Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints: A Guide to Magical New Orleans

By Denise Alvarado

A magical mystery tour of the extraordinary historical characters that have defined the unique spiritual landscape of New Orleans.

New Orleans has long been America’s most magical city, inhabited by a fascinating visible and invisible world, full of mysteries, known for its decadence and haunted by its spirits. If Salem, Massachusetts, is famous for its persecution of witches, New Orleans is celebrated for its embrace of the magical, mystical, and paranormal. New Orleans is acclaimed for its witches, ghosts, and vampires. Because of its unique history, New Orleans is the historical stronghold of traditional African religions and spirituality in the US. No other city worldwide is as associated with Vodou as New Orleans.

In her new book, author and scholar Denise Alvarado takes us on a magical tour of New Orleans. There is a mysterious spiritual underbelly hiding in plain sight in New Orleans, and in this book Alvarado shows us where it is and who the characters are. She tells where they come from and how they persist and manifest today. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints shines a light on notable spirits and folk saints such as Papa Legba, Annie Christmas, Black Hawk, African-American culture hero Jean St. Malo, St. Expedite, plague saint Roch, and, of course, the mother and father of New Orleans Voudou, Marie Laveau and Doctor John Montenée. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints serves as a secret history of New Orleans, revealing details even locals may not know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781633411456

Denise Alvarado

Denise Alvarado was born and raised in the rich Creole culture of New Orleans and has studied indigenous healing traditions from a personal and academic perspective for over four decades. She is the author of numerous books about Southern folk traditions and has had artwork featured on several television shows. A rootworker in the Louisiana folk magic tradition and a spiritual artist, she teaches southern conjure at Crossroads University. For more information, visit CreoleMoon.com.

Book preview

Introduction

We desire to bequeath, two things to our children; the first one is roots,

the other one is wings.

—SUDANESE PROVERB

Charming. Soulful. Captivating. A foodies' paradise. A ghost hunter's wet dream. A veritable smorgasbord of cultures. A city that never sleeps. These words and phrases describe much of what can be seen and experienced in New Orleans. As anyone who has been to the Crescent City will tell you, you get a feeling when you are there that screams elusive and mysterious. It's a gut-level feeling—you know there is more to it, but you just can't put your finger on it. All you know is that you want to see more, know more, and, ultimately, feel more—more of that good ole N'awlins supernatural vibe.

And New Orleans doesn't disappoint in that regard. She is inhabited by fascinating visible and invisible worlds, full of mysteries and haunted by spirits. Some legends can be connected to documented, factual people and events, while others are relegated to folklore. In this guide to supernatural New Orleans, I introduce twenty magickal figures found in Louisiana—the witch queens, Voudou spirits, and hoodoo saints—who reside in the spiritual underbelly there.

Take Mary Oneida Toups, for example, who was popular in the 1970s as the Witch Queen of New Orleans. Originally from Mississippi, Oneida founded the Religious Order of Witchcraft, the first church of witchcraft to be recognized in Louisiana. A one-line reference was made to her in the American television series American Horror Story: Coven, about rituals she performed at Popp's Fountain in New Orleans. This prompted a renewed interest in her among modern-day witches. Sadly, other than a few articles in the newspapers in the 1970s and one article published in Hoodoo and Conjure Quarterly, nothing substantial has been written about this fascinating contemporary witch. I believe I have provided the most thorough public accounting of her magick to date.

And who hasn't heard of the legendary Julia Brown, who said she would take the whole town with her when she died, and who literally did just that? Well, if you have never heard of her, you are about to meet the woman who not only owned the whole town of Frenier, she served as a healer and spiritual advisor, as well. But when the townspeople shunned her and the people began abusing the environment, the unthinkable happened.

One folk heroine I am thrilled to introduce to the world is Annie Christmas. To hear most people speak of her, she is a sort of female version of John Henry. A black version and a white version of her exists, depending on who is telling her story. But did you know she is actually a spirit in the pantheon of New Orleans Voudou?¹ She is revered as an ancestral cultural hero and has been part of local African American folklore for years. And among old-time Voudouists, there are mysteries about her that have remained hidden, only accessible to those practitioners old enough to know of her. Here, her story is shared from the perspectives of legend, lore, and Voudou.

Indeed, it is impossible to write about the mysteries of magickal New Orleans without discussing Voudou, which arrived in New Orleans with the first Africans brought as chattels in the early 1700s. With the enslaved came their beliefs in traditional African cosmologies, which were in stark contrast to Christianity in some, yet not all, ways.

Upon the implementation of the Louisiana Black Codes, everyone was forcibly baptized into the Catholic faith. As the newly converted slaves became familiar with the mystical rites and saints of Catholicism, they discovered similarities to their own religions. They used that knowledge to cloak their religious beliefs and deities behind the veil of Catholicism. Some Catholic saints were associated with Voudou spirits by function and others by resemblance, a dynamic known as syncretization.

For example, Baron Samedi became syncretized with St. Expedite, as they are both associated with the Dead. Papa Legba, who, in his native Dahomey, guards the crossroads and entrances to temples, homes, and compounds, became widely served in Haiti and New Orleans for opening roads and clearing away obstacles. Legba holds the keys to the Spirit World like St. Peter, who holds the keys to heaven's gates. Eventually, many Catholic saints were adopted into Voudou as ancestor spirits, with their own identities separate from the Voudou spirits.

Some of the Voudou spirits I feature here survived in the underground New Orleans Voudou scene as part of the same resistance that began in the mid-1700s in Louisiana. Jean San Malo, aka St. Maroon, was an actual person who gained infamy as a runaway slave who mocked justice. His audacity made him famous. In reality, his story is a testament to his cunning, resourcefulness, intelligence, and leadership. Scarcely touched upon in the popular magickal literature, he is as relevant today as in the 1700s. Here, I provide an account of his life as a political resistor and New Orleans Voudou saint. This perspective enhances the most common narrative of him as a runaway slave who helped other slaves escape to safety in the swamps surrounding New Orleans.

An intriguing characteristic of New Orleans's magickal traditions is found in cultural Catholicism. This includes the saints—both the canonized and folk variety—who are celebrated and observed within the Catholic religion and among Voudouists, conjure workers, Spiritualists, and hoodoos. I would imagine that folks unfamiliar with the spiritual traditions of New Orleans might find the revelation alarming. Staunch Catholics may consider it sacrilege. Nevertheless, there are full-blown magickal practices associated with the traditions of these saints, in addition to the Catholic Church's usual mystical rites. In fact, there is a whole side to New Orleans's popular saints and sacramentals that is only seen through the lens of the Catholic Voudou. In this book, I provide a window into that world.

In addition to witch queens and Voudou spirits, I cover several of the various New Orleans hoodoo saints referenced by folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt in his seminal work Hoodoo-Conjuration-Witchcraft-Rootwork. These saints are the stars of the little-known Catholic Conjure tradition. They are widely accepted as holy saints of devotion for Catholics in general and are enmeshed in local celebrations such as Mardi Gras and St. Joseph's Day. Here, I present the untold magickal lore of a number of these beloved saints: St. Anthony, St. Roch, St. Joseph, St. Peter, and the most curious saint of all, St. Expedite.

As mysterious as the city of New Orleans is, it is the stories of the people, spirits, and saints that make it so magickal. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints is a book of these untold, sacred stories. I am honored to share some of the mysteries that make up the cultural history of the city in which I was born and raised. In doing so, I hope to inform and entertain. At the same time, I hope to make New Orleans's magickal and spiritual practices less scary and more familiar to the average person. Our mysteries are not what the movies portray, though some kernels of truth may be found there. Hopefully, you will discover that we have more in common than not. And our differences? May they be perceived not in fear but with awe and wonderment.

—DENISE ALVARADO

All Hallow's Eve in the year of the Pandemic, 2020,

during Mercury Retrograde

Annie Christmas. Mixed media by Denise Alvarado, 2014

1 The spelling Voudou is used throughout the manuscript to maintain consistency with the majority of the 19th-century sources used in my research. The spelling is also used to distinguish it from Haitian Vodou, African Vodun, and tourist voodoo.

1

Annie Christmas, Daughter of the Mississippi River

You got a bully on these few blasted acres of mud you call a town? Get him out of his

hole if he'll come out! I'll tear the hide off him and hang it up to dry in the morning

sun. I'm a cross between a snapping turtle and a swamp gator I was weaned on

panther's milk, and I eat grizzly bear claws for breakfast. Send your white liver

champion down the river landing. I'll turn his bones into goofer dust.

This is Annie Christmas! Y'all hear me?!

—ANNIE CHRISTMAS

She emits foreboding energy to those standing in her presence who have done wrong and a feeling of safety and security to those she has come to assist. She's a daughter of the Mississippi Delta, born in the city of New Orleans, stronger than any man and a hero to every woman.

Annie Christmas was the original superhero before superheroes were a thing. Her stories inspired both enslaved and free African Americans in pre-Civil War Louisiana. Her reputation preceded her along the Mississippi River Valley as a force to be reckoned with. In fact, she had the reputation of being an annihilator of bullies. Just let her see a man pick on someone, and once she was done with him, he never acted that way again. She even scared off big ole Mike Fink from the docks of the lower Mississippi.

Even more than a defender of the underdog, Annie was ahead of her time. She insisted on equality in vocation and treatment between genders. She took on occupations typically reserved for men. She resisted the social mores of the times, like the usual plaçage arrangements popular during the early 19th century in New Orleans, whereby white men arranged common-law households with non-European women of African, Native American, and Creole descent. There were numerous economic benefits from such arrangements, including freedom for enslaved family members. Even so, Annie Christmas rejected such an arrangement, viewing it as a male-dominated, racist social institution. Instead, she ran away to the frontier of the Mississippi River to become a well-respected keelboatman.

Scant information about Annie Christmas is available in the written record. One description about her comes from a local informant from New Orleans named Eddie Simms, who was interviewed by the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) in the 1930s. Simms was a fifty-four-year-old longshoreman who had worked on the riverfront for some twenty-odd years. He remembered Annie Christmas as a pie lady and bucket woman who used to bring lunch to the longshoremen on de riverfront. He confirmed Annie was a black woman who had many sons who also worked on the riverfront.

She was a bad woman, stated Simms, who used to fight wid men, especially if dey didn't pay her her money. And when asked what he remembered about Annie Christmas in particular, he confirmed that she could outdrink anyone on the riverfront, downing a barrel of beer and ten quarts of whiskey without stopping. Sometimes she would git in fights around de whiskey joints and whip everybody she saw (Dillon, Folder 575, 23).

As a folk heroine, Annie Christmas has been treated as racially fluid in the South. You could say she was gender fluid, as well. Depending on who you talk to, she could be black, a former slave, or white with a small but carefully trimmed mustache (Asbury 1936, 82). Simms, however, said that he didn't know how anyone could say she was white when, at the time, dere certainly was no white women on de riverfront (Dillon, Folder 575, 20). Either way, black or white, all agree she could outwork a plantation mule.

In the context of New Orleans Voudou, Annie Christmas is of African descent. At some point, she was adopted into New Orleans Voudou's pantheon of spirits. Don't ask me when; I haven't a clue. That fact remains a magickal mystery. But suffice it to say, it was a long time ago.

Like the Catholic saints, each spirit in the New Orleans Voudou pantheon has its own unique characteristics. They have special symbols, days of the week, feast days, and life domains over which they exert influence. When an individual is experiencing problems in a given area, they will call on the spirit or saint that governs that sphere of influence for assistance. To that end, Annie is petitioned for protection and defense, removing obstacles, empowering women, and destroying bullies.

Whether discussing Annie Christmas in the context of folklore or folk religion, trying to discover Annie's origins leads mostly to oral history and archetype instead of any historical person. Of course, that doesn't mean she is purely fictional; her origin story is full of mysteries, as you will soon learn.

ANNIE'S ORIGINS

Where did Annie come from? Where? From the yonder seas out there. From the mountains of the moon, the far-off land of the Cameroon. Damballah's Child it has been said, others say a King's instead. Greatest of the Nubian greats with bloodlines back beyond recorded date. . . . Others claim a mortal birth, a god and goddess straight on earth. (Conrad 1956)

Some folks say Annie Christmas is simply the fictional star of a tall tale or legend. Some say she is a Voudou ancestral spirit based on an actual person. Indeed, there are many different stories about Annie's origins and exploits—including those versions with adult themes. Most of them center on her activities along the Mississippi River.

One version of her life describes her as a huge, coal-black negress with twelve coal-black sons, each seven feet tall. In another version, she was a river tramp, the wife of a keelboatman, possessed of enormous strength. One tale had her shot to death in a brawl in a New Orleans gambling house. In Negro legend, she committed suicide for love; her body was placed aboard a coal-black barge by her twelve coal-black sons, and all of them floated down the Mississippi to the sea, never to be seen again. (Haskin 1961, 88)

The most commonly told origin story promotes Annie as the subject of a hoax perpetrated by two white writers in New Orleans. According to Mary Rose Bradford, in the 1920s, Lyle Saxon and Mary's husband, Roark Bradford, were having drinks in the French Quarter when they fabricated the tale of Annie Christmas as a joke. Roark Bradford was a well-known writer who lived in New Orleans and was the editor for the Times-Picayune newspaper. Lyle Saxon was also a renowned writer and reporter for the Times-Picayune. Apparently, the two men were known for perpetrating hoaxes upon innocents for their personal amusement, especially after getting a few drinks under their belts.

It seems that they were running out of material about New Orleans's folk characters, so they decided to make up a female version of John Henry or Paul Bunyan. Saxon would discover some ancient manuscripts about a mythical Annie while he and Bradford made up a bunch of stories about a woman who lived on the river and had superpowers and flaming red hair and a temper to match (Kolb 2013, 134). They would call her Mary Christmas, but Mary Rose said her husband didn't think anyone would believe that. So they settled on the name Annie Christmas. The result? Folklore (Thomas 2011, 32).

Saxon and Bradford supposedly took their well-fabricated story and published it in the Times-Picayune. I have searched high and low for any articles published about a black or white Annie Christmas in the 1920s, and thus far, the only thing that came up was a review for one of Saxon's books in which he wrote this about her:

Annie was a river tramp, the wife of a keelboatman, and was said to possess enormous strength. Sometimes Annie is described as keeping a sort of floating saloon aboard a flatboat. At other times she is pictured as disguising herself as a man. In such costume, she fought, gambled, and made love to women who did not penetrate her disguise. (Saxon 1927, 138)

Some years after Saxon's book came out, Carl Carmer collected tall tales for his book, The Hurricane's Children. He approached Saxon and Bradford for information. They reportedly told him all about Annie Christmas. As a result of their conversations, Carmer included Annie's story in his book in 1937.

While white writers may have made up a white, red-headed Annie Christmas, stories about a black Annie Christmas have been around for years. Indeed, if Annie Christmas is the result of a hoax perpetrated by Saxon and Bradford in the 1920s, the evidence is not definitive. We have Mary Rose's account, but I have yet to see the article they supposedly printed in the Times-Picayune during their specified time frame. Of course, it could be that the reason for not finding the elusive piece is because neither actually wrote a word about her for the newspapers. According to John Thompson, a writer for the Tennessean,

Considering their inventive genius and talent for exploiting tall stories, it seems rather a shame that neither ever wrote a line about Annie Christmas. They merely dreamed her up for the amazement of Carl Carmer . . . By way of a joke, they began to tell him about Annie Christmas, making her up as they went along. (Thompson 1948, 74)

In my quest to uncover Annie's origins, I searched for articles in the 1800s that mentioned anyone named Annie Christmas, a flatboat, and drowning. I figured that if I could find evidence of an Annie Christmas associated with the Mississippi River, keelboats, cotton, or any of the key parts of her legend, we could possibly connect her with an actual historical figure or event.

To that end, I found mention of an Annie Christman from Jamaica, Queens, who attempted suicide by jumping off a ferryboat in 1896. It was mentioned in the New York Times (1896, 8) as:

The case of Mrs. Annie Christman of Jamaica, who jumped into the East River from a ferryboat Tuesday night to drown herself, was before Justice Ingram, in Long Island City, yesterday. Her examination was postponed until tomorrow.

The year of the alleged attempted suicide is likely too late in the century to make this Annie Christman the Annie Christmas of folklore. But, then again, we don't have any firm dates of her birth—or anything else, for that matter. It is quite possible that this Annie Christman story was absorbed into her legend. According to lore, she commits suicide by jumping into the river off a keelboat or riverboat after being rejected by her lover. The parallels between the two stories are hard to discount completely.

Whether or not we ever definitively determine the origins of Annie Christmas, she has found a permanent place in the legends of old New Orleans. She appears in books, plays, folklore, and Voudou as a spirit in its pantheon. She is the real thing, writes Thompson. Her legend will continue to grow just as lustily as if she had been born among the anonymous frontier spinners of folk yarns. (Thompson 1948, 74)

FOLKLORE HEROINE

Annie Christmas worked the docks along the Mississippi River as a three-barrel flatbed unloader just like the menfolk did. She could walk a gangplank with a barrel of flour under each arm and one on her head to boot. Once, an obnoxious longshoreman was running his mouth, taking too long to load the keelboat. Having no time for such foolishness, Annie slapped him across the face and loaded up the keelboat herself. Then, in a fit of impatience, she towed that keelboat all the way from New Orleans to Natchez

Reviews for Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints

[firehorse studio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent reference book, delightfully written as always, by this author. Highly recommended!