Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau |
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Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau
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by Martha Ward
Sales Rank: 95102
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List Price: $28.00
$18.48
At Amazon
on 6-19-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 224 pages
Published by: University Press of MississippiEdition: 1st Edition March 2004
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 1578066298
ISBN 13 Number: 978-1578066292
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Two commanding Creole women reigned supreme in New Orleans between the 1820s and 1880s, the spiritual leader Marie Laveau and her similarly gifted daughter of the same name. Ward, an indomitable researcher and inspired interpreter, not only tells the entire amazing and moving story of the two Marie Laveaus but also offers a fresh perspective on Creole culture and voodoo New Orleans style, a religion of the African diaspora that, as Ward so sensitively explains, was crucial to the survival of African Americans during the grim days of slavery. Official documentation of the lives of Marie the First and Marie the Second is scant and confusing, but Ward brilliantly deciphers evidence of the shrewd strategies the Laveaus employed in order to conduct the voodoo gatherings so essential to practitioners and so feared and demonized by the white establishment, and, most critically, to help free slaves. Citing numerous sources new to history books, Ward brings tumultuous nineteenth-century New Orleans vividly to life as she reveals the true nature of the equally maligned and mythologized Marie Laveaus, devotional, dramatic, and subversive women of otherworldly power and courage who saved numerous lives, and made life livable for many more. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Each year, thousands of pilgrims visit the celebrated New Orleans tomb where Marie Laveau is said to lie. They seek her favors or fear her lingering influence. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau is the first study of the Laveaus, mother and daughter of the same name, who were two legendary leaders of religious and spiritual traditions many still label as evil.
The Laveaus were free women of color and prominent French-speaking Catholic Creoles. From the 1820s until the 1880s when one died and the other disappeared, gossip, fear, and fierce affection swirled about them. From the heart of the French Quarter, in dance, drumming, song and spirit possession, they ruled the imagination of New Orleans.
How did the two Maries apply their "magical" powers and uncommon business sense to shift the course of love, luck, and the law? The women understood the real crime?they had pitted their spiritual forces against the slave system of the United States. Moses-like, they led their people out of bondage and offered protection and freedom to the community of color, rich white women, enslaved families, and men condemned to hang.
The curse of the Laveau family, however, followed them. Both loved men they could never marry. Both faced down the press and police who stalked them. Both countered the relentless gossip of curses, evil spirits, murders, and infant sacrifice with acts of benevolence.
The book is also a detective story---who is really buried in the famous tomb in the oldest "city of the dead" in New Orleans? What scandals did the Laveau family intend to keep buried there forever? By what sleight of hand did free people of color lose their cultural identity when Americans purchased Louisiana and imposed racial apartheid upon Creole creativity? The book brings the improbable testimonies of saints, spirits, and never-before printed eyewitness accounts of their ceremonies and magical crafts to the lives of the two Marie Laveaus, leaders of a major, indigenous American religion.
Reader Reviews
I admit the last time I had even a passing curiosity in the subject of voodoo was when some Ivy League graduate was on the Phil Donahue show back in the early 1980's. And the only reason the book peaked my interest was because of its interweaving of Catholicism, because of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau who was also a 'practicing' Catholic. The churches toleration of pagan or non-Christian practices, in mostly third world countries is something equally fascinating. New Orleans has such an eccentric, eclectic and exotic history when it comes to its cultural roots, which makes this book a fascinating read.
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Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau
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Price: $18.48
Updated on 6-19-2008.
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