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The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans
Millennia ago, throughout southwestern and north-central Nigeria along with southern and central Benin, a religion was born from the ancestor worship and animism of the previous generations of the Yoruba people. Their beliefs became part of Itan, the total complex of memes that make up that society. This includes the songs they sing and the rhythms they play and even the gods they serve. The kind of polytheism they employ honors a Supreme Being along with many lesser deities. God is a trinity in the Yoruba religion, consisting of Eledumere, Olorun, and Olofi. Then there are the orishas, which are the souls of the dead that reflect divinity. This includes beings like Obaluaye, Logunede, Ara, Osumare, and Iroko, to name but a few. The point is that the longstanding spiritual tradition has been handed down for generations and has transformed over time.
In the 15th century, the transatlantic slave trade began after the Portuguese started exploring the coast of West Africa. Around 1650, the development of plantations on the newly colonized Caribbean islands and North American mainland brought groups of subjugated people that carried their unshakable faith with them. In places like Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti, the Roman Catholic missionaries forced the Yoruba people to convert, which then caused them to blend their old beliefs with their new ones. This gave rise to creolized Haitian Voudou in the 17th century and went on to become Louisiana Voodoo in the 18th century in the wake of the Haitian slave revolt. In this way, the orishas became the loas, and the loas were syncretized with the saints. These deities are not really prayed to like Jesus or Mary, which is still part of what Voodoo practitioners do, instead, each loa has a distinct sacred rhythm, song, dance, and mode of service. Moreover, these beings are called upon so that possession can take place through invocation.
At the beginning of the 19th century in French-occupied Louisiana, a Creole man named Charles Laveau and his mulatto lover Marguerite conceived a child with tremendous supernatural abilities. She was destined to become a great priestess in life and even a full-blown goddess in death, although no one really knew it at the time. Then, on Thursday, September 10th of 1801, Marie Catherine Laveau was born in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Being of European…
