdressers that they normally would not tell a soul. "All the family skeletons must have come out to dance for Marie." And Marie, being the shrewd businesswoman that she was, started cashing in on these secrets. While she was working as a hairdresser, Marie became involved with Louis Christophe Duminy de Glapion. Just a few years after becoming a widow, Glapion moved into her home and lived there until he died in 1835. The are very few remaining facts known about Marie. One is that her longtime lover Glapion died in their home on June 27, 1835 at the age of 66. Over the years to follow, there are several small articles that mention Marie appearing in the New Orleans newspapers. These mostly deal with small legal battles she had with various Voodoo practitioners. And then, on June 16, 1881, the newspapers announced that Marie Laveau was dead. She would have been 87 years old. The main mystery of Marie Laveau arises when people still claim to be seeing her long after her reported death. Who was it that died, and who did people continue to see? The widely accepted opinion is that it was the Widow Paris that died in 1881 and her daughter Marie Glapion, a striking look alike, took over the role of Voodoo Queen. Marie II was about 50 years old when her mother died. This theory accounts for sightings all the way into the early twentieth century.