NOLA Ghosts

18. Marie Laveau, Queen of Voodoo

New Orleans, LA

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The infamous Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau lived a life shrouded in mystery. Even the dates of her birth and death are hazy at best. She would achieve everlasting notoriety in New Orleans and beyond, and is still said to haunt the city that she called home, manifesting in three separate hauntings reported throughout the city. Born sometime in the 1820s, Marie would die sometime in the 1890s. She fudged the date of her birth, and her family obscured the date of her death because her daughter and her granddaughter were out in the community impersonating her. Their impersonations would lead to the rumors that she never aged, could be in two places at once, and lived to be one hundred and twenty years old. Marie is an unusually active spirit, in that she is said to haunt three discrete locations throughout New Orleans. The most commonly reported is in St. Louis Cemetery #1, where her famous tomb is located. More than three million people per year are said to stop by her tomb to pay their respects, and Marie's presence is often felt there in the graveyard. Her figure can often be seen in the evenings, pacing the aisles of the cemetery, peering with disapproval at the tombs that have been allowed to fall into disrepair. She is frequently accompanied by her familiars as well: her albino python "Zombie", and her little black cat "Gris-Gris". In fact, Marie is said to be extremely protective of the cats that live in the cemetery, and it is considered exceptionally bad luck to harass the felines within the walls of St. Louis #1. Just beyond the gates of the cemetery can be found another incarnation of Ms. Laveau's spirit. She haunts the streets between the location where her home once stood at 1020 St. Ann Street in the French Quarter, and Congo Square, where she often transacted business and acquired supplies for her practice of voodoo. Marie paces the streets along this route, just as she did countless times during her life. A third sighting of Marie's spirit can be found at the mouth of the Bayou St. John in Mid-City. Where the Bayou meets Lake Pontchatrain is considered a crossroads of sorts, and thus a place of great energy. Here, on St. John's Eve (also Mid-Summer's Eve), an important voodoo holiday, Marie would perform ceremonies with her followers. Residents of the neighborhood report the smell of wood smoke, chanting, and the beating of drums coming from the mouth of the bayou, especially on St. John's Eve. Those with sharp eyes seem to catch a glimpse of Marie Laveau herself, silhouetted against the night sky, her arms flung upwards in supplication to the spirits.