In the melting pot of 19th century New Orleans, one woman emerged as the most powerful and legendary practitioners of Louisiana Voodoo. From her humble beginnings as the daughter of a free-man and his Voodoo doctor mistress, Laveau grew up to become a priestess, a healer, an activist and a commanding and influential leader of her community. But Laveau’s story is as much legend as it is reality, and even in her lifetime stories proliferated about her midnight graveyard ceremonies, animal sacrifices and mesmerising evil incantations.

So how, in a story like this, do we tell the difference between history and myth? And who do we believe when we listen to her story? Join us for our Season Four premier as we pick apart the complex and fascinating life of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, Marie Laveau!

Fandrich, Ina Johanna. The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux : a Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. Routledge, 2016. 

Long, Carolyn Morrow. “Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment, and Religion.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6.1 (2002): 86-101.

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

Hurston, Zora. “Hoodoo in America.” Journal of American Folklore, 44. 171 (1931): pp. 317-417.