NOLA VooDoo HooDoo....St Louis Cemetery #1 Tour

We arrived at the ferry dock on the Algiers Point side in time to see this ship pass by on it's way downriver. They have a sharp corner to go around with lots of current so they are moving right along.

Just up the river on the other side, you can see a cruise ship parked.

Today's entertainment was a Voodoo Cemetery tour. We were supposed to meet the tour guide at Café Beignet in the French Quarter to go to St. Louis Cemetery #1.

Beautiful lamp right across the street. It was at least 36" tall if not more and there was one on each side of the building entrance.

We couldn't understand why we were supposed to meet there instead of at the cemetery but we found out once we set out on our walk. The tour guide had a lot of history to pass on to us. First she talked about "Creoles". Creoles are descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana during both the periods of French and Spanish rule. The term was originally used by French settlers to distinguish people born in Louisiana from those born in the mother country or elsewhere. It also was applied to African descended slaves and Native Americans born in Louisiana. French was the common language and the religion was predominantly Catholic.

In the early 19th century during the Haitian rebellion, thousands of people both white and free people of color came to New Orleans often bringing their slaves with them. Free People of Color originally meant those of mixed European and African descent who were not enslaved.

French settlers and traders often took Native American women and African women slaves s common-law wives. As more white women arrived from France and Germany, some of the French and Creole men still took mixedrace women as mistresses, known as placees, before they officially married. The free people of color developed formal arrangements for placees which the young women's mothers negotiated. They often negotiated a dowry or property transfer to their daughters including freedom for them and their children as well as education for the children. French Creole men often sent their "natural" children from these relationships to Europe for an education especially if they were sons.

Over time, free people of color developed as a separate class between the colonial French and Spanish and the mass of African slaves. They were educated and obtained a measure of wealth. Many were artisans who owned property and their own businesses and formed a distinct social category. At one time, they owned a third of the French Quarter.

According to our guide, everything was wonderful and everyone got along perfectly until the Louisiana Purchase occurred and the "Americans" arrived. Our guide was quite an actress as she told us all this history and her use of the word "Americans" was quite negative.

This building was where Audubon had his office and produced so many paintings of birds.

The Three-Legged Dog Tavern.

At this point in the story, we were just across from the Old Mortuary Chapel or Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel as it is now called. When this chapel and St. Louis Cemetery #1 were built, Rampart St. was the edge of town.

The woman in white was our actress-guide.

Inside the chapel.

Not all visitors to the cemetery walked. Some rode in style and others came by tour bus.

We were gathered under a tree across from the cemetery entrance getting more "historic" information from the guide. Apparently the Creoles weren't aware for quite some time that their colony had been sold out from under them under the Louisiana Purchase to those "Americans".

This part of the history was about the history of the ladies of the evening. Kat has a copy of the License they had to have in order to "work".

Finally, the entrance to the cemetery. No one can enter without a guide unless they are family with a tomb here in which case they have to get a pass.

It is difficult to see because it is very faded but these are the names of all the people who are buried in this tomb. There are probably at least 20 names here. If you notice, there are two openings in the front of the tomb. The person being buried is placed in the top opening in their casket. The opening is sealed and cannot be opened for a year and a day. At that time, the tomb is opened and the body which is nothing but ash by this time, is removed, the ashes placed in a bag, and the bag is placed in the lower drawer along with the ashes of all that have already been buried here. If a family member should die before the year and a day is up, the family has to rent a space in the wall for a year and a day. At that time, those ashes would be transferred to the family tomb. Essentially, cremation occurs in the tomb during the year and a day due to heat and moisture. The caskets which are very elaborate wood also disintegrate and are trashed.

Sadly, some of the tombs are in very poor shape. The guide said some families have not been able to care for them since Hurricane Katrina (12 years ago). I read that there is a cemetery society that is working to restore them all.

Our guide told us that the New Orleans culture is to bury above ground and spend elaborate amounts of money on funerals and tombs....often far more than what their own house is worth. The above ground burial is more a case of water filling graves that are dug even before the casket can be placed in the ground. They even tried weighting down the caskets but they still came up so they turned to the Spanish custom of burial above ground.

Even though the people of New Orleans, especially the Creoles, place a great deal of emphasis on honoring their ancestors with expensive funerals and burial tombs, vandalism is a huge problem. Cemeteries are locked in the late afternoon.

This is the reputed tomb of the Queen of VooDoo, Marie Laveau. We learned about New Orleans Voodoo and Hoodoo from our guide. Voodoo is more spiritual than religion. Voodoo believes in one supreme being; however, they believe that their ancestors are angels who can intercede for them to the supreme being. Supposedly, voodoo is not negative or black magic....that falls more under the whelm of hoodoo.

There were probably at least 6 tours going through the cemetery while we were there so we had to work around them.

Nicolas Cage had this pyramid built for himself here because he loves New Orleans more than any other place and wants to be buried here.

Notice that it says "Omnia AB Uno" which translates to "Everything is One". This actually came from one of Cage's movies.

This is a society type of tomb where people who are buried here are members of a society like engineers or plumbers.

It is really sad to see how some of the tombs are disintegrating.

 

Our guide said the Creole tombs would be colored.

Our guide was just as negative in her comments about the Protestant Section as she was about the "Americans". Her comments were that there weren't too many tombs here and they were not as elaborate as the Catholic tombs as "they don't honor their dead like we do". She said most of the Protestant bodies had been sent back to their homes.

Not a Protestant tomb.

At the end of the tour, we gathered in the Visitor's Center next to the cemetery for a look around and a few final words from our guide.

Overall, it was a good tour. I wanted to ask the guide if she didn't consider herself an "American" and whether she had any Protestant friends but I behaved myself for the sake of the rest of the group.

On the way back, we walked along Rampart Street until we got to Canal Street and caught a street car back to the ferry dock. We thought about stopping for a very late lunch or very early dinner but we got word that the power was out at several of our RVs back at Bayou Segnette State Park and, as several of us have pets, we hot footed it back.

This is the Saenger Theater.

View down Canal Street.

One of the ranger's was able to get the power back on shortly after we got back to the park so we decided to go out for dinner. Several of our group opted out of the tour today because of the extensive amount of walking. Martha and Pat both had husbands in the hospital but they were able to make it to dinner with us at Restaurant Des Familles. 

Left to right, back to front: Pat, Mary Jane, Martha, Michele, Carolyn, Vicki, and Sage.

The restaurant is on a bayou and you can see this beautiful lit up area out the huge back wall of windows.

I had several other pictures of people with their dinners but I value my life and it wouldn't have been worth much if I would have posted those pics just caught at bad moments. You guys owe me.

This photo had some very weird lighting shadows but it looked so neat with the moss hanging down that I posted it anyway.