Background
When anyone visits New Orleans in this day and age, there is no way to not notice the strong appeal and cultural sway towards this city’s rich history involving the “dark arts” and Voodoo.(http://voodooneworleans.com/religion/) Visitors walk through the historic French Quarter and cannot escape the mass of “authentic” Voodoo shops that all boast to be the one that the famous Marie Laveau frequented or the oldest or real.
These shops while definitely helping to contribute to this city has a vast and thriving tourist element are not as authentic as one would believe. At least not in the “old black magic” way that they are being portrayed. The real history behind voodoo and its role in New Orleans, while not nearly as glamorous as the witch and voodoo tours would have you believe, is just as integral to the history of New Orleans.
The most important misconception to tackle is that any of the beliefs or religions that early slaves brought with them are what we know as Voodoo. The religion that is known today as voodoo draws its roots all the way back to the folk religions and oral history of Africa that was brought over with the slave trade (Long). However, even referring to these practices as Voodoo is wrong as the more popularized folk aspects of modern voodoo draws itself from “rootworking” magic known as hoodoo.
Hoodoo and Voodoo
Hoodoo and the more popularized folk magic actually hails from Benin while Voodoo was passed down from the Yoruban people. While the origins of these different religions had very little to do with spells, hexes, and charms. These religions, like so much of the culture that was brought over, were twisted and eventually absorbed into white society as time went on and the connection between the African people and their homeland grew distant.
Stories were lost or changed through tellings and generations until eventually these folk religions while being similar in shape had transformed into the cultural phenomenon of Voodoo that would become such a staple of black culture in early New Orleans(Jordon).
While the slaves that came to New Orleans had many points of origin, the slaves that came from the shores of Senegal brought a very specific aspect of more modern folk culture, even if its modern uses is not the same as its use in Senegal, the medicine bag or “Gris-Gris”(Rothenberg).
Gris-Gris
Walk into any average voodoo shop in New Orleans, and you will see some sign or pamphlet advertising a traditional Gris -Gris bag. In most cases, it is seen as a talisman or in the most extreme perversions a hex against another person. Traditionally in most African cultures that utilize these charms, gris-gris bags were filled with herbs or charms with a few very specific uses differing on which society was seen using them.
The original gris-gris bag that was seen in was meant to ward off bad spirits or djinn from the owner and wearer of the bag. Originally and in the more traditional African cultures these bags are more associated with the Islamic tradition and gris-gris bags were often adorned with Islamic scripture(Handloff).
When the tradition of these bags was brought over to Haiti these talismans were thought to bring good luck to the wearer and were a good omen to see and wear. However, when the tradition was brought over to the Americas by the slaves the lore around these bags changed almost in time with the anger that was felt by these slaves.
While the original practice was a relatively benign part of these African folk religions, when these slaves brought this particular practice with them; it was vastly changed.
Gris-Gris in New Orleans
In New Orleans, the tradition of gris-gris went from good wishes and protection on the wearer and took completely left turn. In the Cajun communities of Louisiana, the gris-gris was thought to bring black magic upon their victim. Slaves would often use the gris-gris against their owners and some can still be seen adorning their tombs (Handloff).
Direct evidence of the continued use of these amulets in Louisiana comes from the French historian and ethnographer Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz. Though not specifically referring to any particular ethnic group, Le Page du Pratz wrote that Africans in the colony “are very superstitious, and are much attached to their prejudices, and little toys which they call Gris- Gri” .
It would be improper therefore to take them from them, or even speak of them to them; for they would believe themselves undid, if they were stripped of those trinkets. The old Negroes soon make them lose conceit of them.” While his description of “superstitious” “toys” reflects the condescension toward African practice common among Europeans, Le Page du Pratz showed both that Africans clung to long-standing tradition in the New World and that those customs were contested by diverse elements in Louisiana.
During this period, there were also reports of slaves cutting, drowning or otherwise manipulating the gris-gris of others in order to cause harm(Handloff).
In 1947, a study was done into the effects of modern day uses of gris-gris and its lingering effects on the community, one account from New Orleans stated “ A New Orleans housewife who found three pieces of cake under her doorstep didn’t even look back. She went straight to St. Louis cemetery No. 2 and scratched a sign of the cross on the tomb of Marie Laveau. It was the only thing to do, she said. Her neighbors and certain policemen agreed. The cake meant voodoo.
The cake was gris-gris or a manifestation of the kind of hocus-pocus brought by slaves from Africa. Police figured at once that since the housewife was a landlady, one of her tenants was trying to voodoo her because she had filed an eviction notice.
Marie Laveau practiced voodoo in the 1830’s. But she was still a power in her tomb today, still able to overcome the power of a bonafide Gris”.Across the board, the most common use of these bags had a negative connotation and gris-gris was thought to be a symbol of black magic and ill-fortune.
Although as the political and social climates changed in Louisiana so did the view and definition of gris-gris. The term ultimately has been seen across a wide range of topics including a group of healers who for centuries have worked in the creole communities known as the Gris Gris doctors and who in most respects were looked upon favorably and with respect (Sexton).
By the late eighteen hundreds, the term gris-gris could be used in relation to both bewitch and as a reference to the traditional amulets (Newell). Although the most popular views of these bags have ben seen in the more popular Neo-Hoodoo versions of the Voodoo religion.
Gris- Gris in Senegal
Among the several thousand enslaved Africans in Louisiana by the mid-eighteenth century, a variety of traditions and customs intermingled. Many of the Senegambians were Muslim while West Africans, subscribed to a form of what scholars have generally termed African traditional religions. Everything belonged to a spiritual universe. To propitiate the ancestors, and to maintain equilibrium in a world poised between benign and malignant spiritual forces, humans sacrificed animals and wielded amulets and charms that were believed to encourage the spirits’ good favor, protect the wearer, or cause harm to enemies.
These charms, called gris-gris, were fundamental to many different cultures, who, according to a nineteenth-century French traveler in West Africa, “have some fetishist practices which include, among others . . . that of worshiping an enormous earthen vase, known throughout Senegambia under the name canari , which they fill with amulets of all sorts; they consult it before doing anything of importance.”
Indeed, some form of gris-gris was widely used throughout West Africa by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Muslims typically wrote qu’ranic passages and other texts in Arabic and enclosed them in leather pouches worn around the neck, arms, and legs. The gris-gris, or “Gregories,” as English traveler Richard Jobson described them in 1625, “Bee things of great esteem among them,” commanding “such a religious respect, that they do confidently believe no hurt can betide them, whilst the Gregories are about them.”
While the more historical view of the gris-gris bag that can be seen in Senegal is more in keeping with the traditional view of the amulets that were seen originally, the most interesting view of the Senegal gris-gris bags are their uses as a form of contraception in more traditional cultures. According to a 1982 survey, gris-gris was one of the top three methods of contraception known to women in Senegal(Goldberg,47).
All three were more traditional methods of contraceptions such as abstinence, roots and herbs, and Gris- Gris or other charms. Gris-gris are worn by a wide stratum of society by everyone in Senegal and are even a feature in traditional wrestling ceremonies seen today as a sign of strength and a wish for protection on the wearer.
(https://maptia.com/christianbobst/stories/the-gris-gris-wrestlers-of-senegal)
The continued popularity of gris-gris has only allowed for more misconception to take away from its already rich history. However, some sources have still been able to suss out the truth.
http://medianola.org/discover/place/938/Gris-gris-Amulets-of-the-Senegalese-Marabouts.
Works Cited
Goldberg, Howard I., Fara G. M’Bodji, and Jay S. Friedman. “Fertility and Family Planning In One Region of Senegal.” International Family Planning Perspectives 12, no. 4 (1986): 116-22. doi:10.2307/2947982.
Handloff, Robert E. “Prayers, Amulets, and Charms: Health and Social Control.” African Studies Review 25, no. 2/3 (1982): 185-94. doi:10.2307/524216.
Jordon, Wilbert C. “Black American folk medicine.” In Minority aging: Essential curricula content for selected health and allied health professionals, edited by M. S. Harper. 1988.
Kuna, R. R. (1977). HOODOO: THE INDIGENOUS MEDICINE AND PSYCHIATRY OF THE BLACK AMERICAN. Mankind Quarterly, 18(2), 137. Retrieved from https:// search.proquest.com/docview/1306230702?accountid=14437Medicine Bag.
Long, Carolyn Morrow. “Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment, and Religion.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6, no. 1 (2002): 86-101. doi:10.1525/nr.2002.6.1.86.
Newell, W. W. “Reports of Voodoo Worship in Hayti and Louisiana.” The Journal of American Folklore 2, no. 4 (1889): 41-47. doi:10.2307/533700.
Pasquier, Michael. Gods of the Mississippi. Indiana University Press, 2013.
Pratz, Le Page Du. Histoire De Louisiane: Contenant La DeÌcouverte De Ce Vaste Pays ; Sa DeÌscription GeÌographique ; Un Voyage Dans Les Terres ; L’histoire Naturelle ; Les MÅurs, CouÌtumes & Religion Des Naturels, Avec Leur Origines ; Deux Voyages Dans Le Nord Du Nouveau Mexique, Dont Un Jusqu’aÌ La Mer De Sud ; … A Paris: Chez De Bure, L’aiÌneÌ, Sur Le Quai Des Augustins, AÌ S. Paul., 1758.
Rothenberg, Jerome. A Book of Witness : Spells & Gris-gris. New York: New Directions, 2003. Saar, Betye. “Gris Gris Guardian.” 1990.
Sexton, Rocky. “Cajun and Creole Treaters: Magico-Religious Folk Healing in French Louisiana.” Western Folklore 51, no. 3/4 (1992): 237-48. doi:10.2307/1499774.
Walsh, Richard. “”A Man’s Story Is His Gris-Gris”: Cultural Slavery, Literary Emancipation and Ishmael Reed’s “Flight to Canada”” Journal of American Studies 27, no. 1 (1993): 57-71. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/40464077.
Webb, J. Y. “Louisiana Voodoo and Superstitions Related to Health.” HSMHA Health Reports 86.4 (1971): 291–301. Print.
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