St.Louis on Vieux Carre, con't

It is quite surprising that the Mam'zelle Marie Laveau had accquired such a position within Creole & White society. I can't imagine that white women would ever allow a colored woman to touch, let alone CUT their hair. What were they thinking.... Exactly! They weren't. One of the first things you learn about roots is to be careful who you let handle your hair cause if they can get just a lock of your hair they can influence you and your future in many ways.  Note: In some parts of Africa the hair of white people ( especially blondes ) was prized because it was thought to be powerful.  
Check this out:  Hair Memorials

 

Picture courtesy of Eberly College of Science News

St.Louis on Vieux Carre

( picture left, St.Louis Cathedral,New Orleans where in the mid-1800's many Voodoo practioners received sacrament daily... )

In the late 1820's Mme. Marie Laveau of New Orleans was moving up a ladder of success from being a simple coiffeur (hairdresser) to mambo (voodoo queen). I think that this is a rather interesting path for this free woman of color at a time where there were no alternative paths of life for women, especially women of color. Black & Creole women's lives were not their own but, this woman created a persona that would be sought after, even to this day.

How did this happen? Mme. Laveau was a born into a society that was maintained by secrets. The very essence of creole life was held together by lies and skeletons.

For instance, legal interracial marriages were rare in Louisiana before 1870 and

" the desire for white men for sexual relations with Negro women was so great that special institutions grew to satisfy it " so this is how the instituition of placage came to be. The infamous Quadroon Balls played a major part in the employing this system where by mother's or female relatives escorted beautiful young creole girls to these balls which were attended by rich and sometimes poor white men with the purpose of finding the young girl a suitor. These unions were fueled by power, sex and money. Enter a spirit born into this world, and you have an incredible information base to pull from as an informant,consultant,confidant,spiritual adviser. This was a perfect time to be a Voodooienne.
          

 ~ to be continued

wedding broom almost done

this a portion of the wedding broom handle. omg. i can't wait to finish this one. this will definitely be sold for $75.00. 

New Orleans in Sepia

Halloween abuse violation # 1

 

Halloween is an excuse for people to parade rotting fruits and vegetables around on their porches 'til Thanksgiving.

Chicken Run

 

not really... more like geese. still funny though, in retrospect

sunday

can you see the sun??? click on picture to see the close-up.

wordcraft.spellcraft.chant: what's the difference?

i see everything through a spiritual lens.

i cannot attend a church without noticing how remarkably un-christian most elements of church are. which brings me to prayers, litany, the word of god... all that.

they all sound remotely spell-like to me. but, what is a spell? it's a confession on intention right?

how do you make regular words have power? well, you can group them in an interesting way; make them rhyme, sing-song. if chants/prayers are lines of poetry, then so are spells. right?

Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the sword

Set kou'd kouto, set kou'd ponya.
Prete'm terinn-nan, m'al vomi san ye.
Set kou'd kouto, set kou'd ponya
Prete'm terinn-nan m'al vomi san ye.

Men san màke pou li.

we'll looky here: this is the view from my accupuncturist's table today... ezili danto appears after i post the photo of jolie blonde's altar in new orleans. seem strange? yup well that's my life. strange.and wonderful.

Eruzilie,Ezili is the lwa of protection closely associated with the aspect of mother. As a caring mother she will go to the ends of the earth to protect her children and family. 

Voodoo Museum Marie Laveau, New Orleans

 

I believe this was the cage of and now, the altar of a ritual snake named Jolie Blonde. I took this photo last year when I was in New Orleans. So sad is the state of that city. The old city is gone. but, not for long i hope. Chocolate City.

Florida Water

Here's a fresh batch of Florida Water made just this afternoon. Florida Water is used to spiritually cleanse and protect a home or space. It is also a base for many ritual formulas used in rootwork, hoodoo,conjuring and other magical craftwork. If you'd to purchase or know more about this wash check out my Etsy shop.         got juju?

note to self :

do not go into again
this store smells like and is jam-packed full of sad dead people.
yuck!

She came before me

 (pictured : my great gran Sallie Lee Anderson and grandmother Josephine C. Anderson Burnside)
i am grateful to have a whole line of artistic+intelligent+self-sufficient+industrious+interesting+strong and rather witty women-folk that i come from. they are/were diverse and the same. they are/were wild and conservative. they are/were boisterous and stoic. they are/were complex and simple. a midwife,seamstress,farmer,doll-maker,teacher,storyteller,medicinewoman,lodge mistress, organist, cook, and a laundress made me who i am. for better for worse.

WE ARE DESCENDANTS OF OUR ANCESTORS AND THEY GO WHERE EVER WE GO 

Tell the stories

According to Patricia Riles Wickman, the importance of the role of the storyteller cannot be overemphasized:

Cultures in which the entire responsibility for replication and perpetuation of the cosmogony is bounded by the ability of its members to hold its elements within the living memory of each generation, without recourse to written codification, embody a type of dynamism within themselves that is unique to orally codified cultures.  This dynamism is both parent and child of the process: such cultures are constantly required to perform, at the same time, twin activities, regenerative and perpetuative.  They encode and institutionalize a ritualized cosmic past that objectifies the culture, even as they reinvent and reinvigorate a social present that uses as its benchmark the very cosmogony that is constantly being reinstitutionalized. This is the process by which, within orally codified societies, the reproduction of a structure become[s] its transformation. [p.60, Wickman]

Where are all the birds?

sad.for true.
David Lewis, Jr. is the last living medicine person of the Bird Clan of the Muscogee in Oklahoma.  Lewis description of his role as medicine person to the clan, and the void that will be left if he is unable to find a replacement for himself underscores one of the ways in which Creek culture is being eroded by modern pressures and influences:  

 excerpt from Creek Indian Medicine Ways, by David Lewis, Jr. and Ann T. Jordan

" I know that I'm the only living, true medicine man left who has actually been initiated.  It is nothing to brag about; it makes me sad.  We have a lot of carriers (uninitiated medicine people) who practice our medicine and they are very strong people, but they do not know the history of the origin of our medicine.  The tribe has ceremonial grounds and they use these red roots all through the summer and the other medicine people use the red roots, but they don't know the history of where red roots come from.  The history of our medicine is only taught to the initiated medicine people.  I haven't found a replacement to initiate to carry on this medicine culture.  There is an old story that says you will be given time to find one.  Maybe that is why the medicine people lived to be old people; they put off finding a replacement.  But you just can't find a candidate as easy as it sounds because the selection process is so strict.  I don't think I will ever find one. "

mirror, mirror on the wall

 

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who's the fairest of them all


while walking the my breakfast joint i ran across this mirrored tray on the street.  

i was very tempted to bring it back home...

but not into my house.

still, i may decide to rescue it.

Riddle me this?

seven sot,
six sprung,
from the dead the living come.

Bird sat on a dead tree and laid her eggs. six birds hatched. one fell out.

one of my favorite words

espantapajaros....

The Bee-King

" Dream o' honey, Lots o' money
  Dream o' bees, Lib at yo' ease ...

broom malfunction

all my spooky friends will agree :
doesn't it look like somebody parked their broom in the tree!

the newest broom

In Pagan & New World African tradition, the jumping of the broom is
symbolic of taking a leap into a new life together. A marriage is
consecrated after the couple jump the broom.
Presently, the broom I am making for this purpose is drying off in my
backyard. I stuck it in the tree to dry and I tell you, if my neighbor
didn't know up until this moment, I'm sure they think I'm crazy now...
picture to follow,

thedarkcyde
Sent from my iPhone

Making New

Trees are people too

Here's a pen and ink drawing I did back in my Tuskegee Days. It was a designed to be a backdrop for the play Waiting for Godot.

new materials

I just gathered more material for a wedding broom I'm making for my
friend.

Sent from my iPhone

motif