No doubt a holdover from Dahomey, where serpent worship was a part of the original Vodun religion, the power of the snake both as a primary deity and as a powerful animal who possesses strong magick is an integral aspect of the New Orleans Voudou religion and central to Laveau Voudou. It is well known that Marie Laveau had a snake that she called Zombi and that she danced with this snake during her rituals with her congregation. Some say she kept the snake in a box at the foot of her bed; other accounts say it was under the bed; and still another account claims that she didn’t have a snake at all, but kept a jointed wooden snake on her altar to fool superstitious people (Puckett 1926).
There are different reports as to the species of snake held by Marie Laveau. Some say it was “the harmless, nonvenomous Louisiana kingsnake, often six feet long, with black skin and greenish-grey like candle grease drippings” that “became the convenient symbol of Gran Zombi” (St. Louis Post Dispatch 1933). Castellano described “a box containing the god’s manifestation—an enormous moccasin snake heaped upon itself in loathsome folds.” In another newspaper article, the Gran Zombi was “Usually represented by a long black Congo eel or the deadly cottonmouth” (Daily World 1957). Today, it is generally believed it was a boa constrictor or python. Whatever may be the case, the name Li Grand Zombi refers not only to Marie Laveau’s personal serpent familiar, but also serpents as a whole in New Orleans Voudou:
The Grand Zombie assumes myriad functions and forms in NewOrleans Voudou. It is the sacred snake in its widest sense. The Grande Zombie can act as a singular loa, or, in another sense, “Grande Zombie” can act as a blanket term covering all of the snake loa of New Orleans Voudou” (Martinie 2010).