About

Doing the last bit of research for my Josie Arlington book, regarding voodoo in the brothels, and I found a real treasure.  This is an article published in The Opelousas Courier, July 5, 1873, reprinted from an article in De L’Abeille (The Bee) from June 25, 1873.  The Opelousas was also all in French.  I’ve translated it here best I could…

The Sorcerer’s Dance

From The Bee, June 25

Voodoo had, on Monday night, a secret meeting at the Lake, and took their lessons near the bayou St. John.  A reporter of The Bee, was very curious of its nature, and decided to investigate all the mysteries, He succeeded, in spite of the difficulty and the peril of the thing to sneak by the Queen Marie Laveau, the great priestess of the order; and in this way he was able to attend some of their bizarre ceremonies.

Negroes are not the only members of this dark association, there are also many white women and white men who belong to this sect; and it does not support the least believers and the least zealous.

These meetings of Voodoo are only orgies that cannot be described.

After having killed a black cat and a black hen, and having collected their blood in a vase, they mark their foreheads and take each other by the hand, they start a frenzied round and finally get rid of all their clothes.  It is after that, an infernal sabbath, sneers, evocations- and dances that last until morning.

Monday evening, Marie Laveau being ill, it is the princess Caroline, the presumptive heiress to the crown, who presides at the meeting – a woman of about forty years, a jet black, which seems to have a great influence.

She was richly dressed and carried a scepter in her hand.  At her side were six young women, three black and three white, who served her as maids of honor.  The bonfires had been lighted, and the Voodoo danced all over, repeating cabalistic words.

It is only at the approach of the day that they have disappeared so as not to be forced to take refuge.