AfroDiaspores

December 29, 2011
182 notes

“Voodoo queen Lala and her husband Louie in New Orleans Louisiana in the 1930s,” photographer and exact date unknown Al Rose, in Storyville, writes that “an association of [the red light district] Storyville madams, which met regularly, agreed to refuse to use the services of Lala and other [Voodoo] practitioners on each other.” The favorite queen of the madams was Eulalie Echo. They were always requesting her services for cures and hexes. Her real name was Laura Hunter, and she raised Jelly Roll Morton. She was his godmother… In the late 1970s Irma Thomas, the New Orleans singer, would record a tune called “Princess Lala”—based on Lala, a famous Voodoo queen in the New Orleans of the 1930s and 1940s—with by all accounts a fairly accurate Voodoo practice described in the lyric. Robert Tallant wrote in 1946, If there is a living successor to [Marie Laveau’s] Voodoo throne it is probably Lala…“I’ve had plenty trouble,” Lala admitted. “I been pulled in lots of times, but they can’t do me nothin’. One time I told a judge to give me his ring and I’d make it walk. When he seen his ring walkin’ away he said, ‘You is sure a smart woman.’ Then he let me go. You see, I been studyin’ all my life…”

“Voodoo queen Lala and her husband Louie in New Orleans Louisiana in the 1930s,” photographer and exact date unknown

Al Rose, in Storyville, writes that “an association of [the red light district] Storyville madams, which met regularly, agreed to refuse to use the services of Lala and other [Voodoo] practitioners on each other.” The favorite queen of the madams was Eulalie Echo. They were always requesting her services for cures and hexes. Her real name was Laura Hunter, and she raised Jelly Roll Morton. She was his godmother…

In the late 1970s Irma Thomas, the New Orleans singer, would record a tune called “Princess Lala”—based on Lala, a famous Voodoo queen in the New Orleans of the 1930s and 1940s—with by all accounts a fairly accurate Voodoo practice described in the lyric.

Robert Tallant wrote in 1946,

If there is a living successor to [Marie Laveau’s] Voodoo throne it is probably Lala…“I’ve had plenty trouble,” Lala admitted. “I been pulled in lots of times, but they can’t do me nothin’. One time I told a judge to give me his ring and I’d make it walk. When he seen his ring walkin’ away he said, ‘You is sure a smart woman.’ Then he let me go. You see, I been studyin’ all my life…”

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Sporadic tumblings on the African Diaspora in the Americas.  

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