The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-04-09
THE vOODoO QUEEN.
APerson Still Venerated by the supers
fious FIacfrs Of r. Louisiana

A Person Still Venerated by the Supersti-
tious Blacks of Louisiana.
The worship of Yoodoo is paid to a
snake kept in box. The worshipers
are not merely sect, but in some
rude, savage way also an order A
man and woman chosen from their
own number to be the oracles of the
serpent deity are called the king and
queen. Tie queen is the more inn
portant of the two, and even in the
present dilapidated state of the wor-
ship in Louisiana, where the kings
office has almost or quite disappeared,
the queen is still person Of great note.
She reigns as long as she continues
to live. She comes to power not by
inheritance, but by election or it's bar
barous equivalent. Chosen for such
qualities as would give her a natural
supremacy, personal attractions among
the rest, and ruling over superstitious
fears and desires Of every fierce and
ignoble sort, she yields no trivial in
finence. / once saw, in her extreme
old age, the famed Marie LaYeau Her
dwelling was in the quadroon quarter
Of New Orleans, but step or two from
Congo square, small adobe cabin
just off the sidewalk, scarcely
higher than its close board fence,
whose batten gate yielded to the
touch and revealed the crazy doors
and windows spread wide to the warm
air, and one or two taWny faces with
in, whose expression was divided be-
tween pretense of contemptuous in
attention and frowning resentment
of the intrusion. In the center of a
small room whose ancient cypress floor
was worn with scruhbing and sprinkled
with crumbs of soft brick-a Creole
affectation of superior cleanliness sat,
quaking with feebleness in an ill-look-
ing old rocking-chair her body bowed,
and her wild, gray witch's tresses
hanging about her shriveled, yellow
neck, the queen Of the Voodoos. Three
generations OF her children were with
in the faint beckon of her helpless,
waggling wrist and fingers. They said
she was over hundred years old, and
there was nothing to cast doubt upon
the statement. She had shrunken
away from her skin; it was like tur-
ties. Yet Withal one could hardly
help but see that the face, now SO with
cred, had once been handsome and
commanding. There was still faint
shadow of departed beauty on the
forehead, the spark of an old fire in
the sunken, glistening eyes and
vestige of imperiousnes in the
fine, slightly aquiline nose, and even
about her silent, woe-begone mouth.
Her grandson stood by, an uninterest-
ing quadroon between forty and fifty
years old, looking strong. empty mind
ed and trivial enough; but his mother,
her daughter, was also present, wom-
an of some seventy years, and most
striking and majestic figure. In feat
ures, stature and bearing she was regal.
One had but to look on her, impute her
brilliancies-too untamable and severe
to be called charms or graces-to her
mother, and remember what. New Or
leans was long years ago, founder
stand how the name of Marie Layeau
fhould have driven itself inextricably
into the traditions of the town and the
times Had this visit been postponed
a few months it would have been too
late. Marie Laveau is dead; Malvina
Latour is queen. As she appeared pre-
siding over a Voodoo ceremony on the
night of the 23d of June, 1884, she is
described as bright mulattress of
about forty-eight, of extremely hand
some figure, = dignifed bearing, and a
face indicative of a comparatively high
order Of intelligence. She wore neat
blue, white-dotted calico gown, and a
I" brilliant tigaon (turban) gracefully
tied. = George w. Gable, IN Century.