I Love The Dead: The New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum

I might as well come out and say it, as if we didn’t make it obvious enough to anyone and everyone we have talked to since our jaunt through the South, but Alexa and I both loved New Orleans. LOVED it. One of the things we admired the most about it was the amount of acceptance and assimilation that has taken place there. It still has its problems, and we saw a few sketchy characters – like the kid rolling a blunt in Armstrong Park who also huffed some blow off of the back of his hand, or the man with the bloodied face filling out a police report on the “other” side of Elysian Fields – but ultimately, it is one of the most welcoming places in the world.

What makes it so welcoming? It is just as easy to point to the colorful buildings – the marriage of diverse architectural styles and shockingly bright colors make New Orleans a psychedelic experience* – as it is to the broad culinary palate that existed in NOLA (word for the wise: no one down there calls it the Big Easy. Nobody.) long before the foodie explosion of the early Aughts. Let’s not forget the ever-present sounds of music, usually performed live on a street-corner, that also pulls you in. What I think makes New Orleans so enticing is not the architecture, the food, or the music – although those are all added values.

It’s the people.

As a town driven in no small part by year-round tourism, its biggest draw is no doubt the party atmosphere. Second only to Vegas, NOLA serves as a venue for typically demure businessmen attending a sales convention, virginal bachelorettes, and good timer frat boys to get completely and utterly shit-faced. We are talking just totally ruined, as in puking into the nearest catch basin at four in the afternoon, after debasing and embarrassing themselves along every inch of their downward spiral to this point.

This is where the locals come in.

Conscious as to why so many people flock to New Orleans – and after all, where else can you publicly double-fist tumblers filled with daiquiris? – the locals are understandably wary of out-of-towners. Some, as we witnessed, are downright mean to the stumbling drunks on Bourbon Street, and to our delight, especially since New York City’s tourism industry is regarded as a sacred institution. For the out-of-towner seeking more than the gratification of their id, expect – after some initial curtness – to meet the nicest people in the world.

Such was our experience with John T., the resident psychic and clerk at the New Orleans Voodoo Museum. Sitting behind the counter in a cloud of incense smoke and with the piercing eyes of a mystic, John presented an intimidating presence. With its location in the heart of the French Quarter, on Dumaine Street between Bourbon and Royal, John no doubt sees his share of tourists who treat the Voodoo Museum (or at least its front room, since there is no admission fee for that) as though they were on safari. When we came in and asked questions about the cost of tickets, the test began.

“Tell me,” he asked, in a Southern accent that was both charming and slightly discomforting, “what are your signs?”

“Capricorn and Cancer.”

John’s eyes widened.

“Capricorn and Cancer?” He sat back and folded his arms, shaking his head slightly. “Oh, that is a match made in Hell.”**

He went on to ask us about our interest in Voodoo, picking our brains to make sure we weren’t just there to treat something he takes so seriously like a joke. I told him we were interested in studying religions and belief systems, and that we were particularly fond of rituals, images, and objects held sacred by them. With a glint in his eye that was somewhere between an avuncular twinkle and a spark of Hellfire, he told us that what the museum featured was good and well, but that what he had in his third-floor apartment upstairs was something different altogether.

Raising his eye-spark with one of my own and a half-smirk, I asked what we would find upstairs?

“Oh, I have things up there that would send you running into the street.” He returned the smile, no longer trying to scare us but instead playfully teasing. “You wouldn’t last five minutes!”

With that, we passed the test. It is only left for us to speculate how other people would carry on during this psychic game of poker, but I would imagine the visitors being much more stand-offish. John smiled and told us about the museum: it was founded in 1972, that he himself is the resident psychic as well as a practitioner. He also added a fair warning for us before we entered the museum.

“Anything you see involving body parts or animals is not there for the fear factor. It is there because these are things used in Voodoo ceremonies and rituals. They are used because Voodoo believes God is present in all living things.”

And it is on that note that we present our own photos of the Voodoo Museum:

Baron Samedi, left, and the Rougarou, a Cajun variant of the werewolf, on the right.
The New Orleans Rougaroux has a much better ring to it than the Pelicans, don't you think?
It would certainly make for more interesting merchandise.

Voodoo has its origins in the folk religions of West Africa.

Historically, to allow Voodoo practitioners to hide in plain sight, Catholic saints were used in place of Voodoo spirits.

There is a unique reverence for the dead based more in celebration and ancestor worship, rather than fear.

Part of a display case depicting Voodoo symbols (the rainbow snake on the back tapestry represents God) and offerings.

Voodoo offerings made in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1.
Different offerings mean different things: makeup signifies romance, jewelry signifies the desire to seduce, lottery tickets signify wealth and prosperity.

After the museum, we had a nice conversation with John, during which a group of tourists came in, doing exactly what we thought they would do: they took pictures, asked how much the museum cost, lied that they “might be back,” and then promptly left. There is a lot more for us to share: our conversation with John, where he told us just what he had upstairs, the walking tour itself (led by Jerry Gandolfo, historian and brother of the Voodoo Museum’s founder), and an encounter with a Voodoo priestess in her temple (where she quoted Bobby “Blue” Bland and told me I was a seeker with an old soul – so yes, we got along swimmingly), but you’ll have to wait for the book for all of that.

* It is worth noting that neither of us have been to San Francisco – but we’ll get there.

** We look forward to one day telling our kids about the best compliment we ever received, and it will be the time a psychic in New Orleans said we were "a match made in Hell." (It sure beats the time a drunk in the East Village asked me if Alexa was my sister.)