A Woman with Answers

The tradition of Southern Conjure is centuries old, tracing its history back to the forced migration of Africans to the Americas during the era of the slave trade. In New Orleans, Louisiana, the unique blend of Creole culture and Catholic tradition yielded Louisiana Voodoo and its undoubted queen, who served the people of New Orleans as a healer, herbalist, entrepreneur, spiritual leader, social worker, and community activist. This episode brings you the story of Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. 

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with original music by Purple Planet.


Music

Purple Planet - Valley of Eden

Purple Planet - Daybreak

Purple Planet - Slow Dissolve

Purple Planet - Remembrance

Purple Planet - Sense of Loss

Purple Planet - Shadowlands


Sources

Alvarado, Denise. The Magic of Marie Laveau: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Weiner Books, 2020.

Becker, Cynthia J. “Confederate Soldiers, Voodoo Queens, and Black Indians: Monuments and Counter-Monuments in New Orleans” de arte 54, no. 2 (2019): 41–64.

Carter, Morgan E. "Looking for Laveau: The Mythology of Marie Laveau in and Out of the Archive." MA Thesis. Greensboro, NC: The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2019.

Chireau, Yvonne P. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Dessens, Nathalie. “La Nouvelle-Orléans au XIXe siècle: Femmes de couleur libres, femmes de pouvoir?” Caliban: French Journal of English Studies 27, no. 27 (2017): 107-118.

Fandrich, Ina J. “The Birth of New Orleans’ Voodoo Queen: A Long-Held Mystery Resolved.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 46, no. 3 (2005): 293–309.

Fandrich, Ina J. The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux: A Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth Century New Orleans. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Fandrich, Ina J. “Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo.” Journal of Black Studies 37, no. 5 (2007): 775–91.

Gaffney, Barbara and Tara Lockwood. “Marie Laveau: La reina del vudú." Asparkía: Investigació Feminista 7 (2013): 145–50.

Gordon, Michelle Y. “‘Midnight Scenes and Orgies’: Public Narratives of Voodoo in New Orleans and Nineteenth-Century Discourses of White Supremacy.” American Quarterly 64, no. 4 (2012): 767–86.

Green, Tara T. “Calling Marie Laveau.” In Reimagining the Middle Passage: Black Resistance in Literature, Television, and Song, 90–106. Black Performance and Cultural Criticism. Ohio State University Press, 2018.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. “Marie Laveau: A Nineteenth-Century Voudou Priestess.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 46, no. 3 (2005): 262–92.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. “Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment, and Religion.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6, no. 1 (2002): 86–101.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. The Tomb of Marie Laveau. Left Hand Press, 2016.

McGee, A. M. “Haitian Vodou and Voodoo: Imagined Religion and Popular Culture.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 41, no. 2 (2012): 231–56.

Morris, Mary. “Portrait of Marie Laveau.” Late Self-Portraits, 15–16. Michigan State University Press, 2022.

Murphy, Jeanette Robinson. “The Survival of African Music in America.” Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly 55 (1899); reprinted in The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals, edited by Bruce Jackson. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967.

Tallant, Robert. Voodoo in New Orleans. The MacMillan Co., 1946.

Touchstone, Blake. “Voodoo in New Orleans.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 13, no. 4 (1972): 371–86.

Ward, Martha. "Laveau, Marie and Marie Laveau." Oxford African American Studies Center. 1 Dec. 2006.

Ward, Martha. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 2004.

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