THE VOODOO HOODOO SPELLBOOK

By DENISE ALVARADO

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2011 Denise Alvarado
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57863-513-9

Contents

ForewordDisclaimer and Legal NoticeIntroductionChapter 1: The BasicsChapter 2: The Voodoo PantheonChapter 3: The SaintsChapter 4: Prayers, Novenas, and PsalmsChapter 5: Prepare to Mesmerize: Tools, Materia Medica, and CuriosChapter 6: Candle MagickChapter 7: Conjure, Spiritual, and Anointing OilsChapter 8: Magickal Voodoo InksChapter 9: Floor WashesChapter 10: Spiritual Waters and ColognesChapter 11: Spiritual BathsChapter 12: New Orleans Gris GrisChapter 13: Sachet PowdersChapter 14: TalismansChapter 15: The SpellsFinal Note from the AuthorReferences and BibliographyResources and SuppliersIndex

CHAPTER 1

The Basics

In New Orleans, anyone can practice Voodoo. There is no formal religiousinitiation rite, no rigid orthodoxy, and there are no standard ways to worship—thoughthere are guidelines. Voodoo is a fluid, adaptable, syncretic, andinclusive spiritual and religious practice that embraces the hearts of allpeople, no matter their race, creed, or origin. The loas, spirits, orishas, andmysteries—all terms used to describe the divine archetypal forces of Voodoo—areever-changing, manifesting in infinite ways according to the filter of a givenculture and geographic location.

The word Voodoo means “spirit of God.” Contrary to popular belief, Voodoo isfirst and foremost about healing. It is a religious system based on three levelsof spirit: God, the loa, and ancestors. Voodoo believers accept the existence ofone ultimate god referred to as Bon Dieu (Good God), below which are thepowerful spirits often referred to as loas. These powerful spirits act asintermediaries between Bon Dieu and practitioners and are responsible for thedaily matters of life in the areas of family, love, money, happiness, wealth,and revenge. Finally, ancestor reverence is considered the foundation of NewOrleans Voodoo. The loas and ancestors are not worshipped; rather, they areserved and revered, respectively.

New Orleans was a major port where multiple cultures converged, and as a result,the influences on New Orleans Voodoo are very diverse. While New Orleans Voodooas a unique system has no formal initiation rites, many people who practice itare, in fact, initiated into one of its closely related “sister” religions.There are also family lineages in New Orleans that pass down specific traditionsthat are held in confidence. These are the mambos and houngans who reside in NewOrleans, more commonly referred to as priests, priestesses, or kings and queensof New Orleans Voodoo. There are Cuban-inspired Santeros, Haitian-initiatedmambos and houngans, Obean rootworkers from the West Indian islands (i.e.Belize, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic), followers of the SpiritualistChurches, hoodoos and rootworkers who incorporate candle magic, spells, and theveneration of Catholic saints, and followers of the Yoruba tradition of Africa.New Orleans Voodoo is highly influenced by Native American spirituality andherbalism, as well. For example, the famous Indian War Chief Black Hawk is aVoodoo saint and is often included in the ritual work of hoodoos andSpiritualists. However, many Spiritualists who venerate Black Hawk deny engagingin hoodoo activities, despite the similarities found between traditions.

This edition of The Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook provides more in-depth informationabout the history of New Orleans Voodoo as well as a beefed-up formulary that isbased on authentic New Orleans materia medica as I have learned it. The formulasfound in this book may or may not be consistent with rootworker formulas foundin other areas of the South. For one thing, there are influences at play in NewOrleans that are not present in other areas. For example, the inclusion ofSpiritualist oils and Indian spirit products were inspired by the Spiritualistchurches and exploited by the hoodoo marketeers. There is the infamous Algiersdistrict of New Orleans where some of the most popular formulas such as FastLuck derive. And there are the Cleo May and Dixie Love products that cater toladies of the night and to all women desirous of their effects. Furthermore,French perfumery had a huge impact on the Creoles of high society, and some ofthese perfume names and ingredients made their way into the hoodoo formulary.The use of Voodoo dolls and doll babies in magick spells has become iconic ofNew Orleans Voodoo, although their use by genuine practitioners is much morecomplex than is commonly perceived by the public at large. And gris gris is acompletely unique magickal system in New Orleans that involves far more thanfilling a red flannel mojo bag with a few symbolic items of conjure.

New Orleans Voodoo lacks the rigid orthodoxy found in Haitian Vodou. Accordingto Louis Martiné, drummer, priest, and spiritual doctor with New Orleans VoodooSpiritual Temple:

New Orleans Voodoo is the wild child of Voodoo’s feral religions, the trickplayed upon the trickster. In New Orleans Voodoo, where the ultimate authorityrests within the individual and his or her living relationship with the loa,there can be no orthodoxy to sit in grand judgment. If judgment were to be metedout, its throne would well bear the word “success.” And who is best suited todecide what is “success” than the involved mind stream as it is now (TheIndividual), as it was in the past (The Ancestors), and as it will be in all ofits future incarnations (The Offspring)?

Because of the proliferation of misinformation on the Internet and in many booksabout the beginnings of Voodoo in New Orleans and, indeed, in America, I haveprovided a brief contextual background of its history in the following section.Many aspects of New Orleans Voodoo and hoodoo are direct holdovers from theoriginal African religion and are not just arbitrary additions by contemporarypagans and wiccans. Though there are those obvious recent neopagan influences, Ihave omitted them and focused this edition of The Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook on thepractice of Voodoo and hoodoo in Louisiana and Mississippi, with a specialemphasis on New Orleans traditions.

While Voodoo in New Orleans is again becoming more communal, I am from the eraof oppression and intolerance that made it necessary for practitioners to gounderground and practice in secret by themselves or among their families andtrusted friends. Segregation was still alive and well when I was born, and I wasamong the first children who were “bussed” to schools in black neighborhoods andvice versa. My “in-between” color saved me from being beaten up in school, but Iwill never forget what it was like to watch my best friend be taunted and beatenbecause she was white. When I attempted to intervene, I was told by the blackkids, “You okay ’cause you brown.” I share this story to illustrate the climateof New Orleans from the perspective of a Creole child who received many mixedmessages from members of my family and community about my ethnic identity (onlyclaim your French heritage if you must because of your skin color; identify yourHispanic Catholic heritage, but never your indigenous roots … all the whileholding secret séances, working with the spirits, doing candle magick, learningfortune telling, my mother braiding my hair and telling me stories about beingCherokee, and being taught how to work a Voodoo doll behind closed doors). I amone rootworker who has lived long enough to witness a social climate that, whilenot completely tolerant by any stretch of the imagination, is more accepting ofindigenous beliefs, and contains a segment of the population that not onlytolerates but embraces books about Voodoo and hoodoo. The times they are stilla-changin’, folks. I was born a New Orleans Creole into the Mysteries and thisis what I have learned by living it and breathing it.

What Is New Orleans Voodoo Hoodoo?

New Orleans is now and has ever been the hoodoo capital of America. Great namesin rites that vie with those of Hayti in deeds that keep alive the powers ofAfrica. Hoodoo, or Voodoo, as pronounced by the whites, is burning with flame inAmerica, with all the intensity of a suppressed religion.

—Zora Neale-Hurston

New Orleans Voodoo originated from the ancestral religions of the AfricanDiaspora. It is one of many incarnations of African-based religions rooted inthe West African Dahomean and Central African Voodoo traditions. It becamesyncretized with the Catholic religion as a result of the massive forcedmigrations, displacements of the slave trade, and the Code Noir. Slave ownersforbade the Africans from practicing Voodoo under penalty of death and, in areascontrolled by Catholics, forced many of them to convert to Catholicism. Theresult was a creolization of the names and aspects of the Voodoo spirits tothose of the Christian saints that most closely resembled their particular areasof expertise or power. Under the guise of Catholicism, the religion of Voodoosurvived.

Louisiana was founded in 1682 after the King of France, King Louis XIV, embarkedupon active exploration of the Mississippi River in order to enlarge his ownempire and stop the progress and expansion of Britain and Spain. René-RobertCavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reached the mouth of the Mississippi River andclaimed possession of the river and all the land around it for France. He calledthe new territory “Louisiane,” or “Louis’ land.” Louisiana’s colonial periodlasted from 1699, when the French established a permanent settlement in thearea, to 1803, when the United States purchased it. New Orleans was designatedthe capital of colonial Louisiana in 1718. According to the New Orleans VoodooMuseum, New Orleans Voodoo had three distinct phases: African, Creole, andAmerican. Upon examining the historical records, I tend to agree with thiscategorization. The African phase began in 1719, with the arrival of the first450 Africans who set foot in New Orleans from the Bight of Benin. According torecords of the French slave trade voyages from Africa to Louisiana during theFrench regime, two-thirds of the slaves brought to Louisiana were fromSenegambia. In 1720, 127 more slaves arrived from Senegambia. In 1721, 196 werefrom Senegambia, 834 were from Bight of Benin, and 294 were from Congo/Angola.From 1723 to 1747, all of the people stolen from Africa were from Senegambia,with the exception of 464 from Bight of Benin in 1728.6 Some of the specificAfrican cultural groups that arrived in Louisiana include the Bambara, Mandinga,Wolof, Fulbe, Nard, Mina, Fon (Dahomean), Yoruba (Nago), Chamba, Congo, Ibo,Ado, Hausa, and Sango.

Most references to the African origins of New Orleans Voodoo emphasize the Congoregion; however, the historical documents reflect a significant population ofpeople from Senegambia, including some practicing Muslims (which makes sense,given Senegambia was under the rule of the Islamic Almoravides Empire; though,many resisted the conversion to Islam and maintained their traditional Africanreligions and beliefs). The reason that so many Sengambians were sold intoslavery in Louisiana was because the slave trade was organized by the Company ofthe Indes, a privately owned company licensed by the King of France, who held anexclusive trade monopoly in Senegal and Louisiana during the years of theAfrican holocaust.

From a geographic perspective, Senegambia refers to a large region betweenSenegal and the Gambia rivers. One might assume that since the region is solarge, the culture would be heterogeneous. On the contrary, there were manycommonalities among the differing cultural groups, as evidenced by thesimilarity of language groups. It might be likened to Scandinavian culture;while Scandinavia is comprised of three different countries (Denmark, Sweden,and Norway), they are related linguistically and culturally. If you can speakone Scandinavian language, you can typically understand (i.e. speak and read)the other two. Examination of the traditional practices of the people from theSenegambia region reveals a far greater influence on New Orleans Voodoo than hasbeen previously recognized. For example, gris gris, a religiomagical traditionfrom Senegambia, is one of the hallmarks of New Orleans Voodoo.

The first slaves in Louisiana were not African, however. They were NativeAmericans, most of whom were warriors. Some of the Native American tribes in thearea at the time were the Natchez, Choctaw, Cherokee, Tunica, Tamira, Chaouchas,Chickasaw, Illinois, Houma, Arkansas, and Miami. The indigenous peoples fromvarious tribes were captured and sold into slavery by both the British and theFrench. In fact, indigenous people were bought, sold, and exported fromLouisiana to the West Indies at a ratio of two Indian slaves for one Africanslave. Even though the export of slaves was outlawed by 1726, the slave tradecontinued, albeit on a smaller scale.

Enslaved Africans joined enslaved Native American Indians when they arrived inLouisiana. Many times they lived under the same masters. Like the NativeAmerican Indians, the enslaved Africans were not the passive, submissive peopleso often depicted in print and media. Among the Mande, for example, there wasthe principle of fadenya, meaning “father-childness.” Fadenya is the culturalprinciple of the innovator, the one who rebels against social order, and the onewho travels “to foreign lands to gain special powers and rewards that areeventually brought back for the benefit of the village.” The rebels are theones who are considered heroes.

By the time the African slaves arrived, the Indians already had experience asescapees. The Indians who escaped retreated to the nearby swamps, and some evenremained in the city, literally hiding in plain sight. They were well organizedand heavily armed. It comes as no surprise that the Africans and NativeAmericans banded together to escape, and steal food, supplies, and weapons. Theyorganized to raid settlers for more supplies and wreaked all kinds of havoc fortheir masters and the colony. The colonizers feared a great uprising by thejoining together of these two populations, and with good reason. By 1729, theNatchez, in cooperation with recently arrived Africans, wiped out the entiretobacco settlement of the Company of the Indes, which had been in control of thecolony along with approximately one-tenth of the French population. By 1731, theCompany of the Indes officially turned its Louisiana concession over to France.

Undoubtedly, the French and the British allied with the various Indian nationsand used these alliances to their benefit. They used slaves in battles thatwould turn African against Indian, Indian against African, and Indian nationagainst Indian nation. They dangled the carrot of freedom as incentive foralliance with both groups. They played upon the preexisting intertribalconflicts among Indian tribes. Arming slaves in any great number made thecolonizers even more nervous, but they needed their assistance to achieve thegoal of maintaining control over the colony.

The gumbo of cultures that comprised colonial Louisiana included people ofFrench, Canadian, Spanish, Latin American, Anglo, German, Irish, English,Scottish, Jewish, Native American, and African descent. In addition to joiningthe Native Americans, the first African slaves also encountered the socialrejects from France who were exiled to New Orleans, many of whom were made intoindentured servants. France and Spain were fighting over Mobile and Pensacola,leading to mass desertions among French and Swiss soldiers. Consequently, NewOrleans was comprised largely of rejects, deserters, and African and Indianslaves. The shared desperation among the diverse groups of people led to adegree of cooperation that seemingly transcended status and race.

Eventually, France was defeated in the French and Indian War and abandoned NorthAmerica. New Orleans and the west bank of the Mississippi were ceded to Spain.During the years of Spanish rule (1763 to 1803), the white population almostdoubled and the slave population grew 250 percent.

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana territory. Shortly after thistime, there were several influxes of immigrants from St. Domingue (Haiti); thefirst consisting of an estimated one thousand refugees. According to Debien andle Gaedeur, another nine thousand refugees arrived indirectly from St. Dominguevia Cuba in 1809. While some of these refugees settled in New Orleans, most ofthem made their homes west of the Atchafalaya Basin in St. Martinville and thesurrounding area. Because of the large number of Haitians settling in thisarea, it became known as le Petit Paris, as residents attempted to recreatetheir lives as they had been in St. Domingue. Undoubtedly, the spiritsfollowed the refugees, and thus we can see how some of them became part of theNew Orleans Voodoo pantheon.

From 1719 to about 1830, Voodoo in New Orleans was much like it was in Africa.The main difference was a merging of the different African cultures and region-specificreligious practices. But the languages, dances, and traditions weredecidedly African. The direct influence of African tradition, however, waseventually cut off when the importation of slaves from outside of the UnitedStates became illegal in 1808.

The Creole phase is marked by the convergence of distinctly different cultures,the loss of African languages, and the development of the Creole language. Thisphase was in high gear during the years between 1830 to 1930, when Voodoo peakedin cultural influence. The Creole language became the primary language, theAfrican rhythms of Voodoo dances gave birth to jazz, and Voodoo Queens emerged.Gris gris continued as a system of coping with the daily problems of life.Voodoo rituals merged with Mardi Gras and other celebrations to the point thatmany activities that were Voodoo in origin went unnoticed by the ordinaryperson. New Orleans Voodoo had integrated elements of European folk magick,Native American spirituality and herbalism, African Voodoo, and Catholicism.Catholic saints took a prominent place in New Orleans Voodoo at this time,masking, but not replacing, the loas of the traditional African Voodoo religion.
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