Restless Soul - Alex Archer [78]
When slaves in the New World were threatened with death if they continued the old rites, they found a parallel in Catholicism and outwardly adopted that religion. Catholics prayed to saints, as voodoo believers sought the spirits of their ancestors—all to intercede in their favor to the supreme being, or one God.
But in all the time she’d been in New Orleans, she’d never come across something like the skull bowl.
New Orleans was perfect for voodoo to spread because of its mix of cultures—French, Spanish and Indian. Haitian immigrants were added to the meld of Africans who were brought to Louisiana via the slave trade.
The New Orleans rituals Annja had observed involved healing, pacifying the spirits of ancestors, reading dreams, creating potions, casting spells for protection and initiating new priests and priestesses. She’d been to more than she could remember, finding it all fascinating and far more interesting than schoolwork and chores.
Vaughan covered some of the history in his ramblings, unaware that Annja was well versed on the subject, and oblivious to her New Orleans roots.
On one of her forays away from the orphanage she had hopped on a Haunted Tour of New Orleans and visited Marie Laveau’s tomb. Annja performed the traditional wish spell, turning around three times in front of the voodoo queen’s grave and knocking three times on the tomb. She had wished to be adopted the next day by a nice family, and she left a hair ornament as an offering. The wish didn’t come true, and Annja had thought her offering not good enough. In later years Annja realized the wish spell was only a hook for tourists.
New Orleans was often referred to as the birthplace of Voodoo in America, Annja. Louisiana gained slaves from the French colonies of Martinique, Santa Domingo and Guadeloupe—which were considered thick with Voodoo. Haitians fled to New Orleans to add their beliefs. As it evolved, New Orleans Voodoo began to differ from practices in Africa and the Caribbean because it tended to put more emphasis on magic than religion, incorporating live snakes and thriving, as Voodoo was not suppressed in the States. Magical charms were prevalent, including gris-gris bags and Voodoo dolls,” he wrote.
The last time Annja visited New Orleans, an old friend told her that a little less than twenty percent of the population embraced voodoo and new churches had sprung up. Annja’s friend was involved with hoodoo, which incorporated spells and superstitions and included elements of the occult and witchcraft.
Your skull container might be Hoodoo, not Voodoo, Vaughan continued.
Now Annja stopped skimming and focused on each word. She took a gulp of coffee and held it in her mouth as she kept reading.
Or, more likely, it might be from some subgroup that became disenfranchised with Voodoo and created a dark offshoot as a way to punish their persecutors. It is dark, Annja, that thing you found…just like the one in the Florida museum. Those symbols on the outside, they’re a corruption of a traditional, ancient Voodoo spell. They incorporate the symbols for Kalfu, Papa Ghede and Legba.
Annja was familiar with the names. Papa Ghede was the lwa of death and resurrection; Legba was the keeper of the gate between the worlds of life and death, and he was considered the origin of life and regeneration; and Kalfu was Legba’s counterpart, the birther of darkness, and a dangerous lwa, or loa—a voodoo spirit.
The largest symbol on your container is a melding of the sun, the moon and a cross, the symbols of Legba, Kalfu and Papa Ghede, respectively. That’s why I think it came from New Orleans, because a few Voodoo-related cults that sprang up there in the late 1700s were known for corrupting traditional symbols and values. The cults were subsequently put down by the real Voodoo