The Laveau Legitimacy Factor
This has always been a common practice, to assume the name of a well-known predecessor.
~ Harry Middleton Hyatt, 1970
Identifying as a spiritual worker in the Marie Laveau tradition provides a certain degree of legitimacy and power for conjure workers, both past and present. Many conjure workers of old claimed association with her to boost public perception of their power and effectiveness. In a newspaper article written in The Kimball Graphic in 1886, for example, one such worker by the name of Dr. Clapion was summoned by a family member of a man who was believed to have been hoodooed. Dr. Clapion describes his ancestry and powers thus:
I was the son-in-law of Marie Leveau, queen of the voudoos, who died several years ago. I learned at her house to exercise the power of the gift I had received, and since then I have studied the art. I never do harm to anyone, nor do I charge a cent for my services. When I am called, I go and do not ask for recompense. My trade is that of house and sign painting, but if my services to heal the sick or accomplish some good act are needed, I am always ready. I do not profess medicine as a calling.
Notable folklorist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston reported on her encounters with conjure doctors in New Orleans claiming kinship with Marie Laveau as well. She describes one of the conjure doctors who initiated her thus: “Anatole Pierre, of New Orleans, was a middle-aged octoroon. He is a Catholic and lays some feeble claim to kinship with Marie Laveau” (Hurston 1935, 207). Another of her teachers, Luke Turner, claimed to be Marie Laveau’s nephew and even expounded on his relationship with her, but not in a way that proves actual kinship. He describes seeing her emerge from Lake Pontchartrain during a feast where the celebrants called upon her:
She would rise out of the waters of the lake with a great communion candle burning on her head and another in each one of her hands. She walked upon the waters to the shore. As a little boy, I saw her myself. When the feast was over, she went back into the lake, and nobody saw her for nine days again. On the feast that I saw her open the waters, she looked hard at me and nodded her head so that her tignon shook. Then I knew I was called to take up her work. She was very old, and I was a lad of seventeen. Soon I went to wait on her altar, both at her house on St. Ann Street and her house on Bayou St. John’s (Hurston 1935, 193–194).
As in the past, modern conjurers and Spiritualists frequently take on the Laveau name in the belief that it will add “street cred” to their reputations and give them an upper hand with their competitors. As far as I am aware, none of these modern-day “faux Laveaus” actually descended from the Voodoo Queen, however, and many are not even from New Orleans. Marie Laveau and her magick have been commercialized, appropriated, and subjected to frauds and cons by those who do not understand or appreciate the magnitude of contributions she made to New Orleans culture and history. She solidified a magicospiritual tradition spearheaded mostly by women that had been in a state of flux since the first enslaved West Africans set foot in Louisiana. From her, New Orleans Voudou as a folk religion emerged. From her entrepreneurial spirit, the business of Hoodoo became a thing. For these achievements, the New Orleans tourist trade—as well as everyone using her name in a business capacity—has much to be grateful for.
