Episode #120 – Who Was the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans? (Part III)

What does a Voodoo Queen even do? It turns out that much of it had to do with a ceremony in New Orleans known as St. John’s Eve. Much of Marie Laveau’s legend is deeply tied to that yearly voodoo ritual. Marie Laveau was said to lead the wild bacchanalian rite, however, there are some who think that the most famous description of Marie Laveau’s St. John’s Eve misidentified the voodoo priestess. Perhaps Marie Laveau hadn’t been there at all. Maybe an imposter had been in her place. Could this have been the mysterious Maria Laveau II? Tune in and find our how out of touch music critics, voodoo purists, and a weird-ass wishing ritual all play a role in the story.

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Works Cited

Alvarado, Denise. Magic of Marie Laveau: Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Red Wheel/Weiser, 2020.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: the Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau. University Press of Florida, 2007.

“Marie Laveau.” Occult World, occult-world.com/marie-laveau/.

Megraw, Richard. “Federal Writers Project.” 64 Parishes, 11 July 2016, 64parishes.org/entry/federal-writers-project.

Tallant, Robert. Voodoo in New Orleans. Pelican, 2005.

Tallant, Robert. The Voodoo Queen: a Novel. Pelican Pub. Co, 2000.

“The Times-Democrat on Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/paper/the-times-democrat/4032/.

“The Times-Picayune on Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/paper/the-times-picayune/824/.

Waldrep, Christopher, and Donald G. Nieman. Local Matters: Race, Crime, and Justice in the Nineteenth-Century South. Univ Of Georgia Press, 2011.

Ward, Martha. Voodoo Queen: the Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.